Nothing makes us more excited to get up and go than putting together our annual Hot List, now in its 27th year. This curated collection of the world’s best new hotels, cruises, restaurants, cultural destinations, and transportation projects is a labor of love for our global team, which spends the year researching, visiting, and vetting the entries to bring you a definitive directory of places whose style, ethos, and service set new standards for hospitality. Think shiny new high-design institutions displaying some of the world's most recognizable art, and a newly wild stretch of gardens that's greenifying one Southeast Asian mega city. All that’s left is for you to decide where you’re going first. Here, the seven best new museums and cultural spaces in the world, fresh off of this year's Hot List.
Click here to see the entire Hot List for 2023.
Sydney Modern Project
One hundred and fifty years after opening its doors, the Art Gallery of New South Wales has received a major redevelopment and expansion. The most notable addition to the institution, which has historically focused on European artworks, is the Sydney Modern Project, which nearly doubled the museum’s square footage. Designed by the Japanese architecture firm SANAA, the stand-alone building includes the Yiribana Gallery, a space dedicated to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. —Rebecca Misner
Doha Museum of Islamic Art
When the I. M. Pei–designed Museum of Islamic Art first opened in 2008, just months before Pei’s 92nd birthday, it was the first major project in Qatar to set architecture-loving hearts aflutter. Now, after an extensive enhancement project, its dramatic interior spaces are looking better than ever. Spanning 1,400 years of history, the museum’s galleries have been reimagined and reinstalled, introducing new visitor trails and child-friendly resources as well as more than 1,000 newly conserved or acquired objects displayed for the first time. There’s also a new gallery exploring the building’s creation story, which charts Pei’s journeys through the Islamic world before he finally settled on the fountain at Cairo’s Ibn Tulun Mosque as his inspiration for the museum. —Nicola Chilton
DesignMuseum Denmark — Copenhagen
Building a museum from scratch is a Herculean endeavor, but renewing a legacy museum is no easy feat either. Last summer, the DesignMuseum Denmark reopened its doors after a two-year renovation, its most exhaustive since it introduced its Ivar Bentsen and Kaare Klint–designed spaces to the public in 1926. This reimagining, helmed by the local firm OEO Studio, imbues the historic building with contemporary ideas but leaves room for Klint and Bentsen’s legacy, from the vintage lamps that line the rooms to the tiny design details seen in every corner, even the locker rooms. That juxtaposition of traditional craftsmanship and modern concerns is also evident in the museum’s displays: Its historical collections (tsubas, snuffboxes, and plenty of chairs) sit alongside exhibitions that address contemporary global challenges like climate change. Finally, no visit is complete without an amble through the museum’s courtyard garden, with its linden trees and sculptures, and a visit to its gift shop, packed with books and ceramics you’ll want for your home. —Arati Menon