2009 in architecture

The year 2009 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.

Events

• March 3 – Historical Archive of the City of Cologne (1971) collapses.
• May 26 – Construction work at Louvre Abu Dhabi officially begins.
• October 21 – Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City celebrates its 50th anniversary (after a three-year restoration effort).
• November – The second World Architecture Festival is held in Barcelona.
• Burj Khalifa is set to open several different times in 2009, and ultimately postponed until 2010.
• The Russia Tower gets cancelled due to unknown reasons.

Buildings opened

Aqua

• January  – Embassy of the United States, Baghdad, the largest and most expensive embassy in the world, opens.
• January 17 – Copenhagen Concert Hall, designed by Jean Nouvel, opens.
• January 31 – Porsche Museum, Stuttgart, designed by Delugan Meissl Associated Architects, opens.
• February 22 – Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City reopens after major renovations by Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
• March 7 – Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel at Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, California, designed by Duncan G. Stroik, is dedicated.
• March 14 – New Cardiff Central Library in St. David's, Cardiff, Wales, designed by Building Design Partnership, opens to the public.
• April 2 – New Yankee Stadium, home of the New York Yankees baseball team in the Bronx, designed by Populous (formerly HOK Sport), opens.
• April 13 – Citi Field, new home of the New York Mets baseball team in Queens, opens.
• April 25 – Prada Transformer building in Seoul, South Korea, designed by Rem Koolhaas, opens.
• April 30 – 300 New Jersey Avenue office building on the mall in Washington, D.C., designed by British architects Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, opens.
• May 21 – Museum Brandhorst in Munich, designed by Sauerbruch Hutton, opens.
• June 8 – First segment of the High Line Park in Chelsea, Manhattan opens.
• June 21 – New Acropolis Museum in Athens, designed by Bernard Tschumi with Michael Photiadis, opens to the public.
• August 4 – The Knut Hamsun Centre in Hamarøy, Norway, designed by Steven Holl, opens.
• August 15 – 41 Cooper Square, the new Cooper Union academic building in New York City, designed by Thom Mayne, has its opening ceremony.
• September 29 – Manitoba Hydro Place in downtown Winnipeg, designed by Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects of Toronto, opens.
• November 7 – Extensive three-year internal rebuild and expansion of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, to the designs of Rick Mather, is completed.
• November 14 – Centre for Contemporary Art Nottingham (gallery) in Nottingham, England, designed by Caruso St John, opens.
• December 5 – Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas, part of the CityCenter complex in Paradise, Nevada, opens.
• December 16 – The CityCenter urban complex in Paradise, Nevada, designed by Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn Architects, opens.
• date unknown – Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm-Zentrum library at Humboldt University of Berlin, designed by Max Dudler.

Buildings completed

• May 27 – Cowboys Stadium, new home of the Dallas Cowboys football team, designed by HKS.
• October 21 – Soccer City (FNB Stadium) in Johannesburg, South Africa, host to the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
• November – MAXXI - National Museum of the 21st Century Arts in Rome, Italy, designed by Zaha Hadid.
• November 1 – Yas Viceroy Abu Dhabi Hotel in the Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi, designed by Asymptote Architecture of New York.
• December 27 – Darunaman Mosque in northern Thailand.
• date unknown
  • The Cathedral of the Annunciation in Voronezh, Russia.
  • Legacy Tower, Chicago, designed by Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz.
  • The Tower, Meridian Quay, Swansea, Wales, designed by Latitude Architects.
  • Punta della Dogana art museum in Venice, restored by Tadao Ando.

Awards

• AIA Gold Medal – Glenn Murcutt (Australia)
• Alvar Aalto Medal – Tegnestuen Vandkunsten
• Architecture Firm Award – Olson Kundig Architects
• Driehaus Architecture Prize – Abdel-Wahed El-Wakil^[1]
• Grand Prix de l'urbanisme – François Ascher
• Emporis Skyscraper Award – Aqua
• European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture (Mies van der Rohe Prize) – Snøhetta
• Lawrence Israel Prize - Gaetano Pesce
• Praemium Imperiale Architecture Award – Zaha Hadid
• Pritzker Prize – Peter Zumthor
• RAIA Gold Medal – Ken Maher
• RIBA Royal Gold Medal – Álvaro Siza Vieira
• Stirling Prize – Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
• Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture – Robert Irwin.
• Twenty-five Year Award – Faneuil Hall Marketplace
• Vincent Scully Prize – Christopher Alexander

Births

Deaths

• January 14 – Jan Kaplický, Czech architect (born 1937)
• July 9 – H. T. Cadbury-Brown, English architect (born 1913)
• July 15 – Julius Shulman, California architectural photographer (born 1910)
• August 3 – Charles Gwathmey, American architect (born 1938)
• August 16 – Mualla Eyüboğlu, one of the first female Turkish architects^[2] (born 1919)
• November 27 – Maxwell M. Kalman, Québécois architect (born 1906)
• December 8 – Claude Vasconi, French architect (born 1940)

References