What Makes This the World’s Most Beautiful Museum?

Katherine McLaughlin
·3 min read

Photo: Courtesy of Shigeru Ban Architects.

Simose Art Museum in Hiroshima, Japan, has been recognized as the world’s most beautiful museum at the 2024 Prix Versailles awards. The prestigious architecture prize highlights the “finest contemporary projects worldwide” across a number of categories in an annual ceremony held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. This is the first year the jury included a category for museums.

Designed by Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban and completed in 2023, the celebrated cultural institution is defined by a collection of colorful glass galleries floating in a shallow water basin. Not only can each section be unmoored and moved depending on the current exhibit, the galleries are a masterful nod to the Setouchi Islands in the Seto Inland Sea, which the museum faces. Just behind the boxed galleries is a 590-foot-long, 28-foot-tall mirrored glass wall that reflects the landscape, creating the appearance of an environment twice as big as it is.

“I believe the innovative approach, such as the mobile gallery floating on water and the wooden structure, was recognized. This was the first occasion I was given the chance to design freely, and I truly appreciate everyone involved,” Ban said in a statement about the award.

Since 2015, the Prix Versailles has bestowed a number of “most beautiful” awards to various architectural projects across the world. “The official list—which pays tribute to innovation, creativity, reflections of local heritage, ecological efficiency and the values of social interaction and participation, which the United Nations holds in high regard—is in line with the principles of intelligent sustainability, taking the projects’ ecological, social, and cultural impacts into consideration,” the organization explains on its website.

The movable galleries float on a shallow basin.
The movable galleries float on a shallow basin.
Photo: Courtesy of Shigeru Ban Architects.

As the world’s most beautiful museum, Simose Art Museum is a shining example of this. While the movable galleries aptly reference the local environment, they also are the embodiment of innovation, growth, and change—a clever riff on the very idea of an art museum. As a reflection of cultures, history, and values, art will always evolve, and so too will the structure it is contained in. As Architectural Record points out, Ban’s interest in movable design is in reference to Japanese shoji screens, which were traditionally doors or room dividers that could be opened and closed or moved around to easily reconfigure the layout of a space.

Six other museums were recognized by the Prix Versailles jury, including the Smritivan Earthquake Museum in India, which won a special prize for its interiors, and the Oman Across Ages Museum in Oman, which was recognized for its exterior. China’s A4 Art Museum, Egypt’s Grand Egyptian Museum, the Netherland’s Paleis Het Loo, and Poland’s Polish History Museum were the other four nominees.

In addition to the museums, this year’s awards recognized projects across seven other categories: airports, campuses, passenger stations, sports, emporiums, hotels, and restaurants. Notable winners include the the Hanok Heritage House in Yeongwol, South Korea, which was crowned the world’s most beautiful hotel, and the Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, which was decreed the most beautiful airport.

“Each building and each space that we are memorializing today has the power to transform our society, make our lives more harmonious and connected, and inspire us to better inhabit the world,” Benjamin Millepied, and choreographer and chairman of the jury, said in his opening remarks of the award ceremony on December 2.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

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