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On a hill overlooking the city of Bordeaux is a spectacular glass and concrete house constructed in a trio of layers. What really sets the 1990s structure by architecture studio OMA apart, however, is the “James Bond-esque” platform lift in the middle of the building, says Christopher Scarffe. The London-based architect with Universal Design Studio pinpoints the property as a bold example of design that prioritises the desires of its disabled inhabitant, who used a wheelchair.

“Contrary to what you would expect, I do not want a simple house,” the homeowner said in his brief. “I want a complex house, because the house will define my world.” OMA’s response was not simply a technical solution, but a form of “liberation”.

“When we talk about disability, we often ignore the quieter moments in our lives,” says Natalie Kane, curator of Design and Disability, an upcoming exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London that draws attention to accessibility in a holistic, experiential sense; how it can and should do more than the bare minimum. “For me, the home is where it starts, and then it goes outwards.” 

The exhibition celebrates “the radical contributions of disabled, deaf and neurodivergent people to design history and contemporary culture” — and demands that society does more to cater to them. The discussion comes at an inflection point for architecture and design, when building regulations are regularly being reassessed along more sustainable lines, when housebuilding is under the spotlight, and when retrofitting and repurposing heritage buildings is top of mind. With people living for longer, there is also growing pressure to cater to the needs of an ageing population. Why is it that disability is still often framed as a problem to solve, not a lived experience that shapes how one in six people globally, according to the World Health Organization, relate to the world?   

A raft of architects is challenging this imbalance, creating buildings for people to flourish and enjoy themselves, not simply complying with legislation. Often their experiences, while forging new paths, expose flaws in the system. 

In England, 9 per cent of homes meet the basic accessibility standard. Some 400,000 wheelchair users live in unsuitable homes. The built environment sector must up its game, says Amanprit Arnold, a disability urban strategist who advised the Greater London Authority on its design policy and founded the DeafCity Hub. “Not only is it the right thing to do, it’s better business. The spending power of disabled households in the UK alone is £274bn per year, and there is a clear market gap.” 

In 2023, the DisOrdinary Architecture collective, which campaigns to shift paradigms about disability across the UK built environment, published Many More Parts Than M! — a compendium that rails against the Building Regulations’ minimum accessibility standard: Part M. It is a manifesto for spaces to go “beyond the limitations of banal ‘one-size-fits-all’ technical solutions, especially when these tend to be mere ‘add-ons’ at the end of the design process”.

Not only is it the right thing to do, it’s better business. The spending power of disabled households in the UK alone is £274bn per year, and there is a clear market gap

Currently, the regulations are largely focused on mobility — there’s little reference to the needs of deaf or blind people, or those with neurodivergence or learning disabilities. The sector has waited since 2022 for a second consultation on raising expectations. DisOrdinary Architecture draws on disability scholarship and activism to think not just about the ability to “get in”, but also about pleasurable, beautiful places. 

This includes sound, smell and touch. The V&A exhibition highlights a boarding school for blind children in India, where as well as walls with different textures to aid navigation, corridors are designed with echoes in mind, and the scent of an aromatic courtyard draws the children outside. 

Accessible design need not be medicalised and clinical; it can be holistic and beautiful. In 2019, Tigg + Coll Architects extended a Surrey home for a couple whose two children have Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a disorder characterised by progressive muscle degeneration and decreasing mobility over time. The L-shaped addition, shortlisted for the Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) House of the Year award in 2021, is topped with a latticed timber roof that also wraps around the existing building. It is light and airy, yet the “diagrid” structure is strong enough to support hoists. The large canopied, open-plan space evokes “the spirit and enjoyment of being in the garden”, says architect David Tigg, while the architecture should still work as their needs change.

On a practical level, large bedrooms can fit adjustable beds and motorised wheelchairs, non-load-bearing walls can be easily moved, and sliding doors offer unimpeded navigation. “The final design captures what we were after: intelligence, creativity and practicality . . . to meet our sons’ needs, present and future,” says homeowner Nick Taussig. “It is life-changing and life-affirming; it will make a deep impact on the quality of Theo and Oskar’s lives. It will enable them, not disable them further.”  

Often the key is in creative thinking rather than technical fixes, which Tigg says doesn’t have to cost more. “You just need to use more brain power and imagination to develop it — with details that avoid a clinical aesthetic.” 

Architecture today tends to subscribe to the social model of disability, which asserts that people are not disabled by their bodies but by social and physical barriers — just as not having stairs prevents an able-bodied person from going up a floor, so does the absence of a ramp for someone in a wheelchair. 

“But where is the ramp?” asks Scarffe. His research into how spatial design can empower or disable, and his advisory role for the mayor of London and the Greater London Authority (GLA) both drew on his own experience of disability — he has congenital upper limb difference. “Yes, it’s important to remove barriers, but how you’re removing them is important: are you sending people in wheelchairs through the back or front entrance? You perceive people differently if they enter a building like a second-class citizen.” 

As well as OMA’s Bordeaux Bond lair, Scarffe points to the Edinburgh home created in 2013 by Thea McMillan for her own family, by way of positive example. There, a ramp — ostensibly for her daughter, who has cerebral palsy — is a central feature for everyone to enjoy, with spaces emanating from it. 

Another successful example is a RIBA award-winning London project by 6A Architects where a winding new wooden intervention between a pair of existing Grade II-listed cottages catered to the needs of a busy mother who used a wheelchair; as well as a direct route to the garden and additional ground floor space, it allowed her to see the kitchen, people moving through the old houses and the street beyond.

Accessibility is among the judging criteria for RIBA awards. It specifies that winning projects balance “ideas of beauty and culture, history and context with societal concerns for inclusivity and diversity, ecology and sustainability, all bound together in a memorable and emotional spatial experience” — rather than thinking of it as a silo.

When Alexander Hills Architects converted old stable buildings at the Norfolk home of a retired farmer who used a wheelchair, the design not only considered accessibility — level thresholds and wide doorways, for example — but also the journey through the home, lowering sightlines to open up expansive views across the Glaven Valley landscapes he farmed for 70 years. 

These projects demonstrate the possibilities of visionary architecture. But most must make do with what already exists. Mark Carlisle, a former property estate manager who lives in rural Oxfordshire, has adapted his privately rented home over time as his multiple sclerosis has progressed, and he has moved from using a walking frame to a wheelchair — by knocking down a wall between two smaller rooms, adding ramps, grab rails and remote control switches. “It’s worked for five years, but it’s not perfect and what works today won’t necessarily tomorrow,” he says. “And even though the landlord is relaxed, the changes we make have to be generally acceptable or reversible.”

The fact is that, in the UK, there simply aren’t enough homes that prioritise disability. While new-builds and conversions have to comply with accessibility regulations, developers are often driven by cost considerations to do only the bare minimum. Research by Habinteg, one of the country’s few accessible social housing providers, revealed that someone joining a local authority waiting list for a wheelchair-accessible home in England today could have to wait up to 47 years, based on the estimated 20,000-person backlog. 

In the private rented sector the Equality Act compels landlords to make “reasonable adjustments” for tenants’ needs, but what that means is subjective and market realities limit choice. “Trying to rent in London means you’re competing with 200 people for each place, which might be the only one in weeks that’s suitable for me,” says Poppy Levison, an architecture student and researcher who is blind and advised on the V&A exhibition.

Christopher Laing, an architect at Stirling Prize-winning architectural studio Haworth Tompkins and founder of advocacy group Deaf Architecture Front, says part of the problem is the underrepresentation of people with disabilities in the building process (there are only seven known deaf architects in the UK). This means there’s a lack of understanding of specific needs, such as “DeafSpace” principles. “For example, reflective tiles in a kitchen could alert a deaf person that someone is behind them while they are cooking,” he says. 

For example, reflective tiles in a kitchen could alert a deaf person that someone is behind them while they are cooking

The same applies to other disabilities. Levison points to the mistaken assumption that you don’t need to consider lighting when designing for visually impaired people. “If you get a bunch of blind people in a room together, the one thing they will not shut up about is what lighting levels they like,” she says. “Some people have light sensitivity, for others a really bright light means they can see things. Something small like having a light over a hob in a kitchen can be completely groundbreaking — it means I can cook.” 

Levison, who is currently studying for an MA in architecture at the Royal College of Art, believes the necessary shift in mindset starts with education. “Over my four years of study I haven’t had one lecture about accessibility,” she says.

As a result, it is treated as a box-ticking afterthought. “Which means it’s often ugly, reinforcing the idea that it’s an inconvenience,” continues Levison. “But if you’d considered it from day one, it wouldn’t look incoherent with the rest of the building.” Just as sustainable design is associated with a particular aesthetic, accessibility can be too, if architects see it as desirable and life-enhancing. 

Demographic realities may soon force a shift. “Not necessarily because people want to do things for disabled people, but because non-disabled people are ageing and demanding it,” says Levison. It’s increasingly common to find housing developments for older people that eschew an institutional look: among them is Stirling Prize-winning architect Witherford Watson Mann’s Appleby Blue Almshouse in Southwark, south London, a social housing development for over-65s.

For Levison, the London home that architect Sarah Wigglesworth designed for herself and her husband — a live-work unit in an old forge — is an unusually forward-thinking example. “They did a retrofit to make it more accessible as they age, with nicely designed grab rails and a step-free shower,” she says. It is refreshing, she says, to “see people being upfront with the fact their needs will change: usually it’s reactionary”.

If it’s possible to create spaces that consider accessibility and experience for older people, what would it take for developers and architects to consider disability more broadly? 

Scarffe’s own particular interest is in retrofitting — a pertinent subject given that the UK’s housing stock is the oldest in Europe. He’s adamant that protecting heritage should never be an excuse to deny equal access, but also that refurbishment represents a chance to assert more progressive values. “Some of the most celebrated buildings were designed in a time where disabled people were ostracised,” he says. “Retrofitting them boldly is an amazing opportunity to send a message that we are rejecting the ideas of the past.” 

And yet, he concludes, “Even in a world where everything was ramped, disability would still exist, because there are cultural barriers when it comes to how you view someone with a disability.” He is calling instead for an affirmative model of disability: “We need to go beyond legislation to a cultural change, where disability is treated as an identity to be celebrated.”

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It’s difficult to imagine an architecture further from the Victoria and Albert Museum’s South Kensington home than that of its new venue, the Storehouse. When the Victorians built a cultural landscape, they did not mess about. They created a group of buildings and institutions so massive and monumental it is difficult to think of them ever disappearing. They will make magnificent ruins. 

When, however, the London of the early 21st century built its cultural quarter, this time from the toxic industrial landscape of east London, they made something very different. Instead of a piece of city it was more a collection of things in a park surrounded by as yet non-existent (although now very existent) developers’ spec towers. One of those buildings was a media centre, sitting on the site of a former dog-racing stadium. Almost a 1,000ft long, profoundly utilitarian, it was destined to become that most dismal of architectural archetypes, a data centre.

Instead something much more interesting has happened. The V&A has taken a big chunk of it and stored part of its vast archive there. Museum storage is almost always in nondescript warehouses, usually in anonymous industrial parks. But what the museum has done here is not the usual secretive and secure warehousing. Rather they have made it into a spectacle; a spectacle of storage. The architects are Diller Scofidio + Renfro, a New York-based practice that has been experimenting with different approaches to cultural space for decades and whose work includes New York’s High Line and Shed and LA’s Broad Museum. At the Broad, a decade ago, they were already exposing the storage at the heart of the building by giving visitors a glimpse into its racks. Now, in Stratford, they have eliminated the exterior presence altogether and created a cultural warehouse.

Visitors arrive at an unassuming entrance marked only by a supergraphic V&A sign. A lobby is equally modest, resembling a relaxed co-working space. They then ascend a stair (it does seem a little inaccessible to start with a stair) and are thrust right into the storage space, squeezed between two stacks of classical busts, from antique to modern, braced and seatbelted on their wooden pallets.

If the exterior seems purely functional, this interior is theatrical, a device for suggesting the sheer scale of the collection

From there a gantry takes them on into the vast space, surrounded entirely by racks of stuff. If the exterior seems purely functional, this interior is theatrical, a device for suggesting the sheer scale of the collection. A few exhibits have been strategically placed to create moments of revelation; an intricately carved dome from a palace near Toledo (the Torrijos Ceiling, 1490s); a chunk of the concrete facade of the late 1960s/early 1970s brutalist Robin Hood Gardens housing estate from nearby Poplar; a wonderful Frank Lloyd Wright timber-lined 1930s office interior (which I last saw in the 1990s and has been in storage ever since) and a tiny pioneering 1920s Frankfurt Kitchen by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, a condensed example of pure modernist functionalism. And, below your feet and visible via a glass floor panel, a section of the 17th-century marble Agra Colonnade from Mughal emperor Shah Jahan’s bathhouse. Another huge space allows a display of large artefacts, for now a large painted stage front cloth from 1924 based on a Picasso painting for the Ballets Russes.

Most of what you see, however, is just stuff, the brown furniture of the museum world. There are chests inlaid with marquetry, majolica and mopeds, paintings, hardware, clocks, sewing machines, guitars and injection-moulded plastic chairs. If it was in a vitrine you’d walk right past it but oddly here everything looks like a find, more intriguing, like a treasure unearthed in a junk shop.

Mini-displays allow curators to show what they are currently working on or thinking about, little ensembles of curious objects which, together, tell a story. Tim Reeve, the V&A’s deputy director, whose baby this very much is, points out a case of four stelae, funerary markers with human heads carved in stone which are here for safekeeping, awaiting their return to Yemen, having been intercepted after likely being looted, an unexpected story of objects in limbo. “There’s a desire here to be a bit more responsive, more spontaneous,” Reeve tells me. “We’re expecting a younger audience here, one which might be a little intimidated by a museum so we’re trying to make it more immediate.”

The sense that you are in a back-of-house space is, of course, itself an artifice. But it works. There are viewing gantries looking down into conservation workshops and there will be staff moving objects around, to go on display or on loan, to be repaired or to be returned. That is the idea, says Reeve, to get an idea of the museum not as a static, secretive institution but as a place of everyday work and study, observation and movement. Visitors will be able also to order up items in advance from the archive, making this huge collection of 250,000 objects, 350,000 books, and almost 1,000 separate archives genuinely fully accessible for the first time. The David Bowie Collection, currently being built inside, will open soon as well.

Architecturally this is as much the world of Ikea or the distribution centre as it is the world of museums. The racks are, according to the architects, pretty much the same as those in commercial warehousing and DIY stores. It is also very much in the vanguard of a global shift in thinking about museums in which archives are being dragged out into the light. The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s Depot in Rotterdam got there first but that was a much smaller scheme and more carefully choreographed. Museums are often criticised for showing so little of what they have in store (particularly when facing claims about restitution, as keeping objects in storage undermines the case for retention) and the hierarchies of selection, of elite objects being picked above others, are becoming unfashionable.

Twenty-five years ago Tate Modern opened to almost universal acclaim. In a way, it changed everything. The idea of reuse of a structure, once quite marginal, now seems not only reasonable but inescapable. Here, a banal building has been imbued with magic with its piling up of things, Citizen Kane style, each object seemingly re-enchanted. But more than that, this strategy absolves the museum from the burden of creating an identity.

The V&A already has an image in South Kensington; this intervention smartly elides the inescapable issue of the icon by being all about the interior. I think it may prove to be as important to the museum as Tate Modern was 25 years ago. It represents a huge shift in museology; the deliberate revelation of the process. Curators, conservators, art movers and handlers, for so long hidden away, are being acknowledged. I’d suggest that this building is that rare thing in culture: a genuinely radical work in which the architects have sublimated their ego and retreated into the background to give way to process and the spectacle of the artefacts themselves to create a new and very contemporary kind of museum.

Opens May 31. vam.ac.uk/east

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Two of the first places ever listed as Unesco World Heritage sites were, perhaps surprisingly, both in Ecuador; the Galápagos Islands and Quito. The Galápagos we can understand: the giant tortoises, the iguanas, the penguins, Charles Darwin, an isolated tropical world. Quito — a city so high up it makes you nauseous, edged with apparently undistinguished office blocks and heavy traffic — is perhaps less scrutable.

But this city of around 3mn inhabitants also has a remarkable historic centre, far better preserved than many in Latin America. It has churches that appear to be lined with solid gold, sun-shaded colonial-era courtyards and Baroque towers that look like they’re dusted in icing sugar. And it has a wealth of modernist architecture, made by a generation of central European émigrés. 

In the foothills of the Andes, at almost 3,000 metres above sea level (only La Paz is a higher capital), you might think Quito would not be seeking still more height. Yet for just over a decade, the development firm Uribe Schwarzkopf has been adding a succession of high-rise apartment buildings of remarkable ambition. Well-known names including BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), MAD, MVRDV, Tatiana Bilbao, Jean Nouvel and Moshe Safdie have been commissioned to inject Quito with a dose of architectural adrenaline. The developer has completed more than 200 projects in Quito and the fruits of its labours are now transforming the city skyline.

Founded by architect Tommy Schwarzkopf in 1973, the developer inherits a tradition of Ecuadorean modernism influenced by central Europe. The country saw a wave of immigration from what was then Czechoslovakia, after the Munich Agreement in 1938 and during the second world war, as Jewish citizens fled the Nazis. They found a small, quiet city defined by its colonial heritage and introduced a crisp new architectural style — one from a country that had been revelling in redefining its cityscapes post-Austro-Hungarian liberty, until they were crushed again by war. 

Over the past 12 years we’ve tried to bring great architects in to make Quito a modern city. We’re trying to create a skyline, an identity

Quito’s centre is still punctuated by remarkable buildings and monuments from this era.

Casa Kohn, built by architect Karl Kohn for his family in 1949, is an exquisite time capsule of Czech modernism, with hints of Adolf Loos and Josef Frank tempered with tropical influences from Brazilian architecture. The vivid blue and white 1952 Olga Fisch Folklore Flagship Store, named after the Hungarian designer and crafts collector and designed by Czech émigré Otto Glass Pick, is also still open. 

Tommy Schwarzkopf himself is the grandson of Czech émigrés who arrived in Quito in 1939; the legacy is one both he and his son Joseph are well aware of, and have even self-published a book about Ecuador’s Czech modernists.

If that modernist influx was a significant moment in the globalisation of Quito’s architecture, Uribe Schwarzkopf’s portfolio suggests another. The starchitect-designed buildings introduce a flashier, more exhibitionist style amid Quito’s still subdued skyline.

“Over the past 12 years we’ve tried to bring great architects in to make Quito a modern city,” says Joseph Schwarzkopf. “We’re trying to create a skyline, an identity.”

Tommy says that Quito has long seen “the middle class abandoning the historic centre”; it has become less and less desirable as a residential hub as buildings fall into disrepair. In the early 2000s there were nearly half a million Ecuadoreans living in Spain and not many fewer in the US. “They and their children who were raised in Europe became used to a more European, Mediterranean lifestyle, living in the city, going to restaurants and cafés, walking rather than using cars all the time,” Joseph says. The developer’s urban apartment blocks are designed to cater for a returning cohort, but also, they suggest, to attract them back to invest in their homeland. 

Architect and theorist Christian Parreno, a professor at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, questions the strategy. “There are people returning from Europe,” he says, “but not at a big scale and those that return tend to be young. Even if the prices look affordable, they are very expensive for younger people who have yet to establish themselves.” Rather than the developments forging their own identity, he adds, “They are very much influenced by a US lifestyle. Big, open kitchens and living spaces, pools, lots of amenities.”

One of the developer’s most impressive new structures is the 32-storey Iqon (completed in 2022), a tower composed of a stack of boxes twisted into a spiral. Designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels and his practice BIG, it overlooks the large, central La Carolina Park. It is undoubtedly striking, and the rotating arrangement of box units are generous and uncompromised (except for the occasional massive concrete column poking through). But it does have more than a hint of Miami to it.

Large balconies with trees “allow the park to cross the street and climb up the building” Ingels says. Concrete-lined, the interiors have high ceilings and dramatic floor-to-ceiling glazing. BIG is also responsible for (the equally questionably named) Epiq, an elliptical tower split into two stepped, interlocking parts, with similar astonishing views of the surrounding hills. 

In the Cumbaya neighbourhood to the east, Aquarela looks like a city within a city. It’s an undulating mass of strata, wrapping a series of courtyards and gardens filled with tropical plants. Wandering around, a vivid hummingbird appeared in a bough right next to my head. Aquarela was designed by Jean Nouvel, the architect behind the striking Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Qatar National Museum. Clad in stone and engulfed by greenery, it appears almost like the part-excavated remains of another civilisation and evokes experiments in housing from the late 1960s. 

Building in the centre means we don’t have to build huge parking lots and can make denser, more walkable cityscapes. It is becoming a 15-minute city again

There is such a wide spectrum of architecture here that some, perhaps inevitably, is less to my taste. Chinese architects MAD seem to be trying a little too hard with Qondesa, a kind of swaying, slightly queasy tower. Its fluid concrete frame creates a bent cage through which balconies squeeze. Moshe Safdie’s Qorner tower, with its eroded, pixelated profile, hovers somewhere between intriguing and overbearing. But the nearby Qanvas, a slim tower designed by local architects Diez and Muller looks very fine indeed — a throwback to the slick mid-century modernism of the city centre. 

Despite this starchitect presence, Quito is not Manhattan and La Carolina is not Central Park. Prices for apartments range from $1,800-$3,200 per sq m. “You can buy one of our apartments on the park for $100,000,” says Joseph. The top flight offerings in Iqon and Aquarela are around half a million US dollars. “We can’t sell at prices like London or New York,” says Joseph. “A legacy for the city,” is driving the strategy, he claims. 

I ask Parreno if locals see these projects as gentrification. “In a way, yes,” he says, “but the problem in Quito is that we have a very thin middle class; [those] that would be responsible for gentrification [are] not really here in numbers.”

Joseph, however, points to the opening of the new Metro line and the arrival of more European-style cafés as markers of how the city is becoming more cosmopolitan. “Building in the centre means we don’t have to build huge parking lots and can make denser, more walkable cityscapes,” he says. “It is becoming a 15-minute city again.” I wonder if this is perhaps a little hopeful. It is a hilly, traffic-clogged city; those with money seem to be driving. 

There are continuing questions too about security. Ecuador had historically been a haven from the drug cartels that plague neighbouring Peru and Colombia, but over the past few years the port of Guayaquil, an eight-hour drive to the south, had become a hub for exporting cocaine, bringing with it a bout of crime and unrest. Uribe Schwarzkopf has been busy there too, with buildings by Dutch architects MVRDV and Philippe Starck, but Guayaquil remains a volatile city. Quito may have calmed since the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in 2023 but its peacefulness appears fragile.

Perhaps working with prestigious international architects provides a note of optimism. “On the one hand you have to credit them with building at scale and at height and to a real quality,” says New York-based Ecuadorean architect Felipe Correa. But, he says, “the typologies offer one particular lifestyle: urban, cosmopolitan, high-rise. These are essentially gated communities and it would be good to see them experiment a little more.”

These towers, much as they are striking, could be anywhere, Correa says, “but you have to also credit them with using design as marketing; it raises consciousness of the importance of architecture for the city.” Parreno adds that Uribe Schwarzkopf’s huge portfolio is also training a generation of high-end construction workers. It also has a scheme to train more women; 10 per cent of workers on its sites are women.

Though international names are the most prominent, Uribe Schwarzkopf is also tapping into local architectural talent. Much of the most interesting architecture in the world is currently happening in Latin America, including remarkable urban interventions in the informal hillside settlements of Colombia, Gloria Cabral’s delicately wrought work in Paraguay, Freddy Mamani’s exuberant postmodernism in Bolivia, and the enigmatic work of Smiljan Radic and Pezo von Ellrichshausen in Chile. For a small city, the architecture scene in Quito is in rude health: architects Felipe Escudero, Leppanen Anker, and Diez and Muller are all working with Uribe Schwarzkopf.

Few developers have been so committed to their home cities as to commission such a vast vista of landmark architecture. But with this impact come questions, not least if Uribe Schwarzkopf is building itself a virtual monopoly on high-end development.

However, in tracing a line back to the mid 20th century central European architects, Uribe Schwarzkopf has continued the city’s lineage of global exchange. Quito remains a fascinating city with layers of history: these huge projects add one more; boosting the skyline of this high-altitude city, whose name roughly translates to “the centre of the world”.

Edwin Heathcote is the FT’s architecture and design critic

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When Dutch seamen went on strike in 1911, Rotterdam’s shipping companies brought in Chinese labourers who were willing to strike-break and work for a fraction of what their European counterparts were paid. Many would settle in the Katendrecht neighbourhood, just over the water from the old city and amid the docks’ vast warehouses, quays and cranes. In a neat echo of what became continental Europe’s first Chinatown, the biggest of the Katendrecht’s warehouses has now been converted by Chinese architect Ma Yansong into a museum of migration. 

The Fenix is housed in a building that once accommodated the fruits of the trade between Europe and America, right opposite the elaborate 1901 brick headquarters of the Holland America Line, once a squat, now the Hotel New York. The neighbourhood was a red-light district in the early 20th century and went through phases as seedy and dark, poor but sexy and, as so often happens, cool, arty and ultimately gentrified.

Now the century-old concrete warehouse has been cleared out, cleaned up and crowned with a super-shiny swirl of polished stainless steel. Inside is a museum of art which all relates in some way to migration, ranging from a Holbein portrait of Erasmus (Dutch and peripatetic) to a “Refugee Astronaut” by Yinka Shonibare. 

The first thing to say is that the gallery spaces, on the two huge upper floors, are sensational. I seriously doubt any architect could have built from scratch anything better. The concrete structure has been left raw and intact, framing the art in an industrial material language which is somehow both permanent and solid and yet suggests the transitoriness of goods stored only until they travel somewhere else. The light is magical, pouring in from both sides via the original windows and slightly angled clerestories. It might have been built in 1922 but it has a tinge of 1970s brutalism, very fashionable. Those windows also afford panoramic views across the city, taking in a chaotic modern skyline which might only be matched by London’s for its anarchic, apparently unplanned energy, daring and ugliness. The exhibits are always tied back to the city outside, one of Europe’s fastest-changing and most diverse. 

Migration is all about movement, and I wanted to express movement at the heart of this building, an experience for visitors

The centrepiece here is not an artwork but an architectural intervention. Beijing-based Ma Yansong is known for his fluid and occasionally unlikely buildings, revelling in the kind of double helix curves that would have been impossible before the huge computing power of the modern age. One of China’s most successful and admired architects, Ma often invokes the imaginative forms of shan shui, traditional Chinese depictions of landscapes in which mountains and streams form into complex, mystical layers, rendering three dimensions into two and producing new forms. He is currently designing George Lucas’s huge Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, due to open next year.

For Rotterdam he has created a tangle, an intertwined pair of spirals that wind up through the building, kissing occasionally and exploding out beyond its roof. It might be a staircase, the main route up through the building, but this is not really about function. The gleaming stair, which the museum refers to as the “Tornado”, twists its way up to become a logo, a landmark on a dockside increasingly dominated by towers. It looks like a shredded Anish Kapoor sculpture. “Migration is all about movement,” Ma tells me, standing in the sunshine on the roof, “and I wanted to express movement at the heart of this building, an experience for visitors.”

It all looks extremely expensive. I understand that one stainless steel panel takes 100 hours to polish. There are 297 panels. And they will need to be polished as long as they are there. It is, I suppose, a way of competing with the city’s burgeoning skyline using surprise and complexity rather than scale and height. I was unsure whether it was an excessive intervention into what is otherwise a functional and extremely fine building. But every museum needs its logo and the experience of bursting through the roof in this spinning vortex, 30 metres over once-buzzing docks (now being reimagined as leisure space, with a sandy beach emerging on one end), is certainly memorable. 

The real interest, however, lies inside. Two floors of art are thoroughly engaging and finely curated. There are terrific set pieces including Red Grooms’ “The Bus”, a cartoonish, full-size New York bus which visitors can walk into to find shonkily sculpted human passengers. There are blockbuster works such as Willem de Kooning’s “Man in Wainscott” and provocative pieces like Francis Alÿs’s sly study of borders, “Geographies”. The diversity of media, scales and styles neatly reflects the diversity of the subject. 

Interspersed with the artworks are artefacts, often mundane or familiar objects which here, in this setting, take on new meanings. A set of Delft tiles depicting various stereotypes of foreigners reminds us that migration is not new but that materials travel, too: Delft, informed by Chinese ceramics, went everywhere. Elsewhere, antisemitic and anti-immigrant pamphlets illustrate long-standing hatreds.

Back downstairs, one room is occupied by a “suitcase labyrinth”. Built from 2,000 cases, steamer-trunks and chests, many decorated with labels and stickers from hotels around the world, it is a slightly clunky but nevertheless effective metaphor for movement. Each case was donated along with its stories, each a record of a life of travel. There is something a little unsettling about it, a reminder, perhaps, of the piles of personal artefacts in Holocaust museums, even though the fates of most of these travellers were less traumatic. The other big exhibition space is currently occupied by The Family of Migrants, a show of almost 200 photos inspired by MoMA’s 1955 The Family of Man, perhaps the most widely visited and travelled photo exhibition of all time. It is an intensely moving exhibition, shot through with drama, sadness and longing. 

The final space is next door to the museum and independent of it. The huge “Plein” (public square) is a community hall, a fully flexible public space of 2,275 square metres which, the museum’s director Anne Kremers suggests, will evolve with and for the community: “It has already been used for Chinese New Year celebrations and will host a food market, meals and events.”

This is an ambitious and enlightened museum and an admirable example of architectural reuse, and it opens in an era of sharply increasing hostility towards immigrants in the Netherlands with a resurgent far right triumphing in recent elections. Privately funded, by the Droom en Daad (“Dream and Do”) Foundation, which is itself the legacy of the Holland America shipping line, it has more freedom than if it were tied to government. And that freedom will be critical. 

This museum allows us to make connections. Rotterdam was where Albert Einstein, Johnny Weissmuller and Lee Harvey Oswald sailed from

As I’m leaving the museum I run into Wim Pijbes, the irrepressible former director of the Rijksmuseum and founder and managing director of Droom en Daad. “This museum is great,” he says. “It allows us to make connections. This was where Albert Einstein, Johnny Weissmuller and Lee Harvey Oswald sailed from,” he grins mischievously, while unchaining his bicycle.

The Fenix is destined to be a perennially pertinent place. And the circularity, from its funding, its brilliant reimagining of a warehouse and the choice of a Chinese architect building on the edge of the former Chinatown, reveals a city profoundly aware of its history, but not at all afraid of its future.

fenix.nl

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Actor George Wendt, best known for his beloved role as beer-quaffing barfly Norm Peterson on the iconic NBC comedy “Cheers,” has died. He was 76.

A representative for Wendt, publicist Melissa Nathan, confirmed the actor’s death to USA TODAY on May 20, adding that he died peacefully in his sleep at his home “early Tuesday morning.”

“George was a doting family man, a well-loved friend and confidant to all of those lucky enough to have known him,” the statement continued. “He will be missed forever.”

Wendt earned six consecutive best supporting actor Emmy nominations playing his one-line-delivering everyman character. He never won an Emmy for “Cheers,” but his underemployed accountant character was greeted with a boisterous call of “Norm!” by fellow patrons with every entrance to the fictional Boston bar. The actor’s death falls on the 32nd anniversary of the final “Cheers” episode that aired on May 20, 1993.

Born George Robert Wendt Jr. on October 17, 1948, in Chicago, Illinois, Wendt spent six years in Chicago’s renowned Second City improv troupe before auditioning for “Cheers.” Originally, his character only appeared in the final scene of the pilot, with only one line: “Beer.” 

“My agent said, ‘It’s a small role, honey. It’s one line. Actually, it’s one word.’ The word was ‘beer,’” Wendt said in a GQ oral history of “Cheers” published in 2012.

George Wendt: ‘Cheers’ stars Ted Danson, John Ratzenberger and Rhea Perlman pay tribute

But the role turned pivotal, and Wendt appeared as Norm in every “Cheers” episode through 11 seasons (1982-93). Sitting next to fellow barfly and postal worker Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), Norm sipped on countless TV beer mugs, which Wendt revealed were filled with Kingsbury-brand “near beer” that was poured warm from the set’s taps.

Wendt also played the Norm role in the short-lived spinoff “The Tortellis,” a 1990 episode of NBC’s “Wings,” and in an episode of the “Cheers” spinoff “Frasier,” featuring psychiatrist Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer).

The comic actor was a frequent “Saturday Night Live” guest, where he famously portrayed one of the superfan Chicago sports enthusiasts in the recurring “Bill Swerski’s Superfans” sketch.

Decked out in walrus mustaches and Bears gear, Wendt and his fellow superfans – including Chris Farley, Mike Myers, Joe Mantegna, and Robert Smigel – enthusiastically discussed “Da Bears” and legendary head coach Mike Ditka (known only as “Ditka”).

Following “Cheers,” Wendt starred as a radio-host car mechanic in his own sitcom, “The George Wendt Show” on CBS in 1995. The show was canceled after six episodes.

Wendt appeared in movies such as “Airplane II: The Sequel” (1982), “Fletch” (1985), “The Little Rascals” (1994) and as a film producer in “Spice World” (1997) as well as making guest appearances on TV’s “Seinfeld,” “The Larry Sanders Show” and “The Simpsons.” On the stage, Wendt notably played Edna Turnblad in the 2007 Broadway production of “Hairspray.”

While Norm assiduously avoided his never-seen wife, Vera, at the bar, Wendt was married for 46 years to actress and Second City alum Bernadette Birkett, who voiced the unseen spouse on several “Cheers” episodes.

In one of his final public appearances at the 75th Emmy Awards in 2024, Wendt reunited with his “Cheers” co-stars Ted Danson, Rhea Perlman, Grammer and Ratzenberger on a recreated set of the show’s iconic Boston bar. Wendt’s memorable entrance brought one final “Norm!” from his assembled costars.

Danson, who played Cheers owner and bartender Sam “Mayday” Malone, said he was “devastated to hear that Georgie is no longer with us” in a statement following the sad news.

“It is going to take me a long time to get used to this,” Danson added. “I love you, Georgie.” 

Megan Thee Stallion is hitting back after Tory Lanez’s legal team claimed new evidence suggests the now-jailed rapper didn’t shoot her in 2020.

In a post to TikTok on May 19, the Atlanta-based rapper, whose real name is Megan Pete, took aim at both Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, and his fans, accusing him of lying and calling him a “demon.”

“At what point are y’all gonna stop making me have to re-live being shot BY TORY !?” Megan Thee Stallion wrote. “At what point are Tory and y’all FANS gonna stop lying? Like, how much is the check to keep harassing me?”

She continued: “One min him/y’all said I was never shot, now y’all letting him play in y’all face AGAIN and say I was shot but it wasn’t him oh ok… ?!” Her comments come after Peterson’s legal team, Unite the People, claimed they had several new witnesses willing to testify that he didn’t shoot her.

Hannah Berner apologizes for viral Megan Thee Stallion interview: ‘Careless choice of words’

Peterson was convicted in 2022 of shooting Pete in the ankle two years before, after an alleged argument in Hollywood Hills, California. The Canadian singer-songwriter, who pleaded not guilty on all counts ahead of his trial, was charged with discharging a firearm with gross negligence; assault with a semiautomatic firearm; and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle.

He is currently serving a 10-year sentence and was hospitalized earlier this month after being stabbed multiple times by a fellow inmate.

In an update on May 14, Peterson’s father, Sonstar Peterson, said his son was “recovering remarkably” after the incident and that medical professionals had already removed “the tubes that were draining the fluids from his lungs.”

Peterson’s father also had a message for Pete, saying during the press conference: “We have prayed for her on many occasions.”

Megan Thee Stallion opens up about Tory Lanez case: ‘I want him to go under the jail’

The goodwill does not extend in both directions, though, as Megan Thee Stallion in December sought a restraining order against Peterson and his fans, alleging online harassment and doubling down on the claims in her recent post.

“How y’all mad at the person that got shot ????” she wrote, “FACTS ARE FACTS, he did it, it was PROVEN IN COURT.” Taking aim at “the hate campaign on the internet,” she continued, “TORY PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE. You are a … demon.”

Despite her legal victory against Peterson, the “WAP” rapper alleged in the request for a restraining order that Peterson orchestrated a “campaign of harassment” against her, including employing a network of bloggers to slander her online.

Demanding he stay at least 100 yards away from her and her home, vehicle and place of work, she also asked the court to order him not to contact her, directly or indirectly, and to stop his alleged online harassment.

Contributing: Taijuan Moorman, KiMi Robinson, Edward Segarra

Bad Bunny ha vuelto a acaparar la atención mediática con su participación en el Met Gala 2025 y su reciente actuación en “Saturday Night Live”. Sin embargo, su próxima gira mundial “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” no contempla presentaciones en Estados Unidos, lo que ha generado incertidumbre y reacciones divididas entre sus seguidores latinos en el país.

A continuación, explicamos lo que se sabe hasta el momento y por qué esta decisión podría formar parte de una estrategia mayor.

Presencia reciente en eventos destacados

El 5 de mayo de 2025, Bad Bunny destacó en la alfombra del Met Gala al vestir un conjunto marrón personalizado de la firma italiana Prada, complementado con una pava puertorriqueña, en un gesto claro de orgullo cultural y homenaje a sus raíces boricuas. Su elección fue ampliamente comentada por la prensa de moda y sus seguidores, quienes destacaron su consistencia en integrar mensajes culturales en eventos de gran visibilidad global, como asi lo reporto la revista Vogue.

Poco después, el artista cerró la temporada 50 del programa “Saturday Night Live” el 17 de mayo. Durante su presentación, interpretó dos de los temas más representativos de su último álbum: “NUEVAYoL” y “PERFuMITO NUEVO”, reafirmando su vigencia en la escena musical internacional y su versatilidad como artista en vivo.

Detalles de la gira ‘Debí Tirar Más Fotos’

La nueva gira mundial de Bad Bunny, titulada “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” está programada para iniciar el 21 de noviembre de 2025 en Santo Domingo, República Dominicana. A lo largo de su recorrido, el artista visitará países de América Latina, Asia, Oceanía y Europa, con paradas confirmadas en ciudades de Costa Rica, México, Colombia, Perú, Chile, Argentina, Japón, Australia, España, Francia, Alemania e Italia, de acuerdo con la página oficial de la gira.

Llama la atención que hasta la fecha no se ha incluido ningún concierto en territorio estadounidense, pese a la gran base de seguidores que el artista tiene en ciudades como Nueva York, Miami, Los Ángeles y Chicago. Esta ausencia ha generado un montón de especulaciones sobre las razones detrás de esta decisión en redes sociales.

Posibles razones de la exclusión de EE. UU.

Existen diversas teorías sobre por qué Bad Bunny ha decidido no incluir a Estados Unidos en su itinerario. Algunas de las más comentadas por expertos en la industria musical incluyen:

• Enfoque temático del álbum: “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” ha sido interpretado como una obra introspectiva con fuerte carga emocional y una narrativa centrada en Puerto Rico, de acuerdo a análisis como el de NPR. Esto podría justificar su intención de priorizar territorios donde esa temática resuene de forma más directa o personal.
• Factores logísticos o políticos: Las recientes complicaciones con visados y restricciones migratorias para artistas internacionales anunciados por la administración Trump, podrían haber influido en la logística de planificación de fechas en suelo estadounidense.

Comparación con giras anteriores

La decisión contrasta marcadamente con el enfoque de sus giras anteriores:

La omisión de Estados Unidos en su próximo tour no solo representa un cambio logístico, sino también una redefinición de su estrategia artística y comercial.

Reacciones del público en redes sociales

En plataformas como Reddit, X (antes Twitter) e Instagram, los comentarios no se han hecho esperar. Usuarios han expresado su frustración y desconcierto:

“Bad Bunny se va de gira mundial pero está excluyendo a EE. UU. JAJAJAJA SÍ SABES!!!,” escribio Levita Alize Jenkins en X( anteriormente conocido como Twitter).

COMO ASÍ QUE TOUR MUNDIAL Y NO HAY NI UNA SOLA FECHA EN USA??? 😭😭😭 quedamos 🤡🤡, dijo @ariaanisd en su descripcion a su video en TikTok.

Otros especulan que podría tratarse de una jugada comercial para generar expectativa o un anuncio futuro de fechas sorpresa, aunque esto no ha sido confirmado por su equipo de trabajo.

¿Qué pueden esperar los fans en EE. UU.?

Hasta ahora, ni Bad Bunny ni su equipo han emitido comunicados oficiales sobre posibles conciertos adicionales en Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, en el pasado el artista ha sorprendido con anuncios de último minuto o fechas secretas. Los seguidores pueden mantenerse atentos a sus canales oficiales y perfiles en redes para futuras actualizaciones.

Mientras tanto, el artista continúa expandiendo su influencia a nivel global, explorando nuevos escenarios y consolidando su legado musical más allá del mercado estadounidense.

May the odds be ever in Elle Fanning’s favor.

The “Maleficent” star, 27, is the latest to join the cast of “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping,” according to an announcement on the film’s official social media channels.

Fanning is set to play a younger version of Effie Trinket, the character portrayed by Elizabeth Banks in the first four “Hunger Games” movies. Also confirmed for the cast on May 20 were Iona Bell as Lou Lou and Molly McCann as Louella McCoy.

“The Hunger Games” will be another major franchise added to Fanning’s resume coming off her role in the upcoming “Predator: Badlands.” The Emmy nominee starred opposite Timothée Chalamet in the Oscar-nominated Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” last year.

Based on author Suzanne Collins’ prequel book, “Sunrise on the Reaping” takes place 24 years before the events of the original “Hunger Games” and follows the fictional 50th Hunger Games, the annual event where representatives from each district in Panem are forced to fight to the death. The first “Hunger Games” book, and its 2012 film adaptation starring Jennifer Lawrence, focused on the 74th Hunger Games.

‘Hunger Games’ reveals new cast members for ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’: See who’s joined

Joseph Zada will star in “Sunrise on the Reaping” as a young Haymitch Abernathy, a District 12 tribute previously played by Woody Harrelson. The film will also feature younger versions of several other characters from the original series, including Beetee Latier, previously played by Jeffrey Wright; Plutarch Heavensbee, previously played by Philip Seymour Hoffman; and President Coriolanus Snow, previously played by Donald Sutherland.

A younger version of Coriolanus Snow played by Tom Blyth was the protagonist of the most recent “Hunger Games” movie, 2023’s “The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes,” another prequel centered on the 10th Hunger Games. Rachel Zegler also starred.

After 17 years and five books, ‘The Hunger Games’ feel as urgent as ever

‘The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping’ cast list

With Fanning on board, here’s how the cast of “Sunrise on the Reaping” is shaping up so far:

• Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket
• Iona Bell as Lou Lou
• Molly McCann as Louella McCoy
• Joseph Zada as Haymitch Abernathy
• Ralph Fiennes as Coriolanus Snow
• Whitney Peak as Lenore Dove Baird
• Mckenna Grace as Maysilee Donner
• Maya Hawke as Wiress
• Lili Taylor as Mags Flanagan
• Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Beetee Latier
• Ben Wang as Wyatt Callow
• Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee

‘The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping’ release date

“The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping” is set to hit theaters on Nov. 20, 2026.

Jennifer Lopez’s social media use landed her in legal hot water over the weekend, after a photographer and celebrity news agency sued the multi-hyphenate for copyright infringement over a pair of Instagram and X posts.

In a complaint filed May 17, photographer Edwin Blanco accused Lopez of posting his copyrighted photographs from a pre-Golden Globes party in January without consent. In a twin filing, news and photo agency Backgrid USA targeted Lopez over the same photographs, which it co-owns with Blanco.

Lawyers for Blanco and Backgrid alleged that Lopez posted the photos of her arriving and departing the party, which took place Jan. 4 in Los Angeles, on her social media channels without contacting them or seeking a license.

USA TODAY has reached out to Lopez, Backgrid and Blanco’s lawyers for comment.

Jennifer Lopez reunites with ‘Selena’ co-star as Yolanda Saldívar parole denied in Texas

The result, they argued, was a rapid spread of copyright infringement online, with several fan accounts for Lopez reposting the images and the fashion brand Adrienne Landau, which designed her dress for the evening, posting the shot to its official Instagram page. Lawyers for Blanco and Backgrid called the Adrienne Landau post “particularly egregious” and argued it “directly leveraged (the) photographs to market the brand’s products … generating promotional value for both the designer and Ms. Lopez, all without permission or compensation.”

Lopez’s “unauthorized use of the Images is commercial in nature, intended for the purpose of self-promotion,” the filing says. Both parties had attempted to settle the matter outside of court, lawyers for Blanco and Backgrid claimed, adding that Lopez’s representatives were in communication with the photographer and agency to reach an “informal resolution” by paying him for the shots, but that she still had not signed the agreement.

Jennifer Lopez says divorce from Ben Affleck was ‘probably the hardest time of my life’

The photos, which are not watermarked and show Lopez in an old Hollywood-style fur coat and white slip dress, remain up on her Instagram.

The complaints feature two separate claims of copyright infringement, as well as breach of contract, which refers to Lopez seeking the settlement but never signing it. Blanco and Backgrid are requesting damages in an amount that can range up to $150,000 and include a jury trial.

Lopez, a triple threat and longtime star, has taken a small step back from the spotlight in recent months, following a divorce from ex-fiancee-turned-new husband Ben Affleck and a series of projects chronicling their rekindled romance. She is expected to make a grand return later this month as host of the American Music Awards.

Backgrid is no stranger to lawsuits, often suing other celebrity news agencies, fashion brands and big-name stars over an alleged use of their photographs. In recent years, they have pursued legal action against celebrities like Lisa Rinna, Justin Bieber and Christina Milian.

The beginning of summer is exactly one month away, but school years are winding down, and warmer weather has everyone, including Spotify, thinking about the season ahead.

To kick things off, the music streaming giant released its predictions for the top songs of summer 2025, and it’s an eclectic mix. The global list consists of 30 songs from various genres, including afro-fusion, pop, dance rave and lowkey tunes from artists ranging from Charli xcx and Drake to Lorde and Florence + The Machine.

Spotify uses “cultural expertise, editorial instinct, and streaming data” to curate its Songs of Summer list, which has proven to be fairly accurate in the past, including predicting Billie Eilish’s “BIRDS OF A FEATHER,” Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” would make the 2024 list.

Check out Spotify’s 2025 predictions below.

Top music genres of summer 2025 predicted by Spotify

Spotify editors noted the popular global spread of afro-fusion, with songs like “Show Me Love (with Tyla)” by WizTheMc, bees & honey and Tyla, and “YA BABA” by DYSTINCT and French Montana.

On the pop frontier, what Spotify described as lyric-driven “lovestruck pop” is expected to make streaming charts with tracks like “Ordinary,” “Blue Strips” and “back to friends” by breakout artists Alex Warren, Jessie Murph and sombr.  

Summer partiers will probably be playing high-speed dance and rave hits like “Running Around” by Ely Oaks and “Say My Name – Remix” by Morgan Seatree & Florence + The Machine, while lazier summer days are expected to be soundtracked by “hazy” and chill beats like “No One Noticed” by The Marías and “You’ll Be in My Heart – Spotify Singles” by NIKI.

Top 30 songs of summer 2025 predictions

Note that Spotify organized this global list alphabetically by artist name and not as a ranking system.