Daniel Libeskind, by happenstance or design, has practically become the official architect of Jewish museums worldwide, but that trajectory was near its beginning when he received the commission, in 1998, for San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM).

The building relies not only on the sharp-edged diagonals—sometimes a shortcut to dynamism and architectural self-assertion—that have been a mainstay in Libeskind’s work, but also on abundant calligraphic symbols, some more convincing than others.

Renzo Piano calls his new building for the California Academy of Sciences a “soft machine.”

To support the expansive roof, RPBW designed a set of four masonry structures—one at each corner—incorporating two of the original academy’s Neoclassical limestone walls in the northeast structure and using poured concrete for the others.

When I was a kid (though not a mere child), I defended Edward Durell Stone’s much maligned Gallery of Modern Art at 2 Columbus Circle when it opened in 1964. 

Occasionally a building emerges that seems to transcend architecture’s inherent limitations.

Although Medellín, Colombia, a valley metropolis of more than two million in the northern reaches of the Andes, is sometimes called the City of Eternal Spring, it is better known for its erstwhile reputation as Murder Capital of the World.