The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture will open to the public Saturday, September 24.

Drawing comparisons to an M.C. Escher composition, a pinecone, or even an insect’s exoskeleton, Thomas Heatherwick’s Vessel is a 16-story steel pavilion with 80 viewing platforms, 154 flights of stairs, and almost 2,500 steps.

To make way for the University of Chicago Campus North Residential Commons, the school demolished Harry Weese’s 1960 Pierce Tower, who’s stacked bays and neo-mansard crown showcased some of the University of Chicago’s least confident mid-century architecture on the famously Collegiate Gothic campus.

“People thought New York was finished,” says Architectural Record editor in chief Cathleen McGuigan, thinking back on the days after September 11, 2001. “People didn't understand how a city could go on.” But in the decade that followed, the city and country did carry on, spurred by tragedy into new conversations about politics, security, and architecture.

By the time Joshua Prince-Ramus was hired to design what is now called the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center, Charcoalblue, a theater design firm with studios in New York and London, had already come up with a layout for the building's three performance venues.

The gift of a splendid complex and public park creates an oasis for the Greek people in austere times.