Week's top news: legendary hotels revamped, IKEA opens museum and Bjarke Ingels designs a bouncy beer pavilion
by Kim Megson | 02 Jul 2016
Renovations of some of the world’s most famous hotels dominated the CLAD headlines this week.
The Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia has unveiled a multi-million dollar renewal project designed by Wimberly Interiors; Chinese company Anbang is considering converting two-thirds of the rooms at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel into private condos; and the Ritz Paris reopened its doors after a four year revamp.
Meanwhile, details have emerged about some exciting future hotels and resorts, including the boutique five-star Milaidhoo Island Maldives and a glass-fronted Conrad hotel Washington D.C. designed by Herzog and de Meuron and a new Canyon Ranch near the Turkish Riviera.
In the world of attractions, this week there was some huge news from Disney, which is considering building a second theme park development in mainland China. Meanwhile, developers in Oman have announced plans for a billion dollar leisure district with a theme park at its heart.
As ever, CLAD covered the week’s biggest museum design news. Malcolm Reading Consultants announced an anonymous architecture competition for a ‘Science Island’ complex in Lithuania; IKEA opened a museum dedicated to the brand; George Lucas finally decided to withdraw his planned legacy museum from Chicago in face of persistent protests; Barack Obama selected the architects to design a home for his presidential library;and a starry shortlist was revealed for an art museum expansion in Madrid.
It was also a busy week for developers working on some of the world’s biggest sporting infrastructure projects. Populous announced a potentially huge collaboration with Chinese trade platform Alibaba to improve sporting design and build thousands of venues in the country; the Hong Kong government invited architects to express interest in the territory's biggest planned sports park; and construction is nearing completion on a tennis stadium at Flushing Meadows which is part of a wider sports complex for New York.
Finally, CLAD covered a 1,000ft high glass slide, an inflatable beer pavilion designed by Bjarke Ingels Group and the launch of experiential hospitality brand SupaPop Space.
For a quick and comprehensive overview of all our recent stories, take a look at CLAD's new Grid View mode.
For more leisure design and architecture news you can check the CLAD website every day and follow us on Twitter @CLADglobal
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An Ikea Museum opened this week to tell the story of the brand and promote clean design Credit: Ikea
Bjarke Ingels Group have designed an inflatable beer pavilion for the Roskilde Music Festival in Denmark Credit: Carslberg
Renovations of some of the world’s most famous hotels dominated the CLAD headlines this week. The Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia has unveiled a multi-million dollar renewal project designed by Wimberly Interiors; Chinese company Anbang is considering converting two-thirds of the rooms at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel into private condos; and the Ritz Paris reopened its doors after a four year revamp. Meanwhile, details have emerged about some exciting future hotels
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by Liz Terry | 23 Jun 2026
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by Helen Andrews | 20 Apr 2026
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by Magali Robathan | 16 Apr 2026
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