4 Must-See Design Destinations

From a San Francisco former bank turned art-infused members’ club to a swooping steel cultural center in South Korea, festive destinations befitting the season inspire wanderlust.

Design Details Abound at These Global Sites

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Doris Duke Theater, Becket, Massachusetts by Mecanoo; Marvel

Standout: With Mecanoo as lead and Marvel as AOR and landscape architect, fabled dance center Jacob’s Pillow gets an enlarged, though still intimate, replacement for its secondary indoor performance venue, destroyed by fire in 2020. The new 20,000-square-foot facility allows for multiuse flexibility—performances, events, residencies, rehearsals—and an array of seating and stage configurations that accommodates 220 to 400 people depending on the setup. State-of-the-art technology, including motion capture and AI-enabled robotics, supports dancemakers’ engagement with emerging creative tools, while generous windows, skylights, and folding doors throughout the building connect the interior to the wooded beauty of the campus and surrounding Berkshires.

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Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse, Los Angeles International Airport by Slade Architecture

Standout: The 4,500-square-foot “upper class” lounge projects movie-ready star power with a three-part scenario drawing on California’s natural beauty, Hollywood’s enduring glamour, and the airline’s British heritage. The buzzy central bar sits beneath a color-shifting ceiling that mimics the city’s changing skies, from noonday brilliance to Malibu-worthy sunsets, while the sculptural bottle display evokes the region’s mountain backdrop. Smaller spaces include the plushly upholstered mini cinema with a hint of red-carpet rizz, the adjoining semiprivate royal-crimson booth for VVIPs, and a spalike retreat equipped with yoga mats, weights, and showers.

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Park1538, Gwangyang, South Korea by Unsangdong Architects; Posco A&C

Standout: This 92,250-square-foot, two-building complex—developed by global steel giant POSCO, whose architectural subsidiary collaborated on the project—aims to connect the public to the region’s steelmaking heritage through architecture, art, and education. The educational program occupies a rectilinear building, while the cultural components—art museum, immersive theater—are found in a showstopping, shell-like structure, its undulating silhouette defined by enormous, curved steel ribs clad in a softly reflective alloy finish. Spanning four levels, the interiors are no less dramatic, centered on a soaring lobby that invites visitors to follow an upward, nonhierarchical circulation path that, the architects assert, “reflects a natural narrative, unfolding across three dimensions.”

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The Bank at Amador, San Francisco by Winston Studios

Standout: With the opening of the 3,500-square-foot street-level space, Amador—a members-only club atop the former Bank of Italy, a landmarked 1908 building—launches a semiprivate satellite lounge within the original banking chamber. While the marble-clad, arch-embellished, coffered envelope retains some tools of the trade—bronze teller windows, a massive vault door—they are joined by a brilliant array of custom and vintage furniture that spans eras and styles, from art deco to mid-century modern. Equally eclectic and vibrant artworks, hung in salon-style profusion, festoon walls, dominated by Igor Josifov’s psychedelic portrait-mural of A.P. Giannini, the bank’s illustrious founder, whose nickname was—what else?—Amador.