Travel the world’s top new museums

This epic international collaboration between France and Abu Dhabi is scheduled to open this year (although the date is still to be confirmed). Designed by award-winning architecture firm Ateliers Jean Nouvel, the museum ‘city’ consists of a series of white buildings inspired by an Arab medina.

The artworks, sculptures and objects will allow visitors to discover shared influences and mutual historical connections between different cultures around the globe, offering an insight into the history of mankind. Date to be confirmed, see louvreabudhabi.ae

A landmark opening, and not just for South Africa – the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa will be the biggest museum to open on the continent in over a century. The $38-million (Dh140-million) institution will be filled entirely with work created since the year 2000, and will house the impressive collection of Jochen Zeitz (German philanthropist and former CEO of Puma), while it continues to acquire works of its own. The museum will be inside the 57m-high Grain Silo, a towering reminder of Cape Town’s industrial heritage. Opens September 23, zeitzmocaa.museum

In the magnificent reconstructed palace from which it takes its name, the Museum Barberini is a significant new attraction in the city of Potsdam’s already impressive historic centre. The museum will host exhibitions ranging from the old Masters to contemporary art. It is opening with the show Impressionism: The Art of Landscape, which will include works by Monet, Renoir and Caillebotte. Now open, museum-barberini.com

Indonesia will get its first museum dedicated to international modern art this year, when Macan – the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara – opens its doors. With spacious interiors designed by London-based Met Studio Design, the museum will feature works from the collection of Indonesian philanthropist Haryanto Adikoesoemo, who says he has dreamed of creating this museum for a decade. No opening date set yet, follow the progress on the museum’s Facebook page.

The reconstruction of EMST has been quite a tale, with over a decade of financial and bureaucratic setbacks. Still, in October 2016 it was finally ready for a soft launch, inaugurating the temporary exhibition space with the show Urgent Conversations: Athens-Antwerp in its new home in the old Fix brewery. The permanent collection is pegged to be unveiled in autumn, when the entire museum is expected to open. Around autumn, see emst.gr

With a new logo designed by Mark Bradford, which is meant to evoke the unique urban pace of Los Angeles, the ICA LA represents a rebranding and rehousing of the Santa Monica Museum of Art. It opens in the autumn in a new location in the Downtown LA Arts District. Its new space aims to bring together “architecture, urban design, and sustainability to create cutting-edge environments for exhibitions, education, dialogue, and collaboration”. Opening around autumn, theicala.org

July will see the V&A get an upgrade, with the completion of the Exhibition Road project: the largest architectural scheme the museum has undertaken in 100 years. It will consist of a new temporary exhibition space, the Sainsbury’s Gallery, the Sackler Courtyard and a grand new entrance, the Blavatnik Hall. The open courtyard will house installations and a café, revealing a part of the historical facade of the museum’s west side for the first time. Opens July, see vam.ac.uk

The V&A will also be expanding beyond its London home in 2017, by collaborating with a Chinese partner to create a new cultural hub in Shenzhen. Design Society will span all creative disciplines and include a theatre, shops and a roof garden. The V&A will have its own gallery within it, focusing on 20th- and 21st-century design. Opening date to be announced, designsociety.cn

One of the world’s most influential fashion designers, Yves Saint Laurent is also the only designer of his generation who has systematically archived his work since creating his couture house in the 1960s. This year two museums will open, in Paris and Marrakech, to house the thousands of garments, accessories, sketches, photographs and objects that represent his life’s work. The Parisian museum will be in the historical couture house at 5 avenue Marceau. The Marrakech museum will be an impressive new build, near Jardin Majorelle. Opening in April, fondation-pb-ysl.net