A remarkable new building hovers over the surface of the Randselva River in Jevnaker, Norway, connecting two forested riverbanks as part of the Kistefos Museum, Northern Europe’s largest sculpture park. Appropriately called “The Twist,” the new gallery space by architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) achieves a beautiful curving form using nothing but straight lines.

This “art bridge” allows visitors to enjoy large outdoor works spread throughout the park on either side of the river as well as the historic Kistefos Wood Pulp Mill, a reclaimed factory onsite. The 1,400-square-meter building provides space for an information center, museum shop, triple-height gallery space, smaller gallery spaces and an outdoor terrace.

As visitors pass through the curving structure, the rotation of the glass changes the quality of light. The wide, naturally lit gallery on the north side offers panoramic views of the landscape, and the tall, dark gallery on the south end allows for more control with artificial lighting. A glass stairway leads down to the museum’s lower level on the north embankment.

“A simple twist in the building’s volume allows the bridge to lift from the lower, forested riverbank in the south up to the hillside area in the north. As a continuous path in the landscape, both sides of the building serve as the main entrance. from the south entry, visitors cross a 16m aluminum-clad steel bridge to reach the double-height space with a clear view to the north end, similarly linked with a 9m pedestrian bridge.”

“The double-curve geometry of the museum is comprised of straight 40cm wide aluminum panels arranged like a stack of books, shifted every so slightly in a fanning motion. The same principle is used inside with white painted 8cm wide fir slats cladding the floor, wall and ceiling as one uniform backdrop for Kistefos’ short-term Norwegian and international exhibitions. From either direction, visitors experience the twisted gallery as though walking through a camera shutter.”

106 vertical concrete tubes making up a massive disused grain silo in Cape Town, South Africa are sliced and carved from the inside out to produce cathedral-like spaces in this incredible transformation. Architect Thomas Heatherwick and his firm contrasted the cold, aging industrial appearance of the complex with faceted glass and organic shapes for a futuristic looking result, a fittingly monumental setting for the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA), the world’s largest museum dedicated to African contemporary art.

The silo once stood as a symbol of economic progress in 20th century Cape Town, but as the world around it changed, it was abandoned. Sitting empty since the 1990s, the silo had become a bit of an eyesore, especially as the waterfront around it modernized, but remained historically important. Heatherwick’s project creates 6,000 square meters ((64,583 square feet) of exhibition space in a total of 80 individual galleries along with a rooftop garden, book store, restaurant, bar and conservation laboratories.

“We were excited by this opportunity to unlock this formerly dead structure and transform it into somewhere for people to see and enjoy the most incredible artworks from the continent of Africa,” says Heatherwick. “The technical challenge was to find a way to carve out spaces and galleries from the ten-story high tubular honeycomb without completely destroying the authenticity of the original building.”

‘Tubular honeycomb’ is a good way to describe it. The interior photos reveal voids carefully carved out of the bases of the concrete tubes, revealing their geometries in whole new ways. Some of these tubes act as skylights, while others hold glass elevators or spiraling staircases. The museum stands as an awe-inspiring example of how adaptive reuse can reveal qualities you might never have expected in existing structures.

A wooden airship has seemingly crash-landed onto the roof of the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague, wedged between two white museum buildings for dramatic effect to serve as a new space for literature and reading. Conceived by Leos Valka, director of DOX, and completed by Hut Architektury, the Gulliver Airship measures nearly 138 feet long and features a basketweave-like construction open to the air, protected from the rain by a transparent roof.

Taking inspiration from the zeppelins of the early 20th century, the airship aims to reflect the optimism, technological advancements and futurism of the era, inciting a sense of wonder when you gaze up at it from the ground level. Valka says he dreamed of “an absurdly fascinating organic shape” that would have a parasitic appearance, alien to the concrete and glass of the museum itself.

The ‘ship’ is accessible from the museum’s roof, and takes advantage of plentiful natural light for a pleasant reading environment. Adding such an unconventional structure is in line with the museum’s hope to encourage innovative thinking and take risks.

The DOX facility is a reclaimed factory, its renovation nominated for the prestigious Mies van der Role Award, and its purpose is “to create a space for research, presentation and debate on important social issues, where arts in dialogue with other disciplines encourage a critical view of the so-called reality of today’s world.”

“The shape of the zeppelin is symbolic,” reads a statement on the DOX website. “The early zeppelins represented the optimistic ideals of a new era of unprecedented technological advancements. With their remarkable monumentality and hypnotic dignity that would continue to fascinate generations to come long after they had vanished from the skies, they have always embodied the eternal human desire to fly, and have represented a certain utopian ideal.”

At what point do modern extensions to historic structures surpass and overwhelm the original buildings rather than complementing and enlarging them? Contrasting architectural styles can be a tricky proposition, especially in preventing the addition from looking dated or outshining the historic buildings. In some cases, these modern renovations successfully preserve the originals while bringing something fresh and new, while others fall on their faces. These examples represent both extremes, and a few in between.

Beyazit Public Library Restoration by Tabanlioglu Architects, Istanbul, Turkey

In restoring Istanbul’s Beyazit Public Library, which dates back to 1501 and holds a collection of rare books, Tabanlioglu Architects took a minimal-intervention approach, inserting glass boxes to protect its most precious volumes and adding transparent membrane structures to cover the courtyard. A modest extension on one end of the building remains respectfully within scale of the original architecture in order to complement rather than outshine it. Contemporary lighting, support beams, modern furnishings and glass display cases contrast subtly with the traditional surfaces.

House in Vexin by Jean-Philippe Doré, France

Three historic homes come together into a single residence with the addition of a modern volume for ‘House in Vexin’ by Jean-Philippe Doré. The existing buildings were renovated in the vernacular style of the French village, while the glass and steel contemporary volume offers a deliberate (but not overbearing) contrast. From the street, only the historic buildings can be seen, the addition tucked out of sight.

Moritzburg Museum Extension by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, Germany

The 15th century stonework of a ruined castle in Halle, Germany, ends up providing a striking envelope for a new structure by Spanish studio Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, which is simply inserted inside. The extension provides a new roof for the formerly open-air ruins, and suspends a new floor from the center to add exhibition space without installing columns in the main gallery. The angular geometry of the roof adds additional space as well as skylights. At night, the glass insert shines like a lantern. Now the Moritzburg Museum, the building holds an important collection of modern art.

Sonora 113 Office Building by Iñaki Echeveria, Mexico City

Sonora 113 can’t really be called an extension, considering that the new section literally towers above the original. It’s more a case of a historic facade that has been integrated into new construction to preserve some of the neighborhood’s character. The architects worked around what was once a modest yet beautiful home, the towering addition rising many stories into the sky and curving around the facade to meet the sidewalk. It raises interesting questions about what constitutes historic preservation – though if the building had been more culturally significant, it likely would have been saved to stand on its own, and this project likely prevented it from being torn down altogether.

Music School Louviers by Opus 5 Architects, Normandy, France

First built in 1646, this historic stone building in Normandy served as a monastery, church, tribunal and prison before its transformation into a music school in 1990. Opus 5 Architects were tasked with extending space for the school and shedding all of its prison elements without allowing the new structures to overwhelm the old. The result is a series of reflective glass and concrete panels that manage to blend in with the original materials, complementing and multiplying them.

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A Study In Architectural Contrasts 12 Modern Meets Historic Additions

Nearly every single President of the United States, from George Washington through George W. Bush, sits in a dead field in Virginia, some with the tops of their heads blown off or streaks of dirt streaming down their cheeks, looking rather war-torn. Stark white and silent, they wait for what will likely be their ultimate fate: total destruction. The 43 crumbling statues were saved from demolition after the closure of Presidents Park in Williamsburg, Virginia in 2010, and now drone footage has captured them in their current state of purgatory.

A man named Howard Hankins was reportedly tasked with destroying the statues when the park shut down after six years in operation, and couldn’t bear to go through with it. He had them moved – at a cost of $50,000 – to his farm in the small town of Croaker, about ten miles away. Most of the damage to the twenty-foot-tall statues was sustained during the move. The field is private property and not open to visitors, but Hankins did allow one drone operator access to take this stunning video.

Weighing up to 20,000 pounds each, the statues were a challenge to relocate. The tops of the their heads had to be cracked so a crane could hook onto the metal frame inside each one to move them, and some sustained neck damage as they were lifted. Once in place, they continued to peel and crack. Ronald Reagan bears the scars of being hit by lightning.

Their presence in the field is a bit eerie, especially when the landscape is icy, as captured by photographer David Ogden of Abandoned Earth. It’s hard not to see them in a post-apocalyptic light, imagining them crumbling to dust as a symbol of a culture destined to fall – our version of the ruins of Rome. But at this rate, it doesn’t seem like they’ll be around much longer. An attempt to raise funds to preserve them hasn’t mustered any more enthusiasm than the Presidents Park did when it was a tourist attraction tucked behind a motel, too far from Williamsburg’s more popular sights.