Hot List

The Best New Museums in the World: 2022 Hot List

The most exciting new openings in travel, from the fresh-faced hotels we’d plan a trip around to boundary-pushing dining, museums, and more.
MUNCH museum
Munch

Each year, we index the best, brightest openings, but for the 26th edition of Condé Nast Traveler’s Hot List, we’ve upped the ante: This time, editors at all seven worldwide editions had a hand in scouting and selecting the entries. At its heart, this is still a hotel list—a whopping 96 made the cut this year, which is a true testament to the industry’s resilience. But because (almost) no hotel is an island, we’ve widened the lens to include the restaurants, culture, transportation, and cruises you need to know, and the destinations that are reinventing themselves. We mean it when we say this may be the hottest Hot List yet. Here, the seven best new museums in the world.

Click here to see the entire Hot List for 2022.

The Fellini Museum exterior at night

The Fellini Museum

The Fellini Museum — Rimini, Italy

Federico Fellini’s movies are extravagant and fantastical, often blurring the lines between imagination and reality. Fitting, then, that the filmmaker’s eponymous museum in Rimini (his birthplace, about three hours east of Florence) is something of a dreamscape itself. Stretched across two historic buildings and a piazza, the Fellini Museum is a truly immersive experience: Images appear on walls when visitors blow on a feather, fountains spray mist to mimic the director’s fog-filled cinema-scapes, and guests are invited to recline on a giant sculpture of Anita Ekberg. La dolce vita, indeed. —Caitlin Morton

M+ — Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s buzziest new museum was in development for nearly a decade (owing to construction delays, censorship issues, and other bumps), but it finally opened its doors in November 2021. Now it's now one of the largest contemporary art museums in the world, at 700,000 square feet, and its visual impact begins well before you even enter the doors, with huge LED screens projecting moving images out over Victoria Harbor. It currently boasts around 8,000 works, ranging from Ai Weiwei photographs to an entire sushi bar shipped over from Tokyo. —Caitlin Morton

Interior of the MoMu in Antwerp

Lucid

MoMu's Fashion & The Psyche, Poster 'Paper Surgery’ by Veronika Georgieva, in collaboration with Stephen j Shanabrook (2010)

MoMu

MoMu — Antwerp, Belgium

Antwerp’s cult fashion museum, ModeMuseum (MoMu), has reopened after a three-year renovation, and it’s more stylish—and relevant—than ever. Helmed by Belgian firm B-architecten, the space’s respectful makeover includes a new café, two lecture halls, and expanded public viewing areas. MoMu’s permanent collection honoring Flemish designers is still intact, but visitors can now expect to see a rotating line-up of culturally significant items from global fashion history, too—don’t be surprised to find yourself getting an in-depth history lesson about lacemaking in Antwerp, then turning the corner to find a few pieces from Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS shapewear line. —Caitlin Morton

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Atchugarry — Uruguay

One of the most talked-about cultural openings in Latin America is MACA, Uruguay’s first contemporary art museum. Designed by Carlos Ott, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Atchugarry looks like the skeleton of a futuristic vessel; an ode to the landscape, the undulating structure rests on slanted beams made of local eucalyptus trunks, while on the pastoral perimeter are abstract marble sculptures carved by Pablo Atchugarry, the Uruguayan-born artist who masterminded the entire project. Inside are three main exhibition areas, one holding a permanent collection focused on celebrated regional artists like Julio Le Parc, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Joaquín Torres García, and Ernesto Neto; the other two are reserved for temporary international exhibits. (The museum's January opening kicked off with a retrospective of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, of the famed Central Park Gates.) —Paola Singer

Murakami Library — Tokyo

It’s not often that a library finds its way onto a must-visit list. Yet the Haruki Murakami Library in Tokyo, devoted to the cult author—perhaps one of Japan's most acclaimed literary exports—is a fashionable anomaly. Designed by starchitect Kengo Kuma, it sits on the grounds of Waseda University (where Murakami studied decades earlier); and admittedly, wandering onto campus to find it feels as surreal as the worlds crafted in Murakami's novels. Looping curves of wood stretch across the façade, drawing visitors down into a dramatic, cathedral-like timber space called the Stair Bookshelf, lined on both sides with Murakami-related books. The space is home to some 3,000 books, manuscripts, and original material (including countless translations, English included), and a lounge where his favorite records are played. In the basement, you'll find a replica of his study alongside a student-run café serving his favorite dark roast coffee and novel-inspired dishes. Wind-Up sandwich, anyone? —Danielle Demetriou

Munch Museum — Oslo

After perusing the 28,000-strong collection from Munch and other expressionists, visitors should head to the top floor for a drink at the bar, Kranen, where natural wines are served alongside views of Oslo’s harbor. —Erin Florio

The Munch Museum's exterior

Einar Aslaksen

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures — Los Angeles

Relegated mostly to studio tours and drive-bys of famous scenes, the movie industry that visitors to L.A. hope to glimpse has never been all that easy to see—until now. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures finally opened last September in a renovated, Renzo Piano-designed space on the city's Museum Row, giving film aficionados and casual fans alike a comprehensive look at the glossy industry: there's an extensive collection of items from memorable films spread across three stories, and a futuristic concrete and glass orb added to serve as a 1,000-seat movie theater. But the museum isn’t just a place to gawk at Judy Garland’s red slippers, read first drafts of scripts, or ogle the iconic Oscar statue, which you can giddily film yourself holding; its official pledge is to tell the history of cinema with full representation of diverse voices and to advocate for a more equitable future.  —Juliana Shallcross

Denver Art Museum

After a four-year, $150 million refurb, the Denver Art Museum reopened in late 2021 with new inter-connected galleries, pavilions, and restaurants. Smithsonian in its scope, the campus’ eight-story Martin Building—designed by Italian modernist Gio Ponti, and the world’s first high-rise museum when it was built in 1971—offers an ambitious look at the art of the Americas. Entire floors are devoted to Latin American, Ancient American, and Contemporary and Modern art (not to mention robust African, European, Asian and textile collections), each worthy of an afternoon. Dedicated contemplative spaces invite visitors to reflect on the collection’s highly emotional pieces, while Ponti’s peekaboo diamond windows and a sunny rooftop offer glimpses of the Rockies, the very landscape which inspired and forged many of the artworks that fill this groundbreaking new space. —Adam Graham