Not all great architecture begins with a bulldozer. From Foster + Partners’ reworking of Berlin’s Reichstag, to last year’s Stirling Prize winner, the partially ruined Astley Castle by Witherford Watson Mann, many of the most successful new buildings start with an older one.
The latest feature on the Phaidon Atlas brings together six of the most notable recent projects that began with an existing, historical building. These vary from derelict racecourse buildings to moribund gas works, yet the resultant buildings share common attributes. In each case, as our Atlas editors put it, “the effect is one of external juxtaposition, bringing a united, new program and adapting buildings to the 21st century.”