A staircase in the Fondation Cartier in Paris.

Big Hitting Art Cities

Destinations
By Fiona Kerr
October 30, 2025

All around the world, these bright new contemporary art spaces are quickly becoming destinations in their own right

A group of people standing in a room with a large mushroom-inspired art installation.

Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

What was once a collection of dusty warehouses and mechanics’ workshops in the Al Quoz district has been transformed into a thriving creative hub and the most cutting-edge address in Dubai. Where else can you catch a film from a female Lebanese director (at Cinema Akil), followed by a freekeh and beetroot salad in an upcycled café (KAVE), a browse through a beautiful bilingual library (Fiker Institute), all rounded off with a look at some emerging Emirati artists (Carbon.12, The Third Line)? Alserkal Avenue’s latest resident is the Efie Gallery, which opened this April, while Finnish-Lebanese art dealer Taymour Grahne joined them with his new project space in September, showing an intriguing programme of globetrotting talent.

 

Where to stay… Housed in the twisting, architectural Wasl Tower, new Mandarin Oriental Downtown, Dubai is a plugged-in cultural base – just a hop from Dubai Opera and a short drive to the galleries of Alserkal Avenue.
A wide view showing the staircase inside the Istanbul Modern museum.

Istanbul Modern, Istanbul

Founded in 2004 as Turkey’s first museum of modern and contemporary art, the Istanbul Modern finally moved into its new Renzo Piano-designed building on the Karaköy waterfront in 2023. The boxy, top-heavy design evokes the shape of a ship, with its façade of aluminium panels and glass shimmering in the light like the Bosphorus below. Inside, the Floating Islands permanent exhibition traces Turkey’s art scene since 1945, including the black-and-white street photography of Ara Güler and the colourful canvases of Fahrelnissa Zeid. To continue your art fix, the Istanbul Museum of Painting and Sculpture (IRHM) is right next door in the redeveloped harbourside and takes a longer view at Turkish landscapes and daring nudes.

 

Where to stay… Mandarin Oriental Bosphorus, Istanbul can arrange private tours of the city’s best galleries and museums, as well as a bespoke tour through the history of Turkish art.
Exterior of the New Taipei City Art Museum with a glass façade.

New Taipei City Art Museum, Taipei

Home to one of Asia’s longest-standing art fairs (Art Taipei) and two of its most influential biennials (Taipei Biennial and the Asian Art Biennial), the Taiwanese capital has a thriving, dynamic art scene. Now, New Taipei City, which surrounds Taipei itself, has a contemporary art museum to match its bright-lights, big-hitting neighbour. The New Taipei City Art Museum opened its doors this April in the historic pottery district of Yingge, about 30 minutes from downtown Taipei. Current exhibitions range from the distinct landscapes of Hu Dar-Far and Kang Tian-Wang to a look at New Taipei’s avant-garde exhibitions of the 1990s – showing that creativity is thriving beyond Taipei’s city limits, too.

 

Where to stay… With more than 1,700 artworks on display, including sculptures by Taiwanese artist Nai-Wen Chang, Mandarin Oriental, Taipei is as much a gallery as a hotel.
An artist sitting on a large piece of their workinto an ice cream cone.

New Museum, New York

When the New Museum’s hulking new extension – which doubles the gallery’s space – opens on the Bowery in November, its inaugural exhibition will be as forward-facing and boundary-pushing as the Lower East Side institution has ever been. New Humans: Memories of the Future is a look at the ever-morphing relationship between humanity and technology through the works of more than 150 artists. Elsewhere, British artist Sarah Lucas has created a site-specific commission VENUS VICTORIA for the outdoor plaza, celebrating women claiming space in public life, while Harlem-born Tschabalala Self will cover the façade with a couple embracing across the architectural ‘kiss point’ where the original building meets the new.

 

Where to stay… Guests at Mandarin Oriental, New York can tap into the group’s partnership with The Luminaire to dive deeper into the Big Apple’s art scene, with exclusive behind-the-scenes access to auction houses and tours of artists’ home studios.
Exterior of the Fondation Cartier, with many arched windows.

Fondation Cartier Pour L’art Contemporain, Paris

Across from the Louvre, another venerable Parisian art institution, Fondation Cartier, has just opened its new home. As with the foundation’s previous museum at Boulevard Raspail, this bold iteration has been designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. Here, inside a Haussmann-style former department store on Place du Palais-Royal, Nouvel has inserted mobile platforms that can mechanically move up and down to change with each exhibition. The opening Exposition Générale is a grand canter through almost 600 works from the foundation’s wide-ranging collection, which includes pieces by Damien Hirst, James Turrell, Joan Mitchell and Patti Smith.

 

Where to stay… Just along Rue Saint-Honoré from Fondation Cartier, Mandarin Oriental, Paris houses its own one-off artworks, including a bespoke fan created by Maison Lesage. While over on the Left Bank, historic hotel Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris, where Picasso and Matisse once stayed, is one of the most recent addresses to join the fold.

All offers and experiences available at time of publication.  Please contact the team for more information.

Fiona Kerr
About the Author
Fiona Kerr
Fiona Kerr is a former features director of Condé Nast Traveller who writes for The Financial Times and The Guardian.