Design lets loose

Only the most hardened cynic would deny that architecture is in the midst of a creative revival. What makes this renaissance so compelling is the lack of any focused aesthetic movement and the wide range of talents that have come to dominate the field. From Frank Gehry’s exuberant expressionism to the delicacy of Renzo Piano’s platonic forms, these architects have imbued their art with a sense of freedom unseen since the early days of Modernism.

Among the year’s notable developments:

1. The opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, after nearly a decade of delays, marked perhaps the most important architectural achievement in Los Angeles’ history. Conceived by architect Frank Gehry, the hall’s exuberant forms made it an instant landmark of contemporary design.

2. Renzo Piano’s design for the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas is the latest in a series of remarkable museum buildings the architect has completed over a long career. Although it does not rank among his best, the lightness and transparency of its forms make it an elegant place to view sculpture.

3. Designed by London-based Zaha Hadid, the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati breaks down conventional boundaries between art and urbanity. It is conceived as an urban carpet that sweeps the surrounding street life right into the galleries.

4. The selection of a long list of major world architects for various sites at ground zero in Manhattan will do nothing to dispel the fact that as an urban plan, the project is being sapped of imaginative power.

5. Despite its tight budget and tough urban site, the new Camino Nuevo Charter Academy in L.A. proves that the banal school design we have become accustomed to in recent years is not mandatory. Designed by Santa Monica-based Daly, Genik Architects, the structure is a monument to social optimism.

6. In Chicago, Rem Koolhaas’ design for the McCormick Tribune Campus Center at the Illinois Institute of Technology is a cheeky response to a Modernist legend. Set amid the rigid platonic order of a campus designed by Mies van der Rohe -- a pillar of the Modern movement -- its clashing, surreal forms evoke a more complex, and tolerant, world.

Ouroussoff is The Times’ architecture critic.