Hemispheres (United Airlines)

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THE WORLD’S NEXT GREAT CITIES

BY ERIN BRADY AND NICHOLAS DERENZO

TONY TAYLOR/ALAMY

RAISE THE ROOF The stunning new Markthal food market nonsequia as

OUR YEARLY LOOK AT EIGHT UP-AND-COMING METROPOLISES THAT PROMISE TO MAKE THE WORLD A TASTIER, MORE STYLISH, ARTSIER, BETTER-DESIGNED, GREENER, MORE DIVERSE AND ALTOGETHER MORE BEAUTIFUL PLACE

HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM • APRIL 2015

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ROTTERDAM NETHERLANDS (P OP. 619, 000)

THE NEXT GREAT ARCHITECTURE SCENE Like many European cities, Rotterdam had the misfortune of finding itself in the path of the Luftwaffe’s destructive bombing raids. During the postwar rebuilding years, the Netherlands’ second city was, in a sense, a complete architectural blank slate. But instead of trying to recapture its Old World grandeur, the city defiantly ushered in an era of unmatched avant-garde experimentation. Just scan the skyline for proof of this playfulness, from the pencil-shaped Blaaktoren to the forest of “Cube Houses”—box-shaped dwellings tilted

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WORLD’S NEXT GREAT CITIES

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HOME COURT Houston-bred Beyoncé and Jay-Z bring star power to a Rockets game

HOUSTON TEXAS ( POP. 2.2 MIL L ION)

THE NEXT GREAT MELTING POT Chef Chris Shepherd of Underbelly has christened Houston the new American Creole city of the South.

Forbes dubbed it the capital of America’s Third Coast.

Beyoncé just calls it “home.”

But whatever nickname you might give this Gulf Coast powerhouse—Space City, the Big Heart, H-Town— its many superlatives speak for themselves. And they all point to the fact that it will soon join the ranks of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago as one of the nation’s major power centers. It’s enormous: America’s fourth-largest

city, with 2.2 million people. It’s rich: Since the recession it has been No. 1 in the U.S. for job growth and home to more Fortune 500 companies than anywhere but New York City. It’s ascendant, among America’s 10 fastest-growing cities. It’s surprisingly progressive: the largest American city ever to be run by an openly gay politician, Mayor Annise Parker. It’s cosmopolitan, with an ever-expanding roster of museums and theaters. And, perhaps most important of all, it is gleefully, deliriously

multicultural, ranking above even LA and NYC as the nation’s most diverse city. An added bonus: This demographic mashup has yielded a forward-thinking melting-pot cuisine that redefines what it means to eat like a Texan. At last year’s James Beard Awards (the foodie Oscars), three of the five nominees for best chef in the Southwest hailed from Houston, and each had a wholly unique culinary point of view— from the Southern-meetsAsian fare of Oxheart’s Justin Yu to the authentic Mexican of Hugo Ortega (of Hugo’s, Backstreet Café and Caracol) to the freewheeling experimentation of eventual winner Shepherd, who seamlessly combines Cajun, Korean, French and barbecue on Underbelly’s roster of shareable small plates.

BILL BAPTIST/NBAE VIA GETTY IMAGES (HOUSTON); ITAY SIKOLSKI (TEL AVIV); MANDY CHENG/AFP/GETTY IMAGES (TAIPEI)

onto their corners atop hexagonal stilts. What’s more, the Academy of Urbanism recently named Rotterdam the best city in Europe at the 2015 Urbanism Awards, explicitly because of this youthful, open approach to design and architecture.

And the hits just keep coming. In late 2013, Pritzker Prize–winning native son Rem Koolhaas debuted the massive De Rotterdam, a “vertical city” that incorporates offices, apartments and a boutique hotel in a massive tangle of blocky interconnected towers. Following on its heels, March 2014 saw the unveiling of the Rotterdam Centraal Station renovation, marked by a massive angular canopy that juts out over a public plaza like a metal-clad shark fin. And perhaps most revolutionary of all is the Markthal, the world’s first residential food market.

Opened in October, this Pop Art–inspired behemoth is shaped a bit like an airplane hangar.

On the floor, you’ll find eight restaurants, 100 produce stalls and 15 food shops, while overhead, the arched building houses more than 200 apartments, with windows looking down on the bustle below.

Best of all, blanketing the entire vaulted 131-foothigh ceiling and walls is a 36,000-square-foot digital mural depicting eye-popping fruits and vegetables—one of the largest single works of art in the world.

APRIL 2015 • HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM

09/03/2015 12:43