Stonehenge’s one million annual visitors are set to receive a warm welcome upon arrival at the World Heritage–listed site in Wiltshire, England. Thought to date to 2200 B.C., the prehistoric assemblage of megaliths and burial mounds now counts an ultra-modern visitors’ center among its attractions, located two kilometers from the stone circle. Some US$44 million and 11 years in the making, the pavilion of glass and weathered chestnut cuts a dramatic form across the English countryside, its gently undulating roof held up by matchstick-like pillars. Inside, visitors can explore a 360-degree virtual display of the ancient rocks as well as hundreds of artifacts, including the reconstructed head and skeleton of a 5,500-year-old Neolithic man that was excavated from a nearby barrow. –Natasha Dragun
This article originally appeared in the February/March 2014 print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Center Stage”).