Evidence of global change is all around us, but to see living proof gathered under one paraboloid roof, visit the new Design Museum on Kensington High Street in west London.

It is hard to imagine a more radical departure from the dim depository of ethnographic artefacts that was the old Commonwealth Institute, which belonged to the colonial past. The new museum (the old Design Museum was near Tower Bridge) that now occupies its shell belongs to the global present, while looking to the future. “Someday other museums will be showing this stuff,” boasts a poster outside the entrance.

Those with memories of trailing around the old building on school trips will not recognise the place – the interior has been completely reimagined. A few details remain to remind us of the 1960s: Keith New’s stained-glass windows, relocated to the bookshop, and a world map, relegated to the basement, with the Commonwealth countries highlighted in white.

White now seems to have flooded the whole building. John Pawson, architect of the marvellously light-filled new Cistercian monastery of Novy Dvur in the Czech Republic, has performed a similar magic here. With its cream terrazzo flooring, pale oak panelling and ingeniously concealed lighting, the building feels airy even in the basement.