The "Modern World" has brought us awesome stuff, from hot water to Internet in the air to fake body parts on ladies of the night. It has also enabled architects to build structures that have defined our existence, allowing us to live close to each other, get to places faster, and to look up in awe at impossible-seeming buildings. Today we look at the greatest things human beings have built since we figured out how to put wood, steel, and a bunch of other stuff together and call it a house. Take the time to check this feature out by clicking on the arrows and thumbnails above, there is plenty of cocktail hour fodder for you here.
The "Modern World" has brought us awesome stuff, from hot water to Internet in the air to fake body parts on ladies of the night. It has also enabled architects to build structures that have defined our existence, allowing us to live close to each other, get to places faster, and to look up in awe at impossible-seeming buildings. Today we look at the greatest things human beings have built since we figured out how to put wood, steel, and a bunch of other stuff together and call it a house. Take the time to check this feature out by clicking on the arrows and thumbnails above, there is plenty of cocktail hour fodder for you here.
#50. United States Capitol
Location: Washington, DC
Architect: Bulfinch, Latrobe, Thornton
Year: 1830
Neoclassical in form, the United States Capitol achieves in articulating through architecture the principals of America's founding fathers. Think that's a load of mumbo jumbo? Then consider this: at time of completion the Capitol boasted the largest cast iron dome ever constructed, designed by an often forgotten fourth architect on the project, Mr. Thomas U. Walter.
#49. Wainwright Building
Location: St. Louis, MO
Architect: Louis Sullivan
Year: 1890-91
At this point in time, it is hard to imagine a 10-story building would have ever been classified as a skyscraper. However, the Wainwright Building was just that, and perhaps the first in the world. Most importantly, the building provided the blue print for the modern office building and tall steel structures soon began to dot the landscape of urban America. Sullivan, often called "the father of skyscrapers," had changed the rules of height and also found true articulation of his "form follows function" mantra.
#48. Bergisel Ski Jump
Location: Innsbruck, Austria
Architect: Zaha Hadid
Year: 2002
Zaha Hadid is responsible for a fair share of innovative buildings, but the Bergisel Ski Jump in Austria deserves attention for essentially redefing the form. In one fell swoop, Hadid provided a landmark for Innsbruck and transformed the usually one dimensional ski jump into a multi-use structure that balances a highly specialized sporting facility with public viewing areas and, of course, a cafe.
#47. Monticello
Location: Charlottesville, Virginia
Architect: Thomas Jefferson
Year: 1772
It is easy to forget that Thomas Jefferson, chief architect of the United States Constitution, is also responsible for the pinnacle of Neoclassical architecture in America. His own home, Monticello, was built on the principals of Italian renaissance architect Andrea Palladio and named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987.
#46. The Queen's House
Location: Greenwich, London
Architect: Inigo Jones
Year: 1632
Inigo Jones, the first significant English architect of the modern era, is not surprisingly responsible for the first consciously classical building in Britain. That building is, as you'd guess, the Queen's House, and it came early in Jones' career and for a rather important client - Anne of Denmark, the Queen of King James I. To his credit, Jones used the building to introduce Palladianism to the English, his building appearing in their eyes "radical." Since completion in 1632, the building has housed a series of important people and objects (it stands now as part of the Royal Maritime Museum). If your are very important you may find yourself in the Queen's House during the 2012 London Olympics - the building has been designated the VIP center.
#45. Petronas Towers
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Architect: César Pelli and Djay Cerico
Year: 1998
Completed in 1998, the Petronas Towers swiftly entered public consciousness with an important role in the 1999 crime caper "Entrapment." At the time of building, the Towers were the tallest buildings in the world. Other buildings have eclipsed their height, but they remain the tallest twin skyscrapers to this day.
#44. Villa Farnese
Location: Caprarola, Italy
Architect: Giacomo Vignola
Year: 1560
This Villa is the pinnacle of harmony and proportion, a shinning example of Mannerism (a style based on restraint), and perhaps the most superb piece of Renaissance architecture ever built. That said, it is an exercise in architectural principals and an achievement in theory. Find that boring? Fine. Sometimes achievement is hard to swallow.
#43. Marshall Fields Warehouse Store
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Architect: Henry Hobson Richardson
Year: 1887 (no longer extant)
In a warehouse, Richardson managed what few had before - a building that garnered praise from foreign critics as being of distinctly American character. Without reaching for historic reference (familiar to us all now, know?), H.H. created an orderly facade of uninterrupted arcades. This provided the building with grace and an authoritative stance. It opened the door for a new generation of architects to visualize a national identity through building.
#42. Symphony Hall
Location: Boston
Architect: McKim, Mead, and White
Year: 1900
McKim, Mead, and White are responsible for two of Boston's most famous buildings: the Boston Public Library and Symphony Hall (as well as other important structures, including portions of the White House). With Symphony Hall, look is less important than function - the trio enlisted Harvard physicist Wallace Clement Sabine as an acoustic specialist, his expertise playing no small role in a finished building that still boasts some of the best sound of any venue in the world.
#41. Burj Khalifa
Location: Dubai
Architect: Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill
Year: 2004
This is the tallest man made structure in the world, clocking in at 160 floors. It is also the tallest building to ever include residential space. Literally awesome.
#40. Brooklyn Bridge
Location: New York, NY
Architect: John Augustus Roebling
Year: 1883
Roebling's Brooklyn Bridge is important for a number of architectural firsts, most famously as the first steel-wire suspension bridge. When built, it was also the longest suspension bridge in the world. Fun fact: Roebling's design became a family affair - his wife Emily (the first to cross the bridge) and son Washington saw through the completion of the project after the old man died.
#39. Golden Gate Bridge
Location: San Francisco, CA
Architect: Joseph Strauss, Irving Morrow, and Charles Ellis
Year: 1937
While we're on the subject of bridges, let's note the Golden Gate Bridge. A symbol of San Francisco and a marvel of the modern world, the Golden Gate remains the second-longest suspension bridge in the United States. The other takes you to Staten Island, proving that sometimes (but just sometimes) second place is the better place.
#38. Akashi Kaikyô Bridge
Location: Kobe, Japan
Architect:
Year: 1998
World's longest bridge. The Akashi Kaikyô Bridge, also known as the Pearl Bridge, boasts the longest central span of any bridge and connects Kobe to the island of Awaji.
#37. Michigan Stadium
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The big house was big when first completed in 1927, and in 2010, added seats brought capacity up to 113,000...yeah, crazy. The opening game of the season against the University of Connecticut realized an attendance of 113,090, the largest crowd ever assembled at a football game.
#36. Gateway Arch
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
Architect: Eero Saarinen
Year: 1965
630 feet from the ground, the Gateway Arch is America's tallest man-made monument. Saarinen's Midwestern masterpiece is a celebration of the pioneer spirit and THE landmark of St. Louis. Almost makes you forget about the Wainwright Building we discussed earlier.
#35. The Milwaukee Art Museum
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Architect: Santiago Calatrava
Year: 2001
The link to Saarinen here is that Eero is responsible for the building next to Calatrava's monumental winged Milwaukee Museum of Art. Like the Gate Way Tower, the building gives a Midwestern town a world-renowned architectural gem. Different, however, is that the wings of the Milwaukee Art Museum move over Windhover Hall.
#34. Tower of Pisa
Location: Pisa, Italy
Architect: Several Hands at Work
Year: 1372
No matter how you shake it, getting a building to lean back more than 600 years before the birth of Fat Joe is an awesome achievement.
#33. Flatiron Building
Location: New York, NY
Architect: Daniel Burnham
Year: 1902
Daniel Burnham, who worked out of Chicago, Illinois, rivals Louis Sullivan in the "father of American high rise building" stakes. The Flatiron Building, originally known as the Fuller Building, brought significant height to Manhattan's skyline. It's built on a steel skeleton, which allowed the structure to reach 22 floors. Art historians recognize the Flatiron Building for appearance in Edward Steichen's photographs, solidifying its place as an early icon of American modern life.
#32. Villa Rotunda
Location: Vicenza, Italy
Architect: Andrea Palladio
Year: 1571
Palladio has been mentioned twice already, so of course one of his own buildings has to be listed. The Villa Rotunda is the crowing achievement of the architect's theories of proportion, and is the single most important building in establishing his architectural legacy.
#31. Channel Tunnel
Location: English Channel
Architect:
Year: 1994
Not only does the Channel Tunnel provide fast service between London and Paris, it is also the single longest undersea tunnel in the world. A healthy portion of its 31.3 miles sits under its namesake body of water. The total length also makes the Channel Tunnel the second longest rail tunnel ever completed.
#30. Olympic Stadium (The Bird's Nest)
Location: Beijing, China
Architect: Herzog & de Meuron
Year: 2008
This stadium might be the only thing we remember from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Swiss firm Herzong & de Meuron looked to traditional Chinese ceramics for inspiration and employed iconic contemporary artist Ai Weiwei as artistic consultant. One of the few sporting venues that truly stands as symbol of a city.
#29. PSFS Building
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Architect: Howe and Lescaze
Year: 1932
The PSFS Building was the first international-style skyscraper in the United States. And, no mater what Comcast does, the neon letters atop the structure will always dominate the Philly skyline.
#28. Hotel Remota
Location: Patagonia, Chile
Architect: Germán del Sol
Year: 2005
Here's a challenge. How do you design a building that at once blends into some of the world's most stunning scenery, and stand alone as an architectural gem? We don't know either, but Germán del Sol managed to pull off the seemingly impossible in Patagonia with the Hotel Remota.
#27. AEG Turbine Factory
Location: Berlin, Germany
Architect: Peter Behrens
Year: 1908/9
Behrens' great legacy in design is his effort to bring dignity to the workplace. The AEG Turbine Factory is the crowing achievement in that quest, a building of glass and steel with a monumental facade. Within, Behrens' clean, moderate rooms greatly impressed the famous Swiss architect Le Corbusier.
#26. Glas Pavilion
Location: Cologne, Germany
Architect: Bruno Taut
Year: 1914 (Temporary Structure)
The Glass Pavilion was an experiment in testing the potential of glass in architectural practice. Achieved as a monument, rather than a functional structure, at the Cologne Deutscher Werkbund Exhibition of 1914, Taut's most famous building allowed the architect to express his belief that glass could be the material on which to build a spiritual utopia. That might sound as insane as building with glass, and Taut achieved nothing else if not driving the notion in the minds of architectural historians.
#25. Glass House
Location: New Canaan, CT
Architect: Phillip Johnson
Year: 1949
Philip Johnson managed to use glass more fluidly than Taut. His house has been called "the raddest country house ever" - paraphrasing here from another magazine - but is notable as the Johnson's most famous building and the grandest achievement of modernism by an American architect.
#24. Lake Shore Drive Apts
Location: Chicago, Illinios
Architect: Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe
Year: 1951
Meis and Johnson have a strong connection. They worked at the same time, and Johnson curated an exhibtion of the German exhile's work at MOMA in 1947. Word is that Mies thought the Glass House was shit, and Johnson's view of the Lake Shore Drive Apartments is less publicized. What is known, however, is that the twin towers employ a pioneering use of glass curtain walls.
#23. Centre Pompidou
Location: Paris, France
Architect: Rogers and Piano
Year: 1976
The great achievement here? Turning the architectural world upside down.
#22. Vanna Venturi House
Location: Chestnut Hill, PA
Architect: Robert Venturi
Year: 1962
With the Vanna Venturi House, Robert Venturi marked Philadelphia with one of the most iconic post-modernist buildings. The house is also recognized as the first example of post-modernist architecture, period. Another example of turning the architectural world upside down.
#21. Getty Center
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Architect: Richard Meier
Year: 1997
Pritzker winning architect Richard Meier (1984) pulled off a remarkable feat with the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Despite enormous success prior to the commission, the Getty is what catapulted Meier into mainstream popularity. Combining architecture and gardens (and of course a range of more defined facilities), the Center is renowned for its views of Los Angeles.
#20. Guggenheim Bilbao
Location: Bilbao, Spain
Architect: Frank Gehry
Year: 1997
Unquestionably Gehry's most famous building and the most spectacular expression of the Canadian's trademark titanium cladding. Philip Johnson calls it the most important building of our time.
#19. Cathedral Brasilia
Location: Brasilia, Brazil
Architect: Oscar Neimeyer
Year: 1958
One one level you want to get fancy and talk about the hyperboloid structure of Oscar Neimeyer's masterpiece. On another, you just want to stare open mouthed. Craze.
#18. Takatori Catholic Church
Location: Kobe, Japan
Architect: Shigeru Ban
Year: 1995 (Temporary)
Shigeru Ban is famous for figuring out how to build real structures - not the ones you might have produced in your backyard - from recycled paper cardboard tubes. The Takatori Catholic Church was initially erected in Kobe after the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995. Later, the church was moved to Taiwan. Ban's work is known as "Paper Architecture."
#17. Sydney Opera House
Location: Sydney, Australia
Architect: Jørn Utzon
Year: 1973
Easily one of the most recognizable buildings in the world, the Sydney Opera House dominates the Australian city's harbor. Architect Jørn Utzon, a Dane, is only the second person to have a building designated a World Heritage Site during their lifetime (this also means the building is recognized as a "masterpiece of human creative genius.")
#16. Astrodome
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The world's first domed sports stadium, and the location of some of the most amazing jerseys in baseball history. The place the Bad News Bears played an exhibition game. The eighth wonder of the world.
#15. St. Paul's Cathedral
Location: London, UK
Architect: Christopher Wren
Year: 1710
Wren was responsible for designing 51 churches after the great fire of 1651 torched London. The most famous is St. Paul's, which has one of the tallest domes in the world and was London's single tallest building until 1962.
#14. 30 St Mary Ave
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Foster's "Gherkin" battles St. Paul's for eyes in London's skyline. The complex facade allows for air to enter for passive cooling, the achievement that ranks it so high on the list.
#13. Eiffel Tower
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Originally the entrance to the Paris World's Fair of 1889, the Eiffel Tower has become a global icon and one of the few buildings people associate with romance. Fun fact: the observation deck allows for great views of a nearby football pitch.
#12. Bibliotheque Nationale
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Hidden inside a heavy exterior, the reading room of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris is a monument to Henri Labrouste's inventive use of cast iron. Using slender columns, Labrouste offered a heaven for library patrons, his modern approach both daring and instantly recongnizable.
#11. The Palm Jumeirah
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Is this architecture? Is it mere fancy? Who in their right mind would build a livable palm-shaped series of islands? There is a good chance you can see it from space. And there is a good chance that is enough for us to pronounce The Palm Jumerirah a totally awesome achievement of the modern world.
#10. Residence Antilla
Location: Mumbai, India
Architect: Perkins + Wills
Year: 2010
The Residence Antilla, costing over $1 billion USD, is the most expensive home ever built. The 27-story tower is also the greenest building in Mumbai. A remarkable achievement in excess, with a surprise conscious.
#9. Bank of America Tower
Location: New York, NY
Architect: Cook+Fox Architects
Year: 2009
Speaking of green, the new Bank of America Tower is the most energy efficient office tower ever constructed. That is a top 10 achievement. Suck it, hippies!
#8. Duomo
Location: Florence, Italy
Architect: Filippo Brunelleschi
Year: 1436
Pretty much the dome by which all other domes must be judged, Brunellschi's Duomo caps the Florence Cathedral. Its construction was a radical decision, marking a break with the Gothic style and rejecting the notion that a flying buttress was required to support a massive dome. We will spare you the engineering details and state simply that this dome is an achievement of epic proportions.
#7. Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban
Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh
Architect: Louis Kahn
Year: 1982
The National Assembly Building of Bangladesh, the Jaityo Sagnsad Bhaban is Louis Kahn's greatest achievement. Light and water balanced. It's just amazing. And, it lends to the best portions of the terrific documentary "My Architect."
#6. Falling Water
Location: Mill Run, PA
Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright
Year: 1939
Radical for its cantilevered design, and stunning for its integration with setting, Falling Water is Frank Lloyd Wright's most significant achievement. It is also one of the places you must visit before death.
#5. Villa Savoye
Location: Poissy, France
Architect: Le Corbusier
Year: 1929
We've mentioned a few Renaissance villas thus far, and the thing about the Villa Savoye that might surprise is that it too articulates the principals founded in those homes, though articulated with a modernist vocabulary. Like the Villa Rotunda, living space is on the Piano Noblie, which takes the second story, except here a series of open columns replace the bulky traditional rusticated base and lifts the home almost completely off the ground. The Villa Savoye is an example of Le Corbusier's machine for living - employing a number of machines to complete menial daily tasks - and one of the finest examples of the International Style.
#4. Guthrie Theater
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Architect: Jean Nouvel
Year: 2006
Jean Nouvel, famed French architect, gave the Twin Cities the gift of the "Best Cultural Space in the USA" and one of the "10 most important buildings of the 21st-century." Bare in mind, the century still has roughly 90 years left, but you can still get a sense of the legacy the Guthrie Theater has already built for itself in just 5 short years.
#3. Pentagon
Location: Arlington, VA
Architect: George Bergstrom
Year: 1943
The Pentagon boasts more floor area than any other office in the world. It also boasts a security system that we can't even begin to imagine. It's an achievement in scale.
#2. Chrysler Building
Location: New York, NY
Architect: William Van Alen
Year: 1930
The Chrysler Building is so universally liked, we can sometimes forget its architectural importance. Let's go through it: 1. it is the jewel of American art deco. 2. The building used an exposed stainless steel surface in large scale for the first time ever. 3. The skyscraper is depicted on the cover of Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell II."
#1. Sagrada Família
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Architect: Antonio Gaudi
Year: 2026 (expected)
The most famous building in Barcelona and the most tremendous articulation of Gaudi's desires, the Sagrada Família is still a living, breathing, developing building. Impossible to believe really.