Civilisation/Architecture

From Quiz Revision Notes

Architectural orders

Doric, Ionic, Corinthian (all Greek), Tuscan and Composite (added by the Romans)

Doric architecture – oldest and simplest

Ionic architecture – characterised by spiral scrolls

Corinthian architecture – is the most ornate, characterized by a slender fluted column and an elaborate capital decorated with acanthus leaves and scrolls

Tuscan is the Roman equivalent of Doric

Composite is a mixture of Ionic and Corinthian

Parthenon is an example of Doric architecture

Pantheon is an example of Corinthian architecture

An entablature refers to the superstructure of mouldings and bands which lie horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and are commonly divided into the architrave (the supporting member carried from column to column, pier or wall immediately above) the frieze (an unmolded strip that may or may not be ornamented) and the cornice (the projecting member below the pediment).

The structure of the entablature varies with the three classical orders. In each, the proportions of the subdivisions (architrave, frieze, cornice) are defined by the proportions of the column in the order. In Roman and Renaissance interpretations, it is usually approximately a quarter of the height of the column

The frieze is dominated by the triglyphs, vertically channeled tablets, separated by metopes, which may or may not be decorated

A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the entablature, typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding

Caryatid – a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head

Telamon – male version of a caryatid

Volute – a spiral, scroll-like ornament that forms the basis of the Ionic order, found in the capital of the Ionic column

Architectural styles (chronological)

Romanesque architecture is the term that is used to describe the architecture of Europe which emerged in the late 10th century and evolved into the Gothic style during the 12th century. The Romanesque style in England is more traditionally referred to as Norman architecture. Romanesque architecture is characterized by its massive quality, its thick walls, round arches, sturdy piers, groin vaults, large towers and decorative arcading, e.g. Durham Cathedral

Gothic – architectural style prevalent in Western Europe from the 12th through the 15th century and characterized by pointed arches, rib vaulting, and a developing emphasis on verticality and the impression of height

In Gothic architecture, ogives are the intersecting transverse ribs of arches that establish the surface of a Gothic vault

English Gothic architecture is divided into three periods – Early English e.g. Salisbury Cathedral, Decorated e.g. Wells Cathedral, Exeter Cathedral and York Minster, and Perpendicular e.g. Winchester Cathedral, Eton College Chapel and King’s College Chapel, Cambridge

Renaissance – rebirth of Classical architecture. Palladian style in England. Brunelleschi, Bramante and Michelangelo in Italy

The dome of St Peter’s Basilica was designed by Bramante, then Michelangelo and then della Porta

On the hillside above the Vatican Palace, Antonio Pollaiuolo built a small casino named the palazzetto or the Belvedere for Pope Innocent VIII. Some years later Donato Bramante linked the Vatican with the Belvedere, under a commission from Pope Julius II by creating the Cortile del Belvedere (‘Courtyard of the Belvedere’), in which stood the Apollo Belvedere, among the most famous of antique sculptures. The 1st century Roman bronze Pigna (‘pinecone’) gives the name Cortile della Pigna to the highest terrace

Building of the Uffizi was begun by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 for Cosimo I de' Medici as the offices for the Florentine magistrates — hence the name ‘uffizi’ (‘offices’) Construction was continued to Vasari's design by Alfonso Parigi and Bernardo Buontalenti and ended in 1581

Palladian architecture – named after the 16th century Italian architect Andrea Palladio

Baroque – Bernini and Borromini in Rome. Wren (St. Paul’s), Vanburgh and Hawksmoor in England. Includes Rococo, which is characterised by soft curves and scrollwork

Classical style of architecture introduced by Inigo Jones, after studying Palladio

Neo-Classical – Robert Adam, John Nash, John Wood, Baron Haussmann

Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, Neo-Gothic) – House of Commons (Barry and Pugin)

Art Nouveau (1890s) – Gaudi, Mackintosh

Beaux-Arts architecture expresses the academic neoclassical architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The Beaux-Arts style heavily influenced the architecture of the United States in the period from 1880 to 1920

The Vesnin brothers: Leonid, Victor and Alexander were the leaders of Constructivist architecture, the dominant architectural school of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s

Art Deco (1925–39) – heavy geometric base forms, e.g. Radio City Music Hall in New York

Streamline Moderne, sometimes referred to as Art Moderne, was a late type of the Art Deco design style which emerged during the 1930s. Its architectural style emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements, e.g. Midland Hotel, Morecambe

Modernism or Functionism (1901–80) – Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright

Googie architecture is a subdivision of futurist architecture influenced by car culture and the Space and Atomic Ages. Originating in Southern California during the late 1940s and continuing approximately into the mid-1960s, Googie-themed architecture was popular among motels, coffee houses and gas stations

Brutalism – architectural style of the 1950s and 1960s that evolved from the work

of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe

Postmodernism (1980s onwards) – e.g. Pompidou Centre

Organic architecture is a philosophy of architecture which promotes harmony between human habitation and the natural world through design approaches so sympathetic and well integrated with its site that buildings, furnishings, and surroundings become part of a unified, interrelated composition. Architects Antoni Gaudi and Frank Lloyd Wright are famous for their work with organic architecture

Prairie School is mostly associated with a generation of architects employed or influenced by Louis Sullivan or Frank Lloyd Wright, but usually does not include Sullivan himself

International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style

Futurist architecture is an early-20th century form of architecture born in Italy, and was part of the Futurism movement. Included the architect Antonio Sant'Elia

The intersection of two or three barrel vaults produces a rib vault or ribbed vault

A groin vault or groined vault (also sometimes known as a double barrel vault or cross vault) is produced by the intersection at right angles of two barrel vaults

Pueblo Revival Style is a regional architectural style of the Southwestern United States which draws its inspiration from the Pueblos and the Spanish missions in New Mexico. The style developed at the turn of the 20th century and reached its greatest popularity in the 1920s and 1930s

Deconstructivism is a development of postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface or skin, non-rectilinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of architecture, such as structure and envelope

Metabolism was a post-war Japanese architectural movement that fused ideas about architectural megastructures with those of organic biological growth

Architectural terms

Fan vault – a form of vault used in the Gothic style, in which the ribs are all of the same curve and spaced equidistantly, in a manner resembling a fan. The largest fan vault in the world can be found in the chapel of King's College, Cambridge

Barrel vault – also known as a tunnel vault or a wagon vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The intersection of two or three barrel vaults produces a rib vault or ribbed vault

Groin vault – or groined vault (also sometimes known as a double barrel vault or cross vault) is produced by the intersection at right angles of two barrel vaults

Spandrel – the space between two arches or between an arch and a rectangular enclosure

Quoin – stones used to form the exterior angle of a building

Corbel – an architectural member that projects from within a wall and acts as a type of bracket to carry weight

Tracery – stone bars or ribs between sections of glass used decoratively in windows

Jamb – the vertical section of a door frame

Mullion – a vertical strip between the casements or panes of a window

Architects

Alvar Aalto (1898 – 1976) was a Finnish architect and designer. His work also includes furniture, textiles and glassware

Finlandia Hall in Helsinki

Patrick Abercrombie (1897 – 1957) redesigned London after World War II, Plymouth in the 1950s, Hong Kong, and Addis Ababa

Robert Adam (1728 – 1792)

Designed interiors for Harewood House, Osterley Park and Syon House.

Register House, Edinburgh – first major government building to be constructed in Britain

Uno Ahren (1897 – 1977) was a Swedish architect and city planner, and a leading proponent of functionalism. He co-authored The Housing Question as a Social Planning Problem, a work that would prove influential in the structuring of the Social Democratic Swedish society

Will Alsop (1947-2018)

Peckham Library – won the Stirling Prize in 2000

Cardiff Bay Visitor Centre

Public art gallery in West Bromwich

Michael Arad (born 1969) was the winning designer of the World Trade Center Memorial with “Reflecting Absence” – a pair of pools set 30 feet deep in the “footprints” of the downed towers, with cascading waterfalls surrounded by the names of the deadAlvar Aalto (1898 – 1976) was a Finnish architect and designer. His work also includes furniture, textiles and glassware. Designed Finlandia Hall in Helsinki

Herbert Baker (1862 – 1946) was the dominant force in South African architecture for two decades, from 1892 to 1912. With Edwin Lutyens he was instrumental in designing New Delhi. His tomb is in Westminster Abbey

Charles Barry (1795 – 1860) was an English architect

rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) in London during the mid-19th century

Trafalgar Square

John Francis Bentley (1839 – 1902) was an English ecclesiastical architect

Westminster Cathedral, built in a style heavily influenced by Byzantine architecture

Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598 – 1660)

Saint Peter's baldachin is a large Baroque sculpted bronze canopy located directly under the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City. It was intended to mark, in a monumental way, the place of Saint Peter's tomb underneath. Under its canopy is the High Altar of the basilica. Commissioned by Pope Urban VIII, the work began in 1623 and ended in 1634

designed the piazza and colonnades of St Peter's

several Roman palaces: Palazzo Barberini (from 1630 on which he worked with Borromini); Palazzo Ludovisi and Palazzo Chigi

Francesco Borromini (1599 – 1667) was an influential Baroque architect in Rome. He designed many churches, and was a rival of Bernini. Born in Ticino. Committed suicide

Donato Bramante (1444 – 1514) was an Italian architect, who introduced Renaissance architecture to Milan and the High Renaissance style to Rome

plan for St. Peter's Basilica formed the basis of design executed by Michelangelo

Tempietto (San Pietro in Montorio) was a sanctuary that allegedly marked the spot where Peter was crucified, built after he was appointed by Pope Julius II

Marcel Breuer (1902 – 1981) was a Hungarian architect

Wassily chair – made at the Bauhaus. Named after Wassily Kandinsky

Cesca chair

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 – 1446) was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. All of his principal works are in Florence

designs for the dome of the Cathedral of Florence (Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore)

Sagrestia Vecchia, or Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo

William Burges (1827 – 1881) was a Gothic Revival architect responsible for the rebuilding of Cardiff Castle

Daniel Burnham (1846 – 1912) was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He took a leading role in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago and downtown Washington DC. He also designed several famous buildings

Flatiron Building in New York City

Union Station in Washington D.C.

Selfridges in London

Santiago Calatrava (born 1951)

Quadracci Pavilion (2001) of the Milwaukee Art Museum

World Trade Center Transportation Hub, at the rebuilt World Trade Centre in New York

HSB Turning Torso is a Deconstructivist skyscraper in Malmo, located on the Swedish side of the Oresund strait. The tower reaches a height of 190 metres

City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia

Peace Bridge in Calgary, which crosses the Bow River

William Chambers (1723 – 1796) was a Scottish-Swedish architect, based in London

Somerset House, London

pagoda at Kew

David Chipperfield (born 1953)

River and Rowing Museum in Henley

Turner Contemporary in Margate

The Hepworth Wakefield

Neues Museum in Berlin

John Dobson (1787 – 1865) was an English architect in the neoclassical tradition. He is best known for designing Newcastle Central Station and for his work with Richard Grainger developing the centre of Newcastle in a neoclassical style

Peter Eisenman (born 1932) and engineering firm Buro Happold

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, also known as the Holocaust Memorial, is a memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust

Terry Farrell (born 1938)

The MI6 Building,

Charing Cross Station

TV-am studios in Camden

The Deep Aquarium in Hull

Norman Foster (born 1935)

Swiss Re building in London (30 St Mary Axe, also known as the gherkin)

Millau Viaduct

The Sage Gateshead

The Reichstag Berlin

Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC) Clyde Auditorium, known as the Armadillo building

Pyramid of Peace in Astana

Millennium Bridge (with Anthony Caro)

City Hall, the headquarters of the Greater London Authority

McLaren Technology Centre

Antoni Gaudi (1852 – 1926) was the figurehead of Catalan Modernism

His masterpiece is the still-uncompleted Sagrada Família in Barcelona. Construction started in 1882

Frank Gehry (born 1929)

Guggenheim at Bilbao, which is constructed of titanium

The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Downtown Los Angeles is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. building, an example of Deconstructivism, and features his trademark steel cladding

Dancing House, Prague – nicknamed ‘Fred and Ginger’

Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago

New World Symphony Concert Hall, Miami Beach

Guggenheim Abu Dhabi – construction has yet to start

Vitra Design Museum in Germany

Dr Chau Chak Wing Building is a Business School building of the University of Technology, Sydney

James Gibbs (1682 – 1754)

St Martin-in-the-Fields in 1721

The cylindrical Radcliffe Camera at Oxford University

Erno Goldfinger (1902 – 1987) was a Hungarian-born architect and designer of furniture, and a key member of the architectural Modern Movement after he had moved to the United Kingdom. The James Bond character Auric Goldfinger is named after Erno

Trellick Tower in North Kensington

Nicholas Grimshaw (born 1939) is noted for several modernist buildings. In 2004, he was elected President of the Royal Academy

London's Waterloo International railway station

Eden Project in Cornwall

National Space Centre

Cutty Sark Renovation – Grimshaw Architests

Walter Gropius (1883 – 1969) was the first director of the Bauhaus. Born in Germany, moved to the USA in 1937. Married Alma Mahler

Pan Am building (now known as The MetLife Building) in New York

Hector Guimard (1867 – 1942) is the best-known representative of the French Art Nouveau style of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Designed many Paris metro entrances

Zaha Hadid (1950 – 2016) was a Deconstructivist architect born in Baghdad, and the first female recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize (2004)

Designed the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany. She won the Stirling Prize two years running: in 2010, for the

Maxxi in Rome – won the Stirling Prize in 2010

Evelyn Grace Academy, a school in Brixton – won the Stirling Prize in 2011

London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics.

Philip Hardwick (1792 – 1870) was an English architect, particularly associated with railway stations and warehouses

London's demolished Euston Arch

Birmingham Curzon Street. The entrance building (1838) stands today as the oldest railway terminus in the world

Baron Haussmann (1809 – 1891) was chosen by the Emperor Napoleon III to carry out a massive program of new boulevards, parks and public works in Paris

Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661 – 1736) was a pupil of Wren. Worked with Vanbrugh on Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, where he designed the mausoleum. Hawksmoor was known as “the devil’s architect”

Six London churches – St Alfege's Church, Greenwich, St George's Church, Bloomsbury, Christ Church, Spitalfields, St George in the East, St Mary Woolnoth and St Anne's Limehouse

Thomas Heatherwick (born 1970) designed the New Bus for London. B of the Bang was a sculpture located next to the City of Manchester Stadium that was dismantled in 2009 because of structural problems. Plan for a garden bridge across the Thames has now been cancelled

The Seed Cathedral references the race to save seeds from round the world in banks, and therefore the cathedral houses 60,000 plant seeds at the end of acrylic rods, held in place by geometrically cut holes with the rods inserted therein. The structure stands where it was built, at a cost of £25 million, in Shanghai for the 2010 World Expo

Herzog & de Meuron was founded in Basel in 1978 by Jacques Herzog (born 1950) and Pierre de Meuron (born 1950)

Converted Bankside Power Station into Tate Modern

Allianz stadium in Munich

Birds Nest stadium in Beijing, with engineer ArupSport

James Hoban (c. 1758 – 1831)

White House by in 1792. Design was influenced by Leinster House in Dublin

Josef Hoffmann (1870 – 1956) was an Austrian architect and designer of consumer goods. He established the Wiener Werkstatte, which was to last until 1932

Palais Stoclet in Brussels – masterpiece of Jugendstil, was an example of Gesamtkunstwerk, replete with murals in the dining room by Klimt and four copper figures on the tower by Franz Metzner

Charles Holden (1875 – 1960) is best known for designing many London Underground stations during the 1920s and 1930s. He also created many war cemeteries in Belgium and northern France for the Imperial War Graves Commission

Bristol Central Library

Underground Electric Railways Company of London's headquarters at 55 Broadway

University of London's Senate House.

Michael Hopkins (born 1935)

Opera house at Glyndebourne

Mound Stand at Lord’s

Portcullis House

The Rose Bowl

Schlumberger Research Centre at Cambridge

Victor Horta (1861 – 1947) was born in Belgium and is one of the most important names in Art Nouveau architecture

Palais de Beaux-Arts in Brussels

Hotel Tassel in Brussels

Arne Jacobsen (1902 – 1971) was a Danish architect and designer, exemplar of the ‘Danish Modern’ style. Jacobsen has created a number of highly original chairs and other furniture, including the egg, drop, and swan chairs

St Catherine’s College, Oxford

Danish National Bank building in Copenhagen

Geoffrey Jellicoe (1900 – 1996) designed Motopia, a city of the future, where the bubble-top cars of tomorrow moved freely on elevated streets, and the pedestrian zipped around safely on moving sidewalks

Philip Johnson (1906 – 2005) founded the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA in 1930 and in 1978 he was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the first Pritzker Architecture Prize. The Seagram Building, the company's American headquarters office tower at 375 Park Avenue in New York City, was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with Philip Johnson. Philip Johnson won the Pritzker Prize for a house made from glass

Inigo Jones (1573 – 1652)

Queen’s House at Greenwich.

Covent Garden – Palladian architecture, designed by Inigo Jones

Palace of Whitehall was the main residence of the English monarchs in London from 1530 until 1698 when all except Inigo Jones's 1622 Banqueting House (site of execution of Charles I in 1649) was destroyed by fire. Originally known as York Place

Rem Koolhaas (born 1944) is s Dutch architect

CCTV Headquarters building in Beijing

Kunsthal, Rotterdam

De Rotterdam is the largest building in the Netherlands. Won the Pritzker Prize in 2000

Eric Kuhne (1951-2016)

Bluewater Shopping Centre

Titanic Quarter building in Belfast

Kisho Kurokawa (1934 – 2007) was one of the founders of the Metabolist Movement. Designed a number of art museums in Japan. Produced the master plan for Astana

New wing of the Van Gogh Museum

Singapore Flyer ferris wheel

Denys Lasdun (1914 – 2001)

University of East Anglia. Halls of residence at the University of East Anglia are based on the ziggurats of Mesopotamia

National Theatre, South Bank

Le Corbusier (1887 – 1965), was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret in Switzerland and became a French citizen. Wrote Toward an Architecture. Devised a scale of proportions known as The Modulor, based on the golden ratio. Le Corbusier designed Chandigarh. Le Corbusier had the idea of a “Vertical Garden City”

The chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp

Villa Savoye is a modernist villa in Poissy, in the outskirts of Paris

Ville Radieuse (French: ‘Radiant City’) was an unrealized project designed by Le Corbusier in 1924. Le Corbusier planned to bulldoze most of central Paris north of the Seine in 1925

CY Lee (born 1938) is a Chinese architect based in Taiwan

Directed the design of Taipei 101, the world's tallest skyscraper at the time of completion, in 2004

Daniel Libeskind (born 1946)

Jewish Museum in Berlin

extension to the Denver Art Museum

Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin

Imperial War Museum North in Manchester

Spiral – cancelled extension to V&A

Adolf Loos (1870 – 1933) was a Moravian-born Austro-Hungarian architect. He was influential in European Modern architecture, and in his essay Ornament and Crime he repudiated the florid style of the Vienna Secession

Berthold Lubetkin (1901 – 1990) was a Russian émigré architect who pioneered modernist design in Britain in the 1930s. Lubetkin set up the architectural practice Tecton

Highpoint housing complex in Highgate

London Zoo penguin pool

Dudley Zoo

Finsbury Health Centre and Spa Green Estate in Clerkenwell

Edwin Lutyens (1869 – 1944) designed New Delhi

Cenotaph, Whitehall

Thiepval Memorial

Liverpool’s Catholic cathedral, but only the crypt was built. New cathedral (Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, known as “Paddy’s Wigwam”) was designed by Frederick Gibberd

Fountains surrounding Nelson’s Column

Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 – 1928)

Glasgow School of Art

The Lighthouse was designed for the Glasgow Herald and now an architecture and design centre

Frank Matcham (1854 – 1920) was an English theatrical architect and designer. He was known for his designs of many London theatres including the Hackney Empire (1901); the London Coliseum (1904); the London Palladium (1910) and the Victoria Palace (1911)

Paulo Mendes da Rocha (1928 – 2021) was a Brazilian architect who initially designed Brutalist buildings. He designed a number of buildings in Sao Paulo and won the Mies van der Rohe Prize (2000) and the Pritzker Prize (2006)

Hannes Meyer (1889 – 1954) was a Swiss architect and second director of the Bauhaus in Dessau. He was fired from the Bauhaus in 1930 for allegedly allowing Communist student organization to bring bad publicity to the school

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886 – 1969) designed many buildings around Chicago. He was the third and final director of the Bauhaus. He is often associated with his quotation of the aphorisms, "less is more" and "God is in the details"

Seagram building in New York

New National Gallery in Berlin

Rafael Moneo (born 1937) won the Pritzker Prize in 1996

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles

expansion of the Madrid Atocha railway station

John Nash (1752 – 1835) designed laid out Regent Street in the 1820s

St James Park

Royal Pavilion at Brighton (for the Prince Regent)

Marble Arch, based on the triumphal arch of Constantine in Rome. It was originally erected on The Mall as a gateway to the new Buckingham Palace. In 1851, the arch was moved to its present location during the building of the east front of the palace

Balthasar Neumann (1687 – 1753) was a German military artillery engineer and architect who developed a refined brand of Baroque architecture

Wurzburg Residence

Basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers

Oscar Niemeyer (1907 – 2012) designed a number of civic buildings in Brasilia and collaborated with other architects on the United Nations Headquarters in New York City

Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro

Jean Nouvel (born 1945) won the Pritzker Prize in 2008 for his work on more than 200 projects

Louvre branch in Abu Dhabi

Arab World Institute in Paris

National Museum of Qatar

Andrea Palladio, born Andrea Di Pietro della Gondola (1508 – 1580) is widely considered the most influential individual in the history of Western architecture. All of his buildings are located in what was the Venetian Republic, but his teachings, summarized in the architectural treatise, The Four Books of Architecture, gained him wide recognition. The city of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto are UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Villa Barbaro is a large villa at Maser in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It was built for two of his most important patrons, the brothers Barbaro

Church of the Redeemer, Venice

Victor Pasmore (1908 – 1998) pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s

Apollo Pavilion in Peterlee

Joseph Paxton (1803 – 1865) designed Britain’s tallest fountain, ‘The Emperor’, at Chatsworth House

Crystal Palace

Great Conservatory at Chatsworth. At the time, the conservatory was the largest glass building in the world

Great Victorian Way was an unbuilt infrastructure project, designed by Joseph Paxton in 1855. It would have consisted of a ten-mile covered loop around much of central and west London, integrating a glass-roofed street, railways, shops and houses

Cesar Pelli (1926-2019) was born in Argentina

Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004 and remain the tallest twin towers in the world

One Canada Square, London E14, is the tallest habitable building in the United Kingdom, at 771 ft and 50 storeys. Designed by Cesar Pelli, construction was completed in 1991. The building is most commonly known as Canary Wharf or Canary Wharf Tower. It was formerly called Canada Tower. The square to the east of the tower was named after Canada because it was built by the Canadian firm Olympia and York

Costanera Centre in Santiago is the tallest building in Latin America and the second tallest in the Southern Hemisphere after Australia's Q1 on the Gold Coast

Dominique Perrault (born 1953) won the Mies van der Rohe Prize in 1996

French National Library

Renzo Piano (born 1937) was born in Italy

Shard London Bridge, previously known as London Bridge Tower, is also known as the Shard of Glass and 32 London Bridge. It is the tallest building in the European Union. The tower stands at 310 m (1017 ft) tall and has 95 floors. Renzo Piano, the building's architect, worked together with architectural firm Broadway Malyan during the planning stage of the project. Shard site bought by Irvine Sellar. Main building contractor – Mace. Shard observation deck is on 72nd floor

The New York Times Building

Zentrum Paul Klee is a museum dedicated to the artist Paul Klee, located in Bern, Switzerland. It features about 40 percent of Paul Klee’s entire pictorial oeuvre

The Auditorium Parco della Musica is a large multi-functional public music complex to the north of Rome, in the area where the 1960 Summer Olympic Games were held

IM Pei (1917-2019) was born in Guangzhou and raised in Hong Kong and Shanghai

Louvre Pyramid

Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong

Museum of Islamic Art in Doha

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio

John Portman (1924-2017) was an American architect and real estate developer widely known for popularizing hotels and office buildings with multi-storied interior atria. Portman also had a large impact on the cityscape of his hometown of Atlanta, with the Peachtree Center complex which includes Portman-designed Hyatt, Westin, and Marriott hotels

Augustus Pugin (1812 – 1852) was an English architect, designer and theorist of design now best remembered for his work on churches and on the Houses of Parliament, rebuilt after a fire in 1834. The Grange in Ramsgate was the home of August Pugin, who designed it in the Victorian Gothic style. Pugin was buried at St Augustine's Church next to the house. Pugin designed the Gothic interiors, wallpapers and furnishings, including the royal thrones and the Palace of Westminster's clock tower in which Big Ben hangs.

St Giles’ Catholic Church in Cheadle

St Chad’s Cathedral in Birmingham

St Georges Cathedral in Southwark

William Railton (1800 – 1877) was an English architect

Nelson's Column. The column itself is built of granite from Dartmoor. The whole monument is 51.6 m tall from the bottom of the pedestal to the top of Nelson's hat

Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1700 – 1771) was an Italian architect whose entire career was spent in Russia. He developed a style of Late Baroque

Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg

Catherine Palace in Saint Petersburg

John Rennie (1761 – 1821) designed bridges, canals, and docks. John Rennie surveyed the route of the Kennet and Avon Canal. His son, John, also designed bridges in London

London Bridge

Southwark Bridge

The first Waterloo Bridge on the site was opened in 1817 as a toll bridge.

Gerrit Rietveld (1888 – 1964) was a Dutch furniture designer and architect. He designed Schroder House in Utrecht, which was built in 1924

Richard Rogers (1933-2021) was born in Florence

European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg

Pompidou Centre is known as “our lady of the pipe work” and known locally as Beaubourg – it was designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers and opened in 1977

Welsh Assembly building

Millennium Dome

Lloyd’s building

Eero Saarinen (1910 – 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer. He designed the Tulip Chair, which appeared on the bridge set of the U.S.S. Enterprise in Star Trek

Gateway Arch in St. Louis

Washington Dulles International Airport

TWA Flight Center at JFK International Airport

Nicola Salvi (1697 – 1751) was an Italian architect; among his few projects completed is the Trevi fountain in Rome

Karl Schinkel (1781 – 1841) was a Prussian architect. His most famous buildings are found in and around Berlin. He also designed the Iron Cross

George Gilbert Scott (1811 – 1878)

St Pancras station

Foreign Office

Albert Memorial

George Gilbert Scott, Jr. (1839 – 1897) was an architect working in late Gothic and Queen Anne revival styles. He was the son of Sir George Gilbert Scott, and father of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. He died in Midland Grand Hotel, a building designed by his father

Giles Gilbert Scott (1880 – 1960) designed the K2 red telephone box (1936)

Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral (primarily constructed of sandstone)

Battersea power station

Bankside power station

Waterloo Bridge (the original bridge was demolished in the 1930s)

Richard Seifert (1910 – 2001) was a British architect, born in Zurich

NatWest Tower (now called Tower 42)

Centre Point

Richard Norman Shaw (1831 – 1912)

Bedford Park

New Scotland Yard

Piccadilly Hotel

Robert Smirke (1780 – 1867) was one of the leaders of Greek Revival architecture. Smirke designed the main block and facade of the British Museum

Peter Smithson (1923 – 2003) and Alison Smithson (1928 – 1993) together formed an architectural partnership, and are often associated with the New Brutalism. They wanted “streets in the sky”. Designed a number of buildings at the University of Bath

John Soane (1753 – 1837)

Bank of England in 1788

Dulwich Picture Gallery

James Stirling (1926 – 1992) was the first British winner of the Pritzker Prize, in 1981

Clore Gallery for the Turner Collection at Tate Britain

Louis Sullivan (1856 – 1924) was called the “father of modernism.” He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, and was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright and an inspiration to architects of the Prairie School. Known for the aphorism “Form follows function”

Kenzo Tange (1913 – 2005) designed the city of Abuja

Peace Garden of Hiroshima

The gymnasium and swimming pool for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building was designed to look like a circuit board

Yoshio Taniguchi (born 1937) is a Japanese architect

Redesign of the Museum of Modern Art in New York which was reopened in 2004

Jorn Utzon (1918 – 2008) was a Danish architect whoalso made important contributions to housing design, especially with his Kingo Houses near Helsingor

Sydney Opera House

Bagsvard Church near Copenhagen

National Assembly Building in Kuwait

William Van Alen (1883 – 1954) was an American architect

New York City's Chrysler Building which was completed in 1930

John Vanbrugh (1664 – 1726) was an English architect. Vanbrugh also wrote Restoration comedies

Castle Howard

Blenheim Palace in 1705 for the Duke of Marlborough

Robert Venturi (1925-2018) was an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. Venturi was awarded the Pritzker Prize in Architecture in 1991; the prize was awarded to him alone, despite a request to include his equal partner Denise Scott Brown

Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery

Rafael Vinoly (born 1943) is a Uruguayan architect. Two of the skyscrapers designed by Vinoly, the Vdara in Las Vegas and 20 Fenchurch Street in London, have experienced unusual sun reflectivity problems due to their concave curved glass exteriors acting as respectively cylindrical and spherical reflectors for sunlight

20 Fenchurch Street nicknamed 'The Walkie-Talkie' because of its distinctive shape. In 2015 it was awarded the Carbuncle Cup for the worst new building in the UK

Otto Wagner (1841 – 1918) was an Austrian architect and urban planner, known for many buildings in Vienna, including stations on the Metropolitan Railway

Alfred Waterhouse (1830 – 1905) was associated with the Victorian Gothic Revival architecture

Strangeways prison

Manchester Town Hall

Natural History Museum

Aston Webb (1849 – 1930) completed the Victoria and Albert Museum, and gave a new facade to Buckingham Palace. He was President of the Royal Academy from 1919 to 1924, and the founding Chairman of the London Society, from 1912

Admiralty Arch

Stanford White (1853 – 1906)

second Madison Square Garden (1890; demolished in 1925)

Washington Square Arch in Greenwich Village

New York Herald Building

Colin St John Wilson (1922 – 2007) spent over 30 years progressing the project to build a new British Library in London, originally planned to be built in Bloomsbury and now completed near Kings Cross in 1997

John Wood (1704 – 1754) designed a number of buildings in Bath. His son, John, designed the Bath Assembly Rooms and Royal Crescent

Queen Street, Bath

The Circus, Bath

Christopher Wren (1632 – 1723) was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710. The Monument to the Great Fire of London, more commonly known as The Monument, is a Roman Doric column designed by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke. He was also a noted scientist, and he was a founder of the Royal Society

south front of Hampton Court Palace

Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford

Marlborough house in Pall Mall

Flamsteed House in Greenwich Park, Greenwich Hospital

Royal Naval College, Greenwich

St Bride’s church

St Mary-le-Bow church

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867 – 1959) designed more than 1,000 structures, 532 of which were completed. Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. Wright was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture. His estate in Wisconsin was known as Taliesin (Taliesin in Welsh mythology was a poet, magician, and priest)

Fallingwater, at Bear Run, Pennsylvania, was constructed from 1935 to 1939 for the Kaufmann family

Imperial Hotel, Tokyo

Minoru Yamasaki (1912 – 1986)

Pruitt–Igoe, a large housing project first occupied in 1954 in St Louis. Its buildings were torn down in the mid-1970s, and the project has become an icon of urban renewal and public-policy planning failure

The World Trade Center in New York City (sometimes informally referred to as the Twin Towers) was a complex of seven buildings, mostly designed by Yamasaki and developed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

Peter Zumthor (born 1943) is a Swiss architect and winner of the 2009 Pritzker Prize. Designed the cave-like thermal baths in Vals, Switzerland

Kunsthaus Bregenz, a shimmering glass and concrete cube that overlooks Lake Constance (Bodensee) in Austria

Awards

Pritzker Architecture Prize

The prize has been awarded annually since 1979 by the Hyatt Foundation to honour a living architect. Frei Otto won the award posthumously in 2015

Notable Winners

1979 Philip Johnson
1981 James Stirling
1983 I M Pei
1987 Kenzo Tange
1988 Oscar Niemeyer
1989 Frank Gehry
1991 Robert Venturi
1995 Tadao Ando
1998 Renzo Piano
1999 Norman Foster
2000 Rem Koolhaus
2001 Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron
2003 Jorn Utzon
2004 Zaha Hadid
2006 Paulo Mendes da Rocha
2007 Richard Rogers
2008 Jean Nouvel
2009 Peter Zumthor
2010 Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa
2014 Shigeru Ban
2020 Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara
2022 Francis Kere
2023 David Chipperfield

RIBA Stirling Prize

The prize is named after the architect James Stirling who died in 1992. The award was founded in 1996.The award was known as the Building of the Year Award

Notable Winners

1996 Stephen Hodder Centenary Building, University of Salford
1997 James Stirling, Michael Wilford Stuttgart Music School
1998 Foster and Partners Imperial War Museum, Cambridge
1999 Future Systems Lord’s Media Centre
2001 Wilkinson Eyre Architects Magna Centre, Rotherham
2002 Wilkinson Eyre Architects Gateshead Millennium Bridge
2003 Herzog & De Meuron Laban, Deptford
2004 Foster and Partners 30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin)
2006 Richard Richards Barajas Airport, Madrid
2007 David Chipperfield Museum of Modern Literature, Marbach
2009 Rogers Stirk Harbour Maggie’s Centre, London
2010 Zaha Hadid MAXXI, Rome
2011 Zaha Hadid Evelyn Grace Academy, London
2018 Foster and Partners Bloomberg Building, London


The European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture or Mies van der Rohe Award is a prize for architecture given every two years since 1988 by the European Commission

Royal Gold Medal for architecture is awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects on behalf of the British monarch, in recognition of an individual's or group's substantial contribution to international architecture. It is given for a distinguished body of work rather than for one building. The medal was first awarded in 1848 to Charles Robert Cockerell

Carbuncle Cup was an architecture prize, given annually by the magazine Building Design to ‘the ugliest building in the United Kingdom completed in the last 12 months’ held annually from 2006 to 2018. The names derive from a comment by Prince Charles who in 1984 described the proposed extension of London's National Gallery as a "monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend"