The best architects of all time, ranked
10 Best Designed Buildings in the World From Top Architects
September 28, 2021
Architecture has always distinguished itself from other art forms because it plays a functional as well as an aesthetic role, offering shelter, of course, but also shaping our daily experiences. Architecture also leaves behind monuments to moments in time, signifying in stone, glass and steel the various layers of history that define the evolution of a place. “Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space,” the noted German architect Mies van der Rohe once said, and there’s no better proof than that than right her in New York, whose myriad landmark buildings with stupendous views make up our iconic skyline. Van der Rohe is one of dozens of historical names that have left their mark not only on NYC, but cities around the globe. If you want to explore more about him and other giants of the field, look no further than our select guide to the greatest architects of all time. Architecture has always distinguished itself from other art forms because it plays a functional as well as an aesthetic role, offering shelter, of course, but also shaping our daily experiences. Architecture also leaves behind monuments to moments in time, signifying in stone, glass and steel the various layers of history that define the evolution of a place. “Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space,” the noted German architect Mies van der Rohe once said, and there’s no better proof than that than right her in New York, whose myriad landmark buildings with stupendous views make up our iconic skyline. Van der Rohe is one of dozens of historical names that have left their mark not only on NYC, but cities around the globe. If you want to explore more about him and other giants of the field, look no further than our select guide to the greatest architects of all time.
Antoni Gaudí
Gaudí spent his entire career in Barcelona, where he built all of his projects, the most famous of which is the 1883 cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, still under construction today. His style was an ornate mix of Baroque, Gothic, Moorish and Victorian elements that often featured ornamental tile-work, and drew upon forms found in nature—an influence that can he seen in the tree-like columns holding up the vast interior of his church, as well as the undulating facade of another of his famous creations, the apartment block known as the Casa Milla (inspired by the multi-peaked mountain just outside of Barcelona called Montserrat). Gaudí’s work would go on to have a tremendous impact on subsequent generations of modernists.
Mies Van der Rohe
Famously holding to the proposition that “less is more,” German architect Mies Van der Rohe stripped architecture to elemental geometric forms, pointing the way to Minimalism. He banished all traces of ornamentation, using the innate qualities of materials such as steel and plate glass to define the look of his buildings. This approach came out of another credo—form equals function—espoused at the Dessau Bauhaus, for which he served as the last director before the Nazis closed it down. His designs emphasized rationalism and efficiency as the route to beauty, an approached exemplified by The Barcelona Pavilion, built to house Germany’s exhibit for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona. In it, you can see that while Mies (the name by which he’s best known) abjured decorative details, he wasn’t adverse opulence, as the liberal use of marble, red onyx and travertine in the structure attests. The resulting masterpiece is only matched, perhaps, by Mies’s Seagram’s tower in New York.
