The World Architecture Survey was conducted in 2010 by '' Vanity Fair'', to determine the most important works of

contemporary architecture Contemporary architecture is the architecture of the 21st century. No single style is dominant. Contemporary architects work in several different styles, from postmodernism, high-tech architecture and new interpretations of traditional architec ...

. 52 leading architects, teachers, and critics, including several

Pritzker Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international architecture award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produ ...

winners and deans of major architecture schools were asked for their opinion. The survey asked two questions: #What are the five most important buildings, bridges, or monuments constructed since 1980? #What is the greatest work of architecture thus far in the 21st century? While the range of responses was very broad, more than half of the experts surveyed named the

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. The museum was inaugurated on 18 October 1997 by King Juan Carlos I of Sp ...

Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considered ...

as one of the most important works since 1980. The

Beijing National Stadium The National Stadium (), also known as the Bird's Nest (), is an 80,000-capacity stadium in Beijing. The stadium was jointly designed by architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron from Basel-based architecture team Herzog & de Meuron, p ...

(Bird’s Nest stadium) in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

Herzog and de Meuron Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd.,
" Herzog & de Meuron. Retrieved on 11 October 2012. "Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd. R ...

was the building most often cited, by seven respondents, as the most significant structure of the 21st century so far.Architecture’s Modern Marvels
/ref> Counted by architect, works by Frank Gehry received the most votes, followed by those of

Rem Koolhaas Remment Lucas Koolhaas (; born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He is often cited as a re ...

. The result of the survey led ''Vanity Fair'' to label Gehry as "the most important architect of our age".

Results

Most important works since 1980

The respondents named a total of 132 different structures when asked to indicate the five most important buildings,

monuments A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

, and

bridges A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually someth ...

completed since 1980. The top 21 were: #

(completed 1997) in Bilbao, Spain by

(28 votes) #

Menil Collection The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of approximately 17,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawing ...

(1987) in Houston, Texas by

Renzo Piano Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (20 ...

(10 votes) # Thermal Baths of Vals (1996) in Vals, Switzerland by

Peter Zumthor Peter Zumthor (; born 26 April 1943) is a Swiss architect whose work is frequently described as uncompromising and minimalist. Though managing a relatively small firm, he is the winner of the 2009 Pritzker Prize and 2013 RIBA Royal Gold Medal. E ...

(9 votes) # Hong Kong Shanghai Bank (HSBC) Building (1985) in Hong Kong by

Norman Foster Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

(7 votes) # Tied (6 votes): #:

Seattle Central Library The Seattle Central Library is the flagship library of the Seattle Public Library system. The 11-story (185 feet or 56.9 meters high) glass and steel building in downtown Seattle, Washington was opened to the public on May 23, 2004. Rem Koolhaas an ...

(2004) in Seattle by

#: Sendai Mediatheque (2001) in Sendai, Japan by

Toyo Ito is a Japanese architect known for creating conceptual architecture, in which he seeks to simultaneously express the physical and virtual worlds. He is a leading exponent of architecture that addresses the contemporary notion of a "simulated" ...

Neue Staatsgalerie The Neue Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany, was designed by the British firm James Stirling, Michael Wilford and Associates, although largely accredited solely to partner James Stirling. It was constructed between 1979 and 1984. The buildi ...

(1984) in Stuttgart, Germany by James Stirling #:

Church of the Light The Church of the Light (sometimes called the "Church with Light") is the main chapel of the Ibaraki Kasugaoka Church, a member church of the United Church of Christ in Japan. It was built in 1989, in the city of Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture. This ...

(1989) in Osaka, Japan by Tadao Ando #

Vietnam Veterans Memorial The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a U.S. national memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring service members of the U.S. armed forces who served in the Vietnam War. The site is dominated by two black granite walls engraved with the names of those s ...

(1982) in Washington, D.C. by

Maya Lin Maya Ying Lin (born October 5, 1959) is an American designer and sculptor. In 1981, while an undergraduate at Yale University, she achieved national recognition when she won a national design competition for the planned Vietnam Veterans Memoria ...

(5 votes) # Tied (4 votes): #:

Millau Viaduct The Millau Viaduct (french: Viaduc de Millau, ) is a multispan cable-stayed bridge completed in 2004 across the gorge valley of the Tarn near (west of) Millau in the Aveyron department in the Occitanie Region, in Southern France. The design t ...

(2004) in France by Norman Foster #:

Jewish Museum, Berlin The Jewish Museum Berlin (''Jüdisches Museum Berlin'') was opened in 2001 and is the largest Jewish museum in Europe. On of floor space, the museum presents the history of Jews in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day, with new focuses ...

(1998) in Berlin by

Daniel Libeskind Daniel Libeskind (born May 12, 1946) is a Polish–American architect, artist, professor and set designer. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect. He is known for the design a ...

# Tied (3 votes): #:

Lloyd’s Building The Lloyd's building (sometimes known as the Inside-Out Building) is the home of the insurance institution Lloyd's of London. It is located on the former site of East India House in Lime Street, in London's main financial district, the City of ...

(1984) in London by

Richard Rogers Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside (23 July 1933 – 18 December 2021) was a British architect noted for his modernist and Functionalism (architecture), functionalist designs in high-tech architecture. He was a senior partner a ...

(2008) in Beijing by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron #: CCTV Building (under construction ) in Beijing by Rem Koolhaas #: Casa da Musica (2005) in Porto, Portugal by Rem Koolhaas #:

Cartier Foundation The Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, known simply as the Fondation Cartier, is a contemporary art museum located at 261 boulevard Raspail in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, 14th arrondissement of the France, French capital, Paris. H ...

(1994) in Paris by

Jean Nouvel Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and ''Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has ob ...

BMW Welt The BMW Welt is a combined exhibition, delivery, adventure museum, and event venue located in Munich's district Am Riesenfeld, next to the Olympiapark (Munich), Olympic Park, in the immediate vicinity of the BMW Headquarters and factory. It was b ...

(2007) in Munich by

COOP Himmelblau Coop Himmelb(l)au (A pun meaning ''Coop Sky Building'' and ''Coop Sky Blue'') is an architecture, urban planning, design, and art firm founded by Wolf D. Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky, and Michael Holzer in Vienna, Austria in 1968. History Coop Him ...

#:Addition to the

Nelson-Atkins Museum The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture, and especially for its extensive collection of Asian art. In 2007, ''Time'' magaz ...

(2007) in Kansas City, Missouri by

Steven Holl Steven Holl (born December 9, 1947) is a New York-based American architect and watercolorist. Among his most recognized works are the 2019 REACH expansion of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the 2019 Hunters Point Library in Q ...

#: Cooper Union building (2009) in New York by

Thom Mayne Thom Mayne (born January 19, 1944) is an American architect. He is based in Los Angeles. In 1972, Mayne helped found the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), where he is a trustee and the coordinator of the Design of Cities p ...

Parc de la Villette The Parc de la Villette is the third-largest park in Paris, in area, located at the northeastern edge of the city in the 19th arrondissement. The park houses one of the largest concentrations of cultural venues in Paris, including the Cité de ...

(1984) in Paris by

Bernard Tschumi Bernard Tschumi (born 25 January 1944 in Lausanne, Switzerland) is an architect, writer, and educator, commonly associated with deconstructivism. Son of the well-known Swiss architect Jean Tschumi and a French mother, Tschumi is a dual French-S ...

#: Yokohama International Passenger Terminal (2002) at Ōsanbashi Pier in Yokohama, Japan by

Foreign Office Architects Foreign Office Architects, FOA, was an architectural design studio headed by former husband and wife team Farshid Moussavi and Alejandro Zaera-Polo. The London-based studio, which was established in 1993, specialised in architectural design, master ...

# Saint-Pierre church, Firminy (2006) in Firminy, France by

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

(2 votes)

Most significant work of the 21st century

The buildings most often named as the greatest work of architecture thus far in the 21st century were: #

Herzog and de Meuron Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd.,
" Herzog & de Meuron. Retrieved on 11 October 2012. "Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd. R ...

(7 votes) #

Saint-Pierre, Firminy Saint-Pierre ( en, Saint Peter) is a concrete building in the commune of Firminy, France. The last major work of Le Corbusier, it was started in 1973 and completed in 2006, forty-one years after his death. History Designed to be a church in th ...

(4 votes) #

(3 votes) #

CCTV Headquarters The CCTV Headquarters serves as the headquarters for China Central Television (CCTV) formerly located at the old China Central Television Building some to the west. Feted by architecture critics as perhaps "the greatest work of architectu ...

(2 votes) # Tied with one vote each: Sendai Mediatheque (

(

), Casa da Musica (

(

)

Criticism

Writing for the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'', Blair Kamin criticized the "self-aggrandizing" survey for not including any

green buildings Green building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from plannin ...

. In response,

Lance Hosey Lance Hosey (September 11, 1964 - August 27, 2021) was an American architect. In 2020, he joined HMC Architects, a large California-based firm, as the design industry's first Chief Impact Officer. Previously, he was a principal, design director ...

of ''Architect'' magazine conducted an alternate survey of leading green building experts and found that no buildings appeared on both lists, suggesting that standards of "good design" and "green design" are misaligned. Commentators also noted that several of the architects surveyed (but not Gehry) "perhaps took the magazine’s title a little too seriously" and voted for their own buildings.

Participants

The following people replied to the survey: *

Stan Allen Stan Allen (born 1956) is an American architect, theorist and former dean of Princeton University School of Architecture. Biography He received a B.A. from Brown University, a B.Arch. from Cooper Union and an M.Arch. from Princeton Universit ...

* Tadao Ando * George Baird * Deborah Berke *

David Chipperfield Sir David Alan Chipperfield, (born 18 December 1953) is an English architect. He established David Chipperfield Architects in 1985. His major works include the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire (1989–1998); the Museum ...

Neil Denari Neil Denari (b. Fort Worth, Texas September 3, 1957) is an American architect, professor, and author. Based since 1988 in Los Angeles, Denari emerged in New York during the 1980s with a series of theoretical projects and texts based on the collap ...

* Hank Dittmar *

Roger Duffy Roger Duffy is an American architect, known for rigorous and unconventional approach to design. Now retired, he worked as a partner at the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. He was a design partner in the New York office from 1995 until 2018, an ...

Peter Eisenman Peter Eisenman (born August 11, 1932) is an American architect. Considered one of the New York Five, Eisenman is known for his writing and speaking about architecture as well as his designs, which have been called high modernist or deconstructiv ...

* Martin Filler *

* Kenneth B. Frampton *

Richard Gluckman Gluckman Tang Architects, (previously Gluckman Mayner Architects), is a New York City based architecture firm providing services in architecture, planning, and interior design. Established by Richard Gluckman in 1977, the firm is known for mini ...

Paul Goldberger Paul Goldberger (born in 1950) is an American author, architecture critic and lecturer. He is known for his "Sky Line" column in ''The New Yorker''. Biography Shortly after starting as a reporter at ''The New York Times'' in 1972, he was assign ...

Michael Graves Michael Graves (July 9, 1934 – March 12, 2015) was an American architect, designer, and educator, as well as principal of Michael Graves and Associates and Michael Graves Design Group. He was a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Grou ...

Zaha Hadid Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid ( ar, زها حديد ''Zahā Ḥadīd''; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi-British architect, artist and designer, recognised as a major figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centu ...

Hugh Hardy Hugh Hardy (July 26, 1932 – March 17, 2017) was an American architect, known for designing and revitalizing theaters, performing arts venues, public spaces, and cultural facilities across the United States. ''The New Yorker'' writer Brendan ...

Hans Hollein Hans Hollein (30 March 1934 – 24 April 2014) was an Austrian architect and designer

* Michael Holzer * Michael Jemtrud *

Charles Jencks Charles Alexander Jencks (21 June 1939 – 13 October 2019) was an American cultural theorist, landscape designer, architectural historian, and co-founder of the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres. He published over thirty books and became famous i ...

Leon Krier Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...

Richard Meier Richard Meier (born October 12, 1934) is an American abstract artist and architect, whose geometric designs make prominent use of the color white. A winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1984, Meier has designed several iconic buildings ...

* José Rafael Moneo * Eric Owen Moss *

Mohsen Mostafavi Mohsen Mostafavi (born 1954 in Isfahan) is an Iranian-American architect and educator. Mostafavi is currently the Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. From 2008 through 2019, Mostafavi served ...

* Victoria Newhouse *

Richard Olcott Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stron ...

John Pawson John Ward Pawson , (born 1949, Halifax, England) is a British architect whose work is known for its minimalist aesthetic. Architectural Registration Board (ARB) of UK asked Dezeen magazine not to refer him as architect although this was critic ...

Cesar Pelli Cesar, César or Cèsar may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''César'' (film), a 1936 film directed by Marcel Pagnol * ''César'' (play), a play by Marcel Pagnolt * César Award, a French film award Places * Cesar, Portugal * C ...

James Stewart Polshek James Stewart Polshek (February 11, 1930September 9, 2022) was an American architect based in New York City. He was the founder of Polshek Partnership, the firm at which he was the principal design partner for more than four decades. He worked ...

Christian de Portzamparc Christian de Portzamparc (; born 5 May 1944) is a French architect and urbanist. He graduated from the École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1970 and has since been noted for his bold designs and artistic touch; his projects reflect a ...

Antoine Predock Antoine Predock ( ; born 1936 in Lebanon, Missouri) is an American architect based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is the principal of Antoine Predock Architect PC, the studio he founded in 1967. Predock first gained national attention with the La ...

* Wolf D. Prix * Jaquelin T. Robertson *

Joseph Rykwert Joseph Rykwert CBE (born 1926) is Paul Philippe Cret Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the foremost architectural historians and critics of his generation. He has spent most of his working life in th ...

Ricardo Scofidio Ricardo is the Spanish and Portuguese cognate of the name Richard. It derived from Proto-Germanic ''*rīks'' 'king, ruler' + ''*harduz'' 'hard, brave'. It may be a given name, or a surname. People Given name *Ricardo de Araújo Pereira, Portugu ...

Annabelle Selldorf Annabelle Selldorf (born 1960) is a German-born architect and founding principal of Selldorf Architects, a New York City-based architecture practice. She is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA) and the recipient of the 2016 AIA ...

Robert Siegel Robert Charles Siegel (born June 26, 1947) is an American retired radio journalist. He was one of the co-hosts of the National Public Radio evening news broadcast ''All Things Considered'' from 1987 until his retirement in January 2018. Early ...

* John Silber * Brett Steele *

Ben van Berkel Ben van Berkel (born 1957) is a Dutch architect; founder and principal architect of the architectural practice UNStudio. With his studio he designed, among others, the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam, the Moebius House in the Netherlands, the Mercede ...

* Anthony Vidler *

Rafael Viñoly Rafael Viñoly Beceiro (born 1944) is a Uruguayan architect. He is the principal of Rafael Viñoly Architects, which he founded in 1983. The firm has offices in New York City, Palo Alto, London, Manchester, Abu Dhabi, and Buenos Aires. Viñ ...

* Tod Williams and Billie Tsien

References