Michelangelo
Michelangelo was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the high renaissance and born in the Florence. Michelangelo was also a master architect.
In 1523, Pope Clement VII commissioned Michelangelo to design a two-story library on top of an existing convent. Michelangelo employed radical principles when designing the Laurentian library of Florence, Italy, breaking rules of the classical style and pioneered Mannerist architecture.
Michelangelo’s most famous contribution to architecture is probably the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica of Vatican City. It stands as one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world and inspired many imitators, such as the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Mimar Sinan
Michelangelo’s contemporary was Mimar Sinan. He was the chief Ottoman architect, engineer and mathematician for sultans Suleiman the Magnificent, Selim II and Murad III.
Working in the 16th century, Sinan designed more than 300 structures, including mostly mosques but also palaces, schools and other buildings.
Unquestionably the most influential Turkish architect in history, Sinan perfected the design of the domed mosque, which was an important symbol of both political power and the islamic faith in the Ottoman Empire.
His masterpiece is the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, although his most famous work is the Suleiman Mosque in Istanbul both of which are in turkey.
Imhotep
But before Michaelangelo and Mimar Sinan there was Imhotep who lived who lived sometime between 2667 B.C.E. and 2648 B.C.E. Although he was born a commoner, Imhotep rose to become chief architect to Pharaoh Djoser of the Third dynasty of Egypt and is known as the first architect, among other distinctions.
Imhotep is credited with designing the pharaoh’s tomb, the Djoser’s step pyramid at Saqqara. The world’s first pyramid, it consisted of multiple mastabas (flat-roofed structures with sloping sides that had been the traditional pharaoh burial structures), one stacked atop the next and becoming smaller each time. The result is a 204-foot- (62-meter-) tall step structure surrounded by a massive complex that overlooked Memphis, the ancient capital.
While earlier mastabas had been made of clay brick, Imhotep used stone blocks, and the exterior was covered in limestone. Imhotep’s design influenced subsequent burial structures, culminating in the later pyramids like Great Pyramid of Giza.
Thanks to his ingenuity, Imhotep, who was also recognized as a healer, was later deified and worshipped in Memphis — and later by the Greeks, who associated him with Asclepius, their god of medicine.
Sir Christopher Wren
Under normal circumstances, Sir Christopher Wren would probably be known as a great architect, but he might not have gone down in history as among the most famous architects who ever lived. As it happened, however, Wren was in the right place at the right time, and he possessed the right talent.
He was an English architect, astronomer, mathematician and physicist who was one of the most highly acclaimed architects. Known for his work in the English Baroque style
In the 1660s, he was commissioned to design the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford and visited Paris to study French and Italian baroque styles.
He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including what is regarded as his masterpiece, St Paul’s Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710.
Other famous buildings designed by Wren included the Greenwich Hospital, which later became the Royal Naval College, and the façade of Hampton Court Palace, both in London.
Facade – the front wall of a large building that you see from outside
Louis Henry Sullivan
Known for the principle of “form follows function,” Sullivan was anxious to break free from tradition and became influential in forging a distinctly American architecture. Similar to Sir Christopher Wren, Sullivan benefited from a great fire.
Great Chicago Fire of 1871 resulted in a construction boom and afforded architects like Sullivan with work for the decades to come.
As other architects like William LeBaron Jenney, he started implementing steel to allow for taller structures, the skyscraper was born. Sullivan was instrumental in creating a new functional design for these tall buildings, rather than sticking with outmoded traditions. Louis Henry Sullivan has been called a “father of skyscrapers”and “father of modernism”. Along with Wright and Henry Hobson Richardson, Sullivan is one of “the recognized trinity of American architecture.”
Sullivan’s designs also incorporated both geometric shapes and organic elements. Although most of his work was done in Chicago, his most famous work is the 10-story Wainwright Building in St. Louis, built in 1890, and the 16-story Guaranty Building (also known as the Prudential Building) of 1895–96 in Buffalo, New York and 1899–1904 Carson Pirie Scott Department Store by Sullivan on State Street in Chicago.
“Form follows function” would become one of the prevailing tenets of modern architects.
Louis Henry Sullivan
Known for the principle of “form follows function,” Sullivan was anxious to break free from tradition and became influential in forging a distinctly American architecture. Similar to Sir Christopher Wren, Sullivan benefited from a great fire.
Great Chicago Fire of 1871 resulted in a construction boom and afforded architects like Sullivan with work for the decades to come.
As other architects like William LeBaron Jenney, he started implementing steel to allow for taller structures, the skyscraper was born. Sullivan was instrumental in creating a new functional design for these tall buildings, rather than sticking with outmoded traditions. Louis Henry Sullivan has been called a “father of skyscrapers”and “father of modernism”. Along with Wright and Henry Hobson Richardson, Sullivan is one of “the recognized trinity of American architecture.”
Sullivan’s designs also incorporated both geometric shapes and organic elements. Although most of his work was done in Chicago, his most famous work is the 10-story Wainwright Building in St. Louis, built in 1890, and the 16-story Guaranty Building (also known as the Prudential Building) of 1895–96 in Buffalo, New York and 1899–1904 Carson Pirie Scott Department Store by Sullivan on State Street in Chicago.
“Form follows function” would become one of the prevailing tenets of modern architects.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
*Seagram Building* (New York City, USA): A skyscraper featuring a distinctive, minimalist design.
*Farnsworth House* (Plano, USA): A modernist house featuring a minimalist, glass-and-steel design.
*German Pavilion* (Barcelona, Spain)for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona.: A pavilion featuring a minimalist, modernist design.
Pavilion : A temporary structure erected at a fair or show for use by an exhibitor.
Born in Germany in 1886, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe(commonly known by his surname, Mies) was a German-American architect and one of the many modern architects to make the transition from the more ornate, traditional styles of the 19th century to the sleek, minimalist styles of the 20th century.
He is also known for designing Barcelona chairs, cantilevered chairs with steel frames. In 1937.
While in the USA, Mies designed many well-known skyscrapers, including the Seagram Building in New York City and the Lake shore drive apartments in Chicago. As he sought to reflect the Industrial Age in his building designs, he often featured exposed structural steel. And always emphasizing that “less is more,” his designs display simplicity and elegance without excessive ornamentation.
Cantilever : a long projecting beam or girder fixed at only one end, used in bridge construction.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Fallingwater (Pennsylvania, USA): A weekend home built over a waterfall, considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.
Guggenheim Museum (New York City, USA): A iconic museum featuring a spiral ramp gallery.
Robie House (Chicago, USA): A Prairie-style house considered one of the most important buildings in the development of the Prairie School style.
Many people agree that Frank Lloyd Wright is the most famous architect of the modern era. Along with Louis Henri Sullivan, his early mentor, Wright helped form a uniquely American architecture.
Wright emphasized horizontal lines to blend with the landscape. One famous example of his Prairie style home is the Robie House which was built in Chicago in 1910. Wright took this idea further, however, and promoted what he called organic architecture. This term refers to using both structure and materials to integrate designs with nature and the surrounding environment.
In 1935, he designed Fallingwater a home built over a waterfall in southwestern Pennsylvania. Wright was also responsible for the innovative design of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, which features a rising spiral walkway rather than individual floors.
Le Corbusier
Villa Savoye (Poissy, France): A modernist house considered one of the most influential buildings of the 20th century.
United Nations Headquarters (New York City, USA): A complex of buildings serving as the headquarters of the United Nations.
Chandigarh Capitol Complex (Chandigarh, India): A government complex featuring several buildings, including the Palace of Assembly
A Swiss-French architect , Charles-Édouard Jeanneret made some of the most significant contributions to modernist architecture in the 20th century. Jeanneret chose a name from his family lineage: Le Corbusier.
Le Corbusier embraced functionalism, rejecting excessive nonstructural ornamentation, and favored the modern materials of concrete and steel in his structures. He was particularly well-known for his houses and would become a major figure in the developing the International style of architecture.
He placed his buildings on stilts, partly because he believed this to be conducive to a hygienic lifestyle. And finally, his buildings incorporated flat roofs that could accommodate gardens.
He described a house as “a machine for living in.”
Antoni Gaudi
*Sagrada Família* church (Barcelona, Spain): A cathedral featuring a stunning, Gothic-inspired design.
*Park Güell* (Barcelona, Spain): A public park featuring stunning, mosaic-covered benches and buildings.
*Casa Batlló* (Barcelona, Spain): A house featuring a colorful, wavy design.
Fueled by a faith in God and a love of nature, the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí developed a style all his own. Gaudí’s works have a sui generis style.
Taking his cues from nature, then, Gaudi favored curves rather than straight lines, varied textures and vibrant colors. His unique and somewhat bizarre style was part neo-Gothic, part avant-garde, part surrealistic.
The architect and his work soon became synonymous with the city of Barcelona. However, in the 1920s and ’30s, the architectural world favored International Style, which starkly contrasted Gaudi’s philosophies. So, it wasn’t until the 1960s that Gaudi started gaining wide recognition.
Ieoh Ming Pei
*Louvre Pyramid* (Paris, France): A glass pyramid serving as the main entrance to the Louvre Museum.
*Bank of China Tower* (Hong Kong): A skyscraper featuring a distinctive asymmetrical design.
*Museum of Islamic Art* (Doha, Qatar): A museum featuring a stunning atrium and intricate geometric patterns.
Born in 1917 in China, Ieoh Ming Pei (better known as I.M. Pei) came to the United States in the 1930s to study architecture. However, by the time he graduated, he wasn’t able to return to China due to the outbreak of World War II. Instead, he stayed in the United States, eventually becoming a citizen in 1954.
In his work, Pei strove to bring together the modern and traditional — what he called the “Impossible dream” Pei’s designs are considered a continuation of the International Style popularized by architects like Le Corbusier. However, Pei’s also known for brutalism, an offshoot of the International Style that uses bold forms and utilitarian principles. For instance, Pei’s large, rectangular concrete blocks, like those used for his National Center for Atmospheric Research.
In the 1960s, Pei was selected to design the terminal at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, and he gained national recognition in 1974 when he designed the National Gallery of Art East Building in Washington, D.C. He is perhaps best known for the controversial Glass pyramid structure in the courtyard of the Louvre Museum in Paris, built in 1989.
A courtyard in a house is a private open space that’s usually surrounded by walls or buildings. Courtyards can be found in the center, front, side, or back of a house.
Norman Foster
*30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin)* (London, UK): A skyscraper featuring a distinctive, pickle-shaped design.
*Reichstag Dome* (Berlin, Germany): A glass dome featuring a stunning, spiral ramp. *Hong Kong International Airport* (Hong Kong): An airport featuring a massive, curved roof.
When he became the 1999 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Sir Norman Foster had not yet even completed some of his most iconic buildings. He was born in Manchester, England.
His firm has completed a variety of projects, including airports, cultural buildings, private homes and product designs, while earning more than 400 awards. Foster + Partners has buildings around the world, like the 1985 HSBC project in Shanghai that features feng shui-balancing cement canons on the roof, and one of the world’s tallest bridges, the Millau Viaduct in Southern France.
But visitors to London may be most familiar with his local projects like the Great Court of the British Museum, the Millennium Bridge, London City Hall and The Gherkin.
Frank Gehry
– *Guggenheim Museum Bilbao* (Bilbao, Spain): A flowing, curvaceous museum featuring a striking atrium.
– *Walt Disney Concert Hall* (Los Angeles, USA): A concert hall featuring a stainless steel exterior and a unique, curved design.
– *8 Spruce Street* (New York City, USA): A skyscraper featuring a distinctive, undulating design.
Born in Canada he moved to the United States as a teenager, Frank Gehry eventually became a leading force in the deconstructionist and postmodern styles of architecture. As opposed to the rigid, utilitarian tendencies of the international style, Gehry explores irregular forms and radical, expressive shapes.
By the 1990s, he honed his style and gained a reputation for designing seemingly organic, undulating, free-flowing structures.
He designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, which opened in 1997 and was meant to resemble both a ship and a living creature. He also designed the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, which opened in 2003 and is known for not only its unique structure, but also superior acoustics.
Sir David Adjaye
Born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Sir David Adjaye was exposed to many cultures and styles of architecture during his youth due to his diplomat father’s career. The Ghanaian-British architect settled in London.
He documented 54 African cities and published the images as “Adjaye Africa Architecture: A Photographic Survey of Metropolitan Architecture.”
After founding the firm, Adjaye earned civic commissions, including the Ideas Stores public libraries in London and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver. In a partnership with Philip Freelon as Freelon Adjaye Bond/Smith Group, the pair won an international competition in 2009 to design the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, D.C.
Louis Kahn (1901-1974)
*National Assembly Building* (Dhaka, Bangladesh): A government building featuring a stunning, geometric design.
*Salk Institute* (La Jolla, USA): A research institute featuring a minimalist, modernist design.
*Kimbell Art Museum* (Fort Worth, USA): A museum featuring a stunning, natural light-filled design.
IIM, Ahmedabad
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut (1951–1953), the first significant commission of Louis Kahn. The ceilings, which are three feet (0.9 meters) thick, consist of a grid of triangular openings that draw the eye upward into dimly-lit, three-sided pyramidal spaces.
Louis Isadore Kahn was an Estonian- born American architect based in Philadelphia
Kahn created a style that was monumental and monolithic; his heavy buildings for the most part do not hide their weight, their materials, or the way they are assembled.
He was awarded AIA Gold medal and RIBA Gold medal
AIA American Institute of Architects
RIBA Royal institute of British Architects
Renzo Piano (1937-present)
*Centre Georges Pompidou* (Paris, France): A modern art museum featuring a colorful, tubular design.
*The Shard* (London, UK): A skyscraper featuring a distinctive, shard-like design.
*Whitney Museum of American Art* (New York City, USA): A museum featuring a stunning, asymmetrical design.
Kansai International Airport (1991–1994)
In 1988 Piano and Rice won an international competition for a new airport to be constructed on an artificial island in the port of Osaka, Japan.
Renzo Piano is an Italian architect.He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998.
He has been a senator for life in the Italian senate.
Arata Isozaki
Japanese architect Arata Isozaki was born in Kyushu, Japan. He was influenced by the destruction he saw during World War II and studied architecture at the University of Tokyo with an interest in rebuilding damaged cities. He theorized “an aesthetic to give form to the concept of obliteration”, which he labeled ‘twilight gloom,'” according to the Museum of Modern Art.
The Metabolist movement, which combined technology and utilitarianism, influenced his early work, such as the 1966 Ōita Prefectural Library. Varying his approach, he created many additional innovative structures, earning his first international commission in 1986, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.
During the next several decades, Isozaki’s international projects included Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona; the Team Disney Building in Orlando, Florida; the Qatar National Convention Center in Doha; the Shanghai Symphony Hall in China and many more. His projects total more than 100, and for his significant contribution to the field, he was named 2019 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
Zaha Hadid
*Heydar Aliyev Center* (Baku, Azerbaijan): A flowing, curvaceous building featuring a stunning atrium.
*London Aquatics Centre* (London, UK): A swimming venue featuring a distinctive, wave-like design.
*Guangzhou Opera House* (Guangzhou, China): An opera house featuring a unique, twin-blob design.
Known for infusing projects with surprise shapes that defy physics, architect Zaha Hadid studied mathematics.
She was born in Baghdad in 1950, during a period of prosperity and modernization in Iraq. She formed her firm Zaha Hadid Architects in 1980, basing it in London.
She did not complete a major project in the U.K. until 2011 — the Riverside Museum of Transport in Glasgow, Scotland. Nevertheless, she designed the inaugural Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in 2000, and her buildings around the world continuously captured imaginations.
Consider the Guangzhou Opera House, completed in 2010, which features a “contoured profile” that opens access to the riverside, or the swooping Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan, which establishes a continuous, fluid relationship between its surrounding plaza and the building’s interior. For her contributions to the field, Hadid won the Pritzker in 2004, the first female architect to do so.
Henry Hobson Richardson
Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-1886) was a prominent American architect who designed many famous buildings in the United States. best known for his work in a style that became known as Richardsonian Romanesque. Along with Louis Henry Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright Richardson is one of “the recognized trinity of American architecture.”
Here are some of his most notable works:
1. Trinity Church , Boston, Massachusetts – Considered one of Richardson’s masterpieces, this church is a iconic example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture.
2. Boston Public Library , Boston, Massachusetts – Richardson designed the original building, which was completed in 1854. The building has since undergone several expansions and renovations.
3. Albany City Hall , Albany, New York – This building is a notable example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture and features a distinctive clock tower.
4. Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane , Buffalo, New York – This building was designed in collaboration with Frederick Law Olmsted and features a unique blend of Richardsonian Romanesque and Victorian Gothic styles.
5. Sever Hall , Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts – This building is a notable example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture and features a distinctive red sandstone façade.
Richardson’s designs were known for their:
– *Use of rough-hewn stone*: Richardson often used rough-hewn stone to create a sense of solidity and permanence.
– *Romanesque Revival style*: Richardson was a pioneer of the Romanesque Revival style, which emphasized the use of arches, columns, and other classical elements.
– *Emphasis on functionality*: Richardson’s designs often emphasized functionality and practicality, as seen in his use of open floor plans and flexible spaces.
Eero Saarinen
Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen did early in his life.
Saarinen”s style was characterized by “curvilinear and organically inspired sculptural forms” that were new at the time. In addition to his work designing furniture like the Womb chair and Tulip table for Knoll, Saarinen is responsible for iconic structures like the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the General Motors Technical center, Warren, Michigan, his first solo project.
Like the arch, his TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport (previously Idlewild), was completed after his death. Saarinen was posthumously awarded the AIA Gold Medal in 1962.
