International Masters of Architecture

Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 - April 9, 1959)

“I believe in God, only I spell it in Nature.”

  • American architect, designer, writer, & educator

  • >1,000 structures for 7 decades

  • prairie style: 20th century US residential designs; promoted comfort, convenience, and spaciousness

  • organic architecture: designing in harmony with humanity and its environment

  • architectural examples:

    • Falling Water/ Kauffman Haus

    • Annie Pfieffer Chapel

    • Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC

    • Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium

    • Unity Temple

    • Marine County Civic Center

    • Beth Sholom Synagogue

    • The Historic Park Inn Hotel

    • Yodoko Geihinkan, Japan

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Frank Gehry (February 28, 1929 - present)

“Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.”

  • treated each commission as “a sculptural object, a spiritual container, a space with light and air.”

  • Pritzker Architecture Prize (1989)

  • deconstructivism

  • architectural examples:

    • New World Symphony, Miami

    • Guggenheim Museum, Abu Dhabi

    • Guggennheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain

    • Walt Disney Concert Hall

    • Biomuseo, Panama City

    • Jay Pritzker Pavilion

    • American Center, Paris

    • Gehry Residence, Claifornia

    • California Aerospace Museum

    • DZ Bank, Germany

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Le Corbusier (October 6, 1887 - August 27, 1965)

“The house is a machine for living in.”

  • Swiss architect and city planner

  • his designs combine functionalism w/ bold, sculptural expressionism

  • one of the pioneers of Modern architecture

  • architectural examples:

    • Villa Savoye

    • Unite d’Habitation

    • Church of Notre Dame du Haut

    • Palace of Assembly

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Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid (October 31, 1950 - March 21, 2016)

“There are 360 degrees, so why stick to one?”

  • Iraqi-born British architect

  • deconstructivist architecture - characterized by sense of fragmentation, movement, and instability

  • Pritzker Architecture Award (2004)

  • architectural examples:

    • Vitra Fire Station

    • Heydar Aliyev Centre

    • Dominion Office Building

    • Jockey Club Innovation Tower

    • London Aquatics Center, London, England

    • Galaxy SOHO, Beijing

    • Phaeno Science Center, Germany

    • Bridge Pavilion, Glasgow, Scotland

    • Danjiang Bridge, China

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Norman Robert Foster (June 1, 1935 - present)

“Architecture is an expression of values.”

  • British architect

  • sleek modern buildings made of steel and glass

  • technologically advanced “shed”

  • Pritzker Architecture Prize (1999)

  • architectural examples:

    • The Gherkin

    • London City Hall

    • Apple Park

    • Bund Finance Center, China

    • Carre d’Art, Nimes, France

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Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe (March 27, 1886 - August 17, 1969)

“God is in the details.”

  • German-born American architect

  • rectilinear forms - elegant simplicity

  • high-rise bldgs - steel skeletons sheathed in glass curtain-wall facades

  • architectural examples:

    • Farnsworth House

    • Seagram Building

    • Villa Tugendhat

    • S.R. Crown Hall

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Santiago Calatrava (July 28, 1951 - present)

“Technology is a vocabulary and a language in which you can say many things.”

  • Spanish architect, structural engineer, sculptor, and painter

  • bridges supported by single-leaning pylons, railway stations, and stadiums

  • fusion of art, engineering, and nature

  • designs often incorporate organic forms

    • also structural and of the modernism movement

  • architectural examples:

    • City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia, Spain

    • Gare de Oriente, Portugal

    • Museu de Amanha, Rio de Janeiro

    • Samuel Beckett Bridge, Dublin, Ireland

    • Sundial Bridge, California, USA

    • Milwaukee Art Museum

    • Turning Torso

    • World Trade Center Station

    • Athens Olympic Velodrome

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Louis Khan (February 20, 1901 - March 17, 1974)

“Every Building must have… its own soul.”

  • American architect

  • blgs are characterized by powerful, massive forms

  • works are a combination of servant-served typology w/ inspiration from classical and medieval architecture, basic geometric forms, and elegant, expressive use of familiar materials (concrete & brick)

  • architectural examples:

    • Yale University Art Gallery

    • Sher-E Bangla Nagar

    • Salk Institute

    • First Unitarian Church, Rochester

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Renzo Piano (September 14, 1937 - present)

“Enjoying Art is a personal matter. It’s made up by contemplation, silence, abstraction.”

  • Italian architect

  • high-tech public spaces

  • technological and thematic concepts

  • Pritzker Architecture Prize (1998)

  • architectural examples:

    • The Center Pompidou, Paris

    • The Shard, London

    • Art Institute of Chicago

    • Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome

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Philip Johnson (July 8, 1906 - January 25, 2005)

“All architects want to live beyond their deaths.”

  • American architect and critic

  • International style (Modern architecture) and postmodernist architecture

  • known for the use of glass

  • Director of the Dept. of Architecture of the Museum of Modern Art, NY (1932)

  • Pritzker Architecture Prize (1979)

  • architectural examples:

    • Glass House, Connecticut

    • AT&T Building, NYC

    • Crystal Cathedral, California

    • Lipstick Building

    • University of Houston

    • Amon Carter Museum

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Oscar Ribiero de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho (December 15, 1907 - December 5, 2012)

“Form Follows Beauty.”

  • Brazilian architect

  • pioneer of modern architecture in Latin America

  • freeform, flowing lines

  • political but did not show in his works

  • goal: give beauty to the world

  • Pritzker Architecture Prize (1988)

  • architectural examples:

    • Cathedral of Brasilia

    • National Congress Building, Brazil

    • Palacio de Alvorada

    • Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum

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Antoni Gaudi (June 25, 1852 - June 10, 1926)

“The straight line belongs to men, the curved one to God.”

  • Catalan architect

  • style: freedom of form, voluptuous color and texture, and organic unity

  • his buildings became essentially representations of their structure and materials

  • primary elements: piers and columns that tilt = diagonal thrusts, and thin-shell, laminated tile vaults = very little thrust

  • architectural examples:

    • La Sagrada Familia

    • Park Guell

    • Casa Battlo

    • Casa Mila

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Ieoh Ming Pei (April 26, 1917 - May 16, 2019)

“Life is architecture and architecture is the mirror of life.”

  • Chinese-born American architect

  • known for large, elegantly designed urban buildings and complexes

  • Style: extension and elaboration on the rectangular forms and irregular silhouettes of the prevailing International style

  • Pritzker Architecture Prize (1983)

  • architectural examples:

    • Louvre Pyramid

    • Bank of China Tower

    • Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

    • World Trade Center Baltimore

    • Suzhou Museum, China

    • Luce Memorial Chapel, Taiwan

    • Museu do Amanha, Rio de Janeiro

    • John Hancock Tower in Boston, U.S.

    • Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, U.S.

    • National Center for Atmospheric Research, Colorado

    • Everson Museum of Art, NYC

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Eero Saarinen (August 20, 1910 - September 1, 1961)

“The purpose of architecture is to shelter and enhance man’s life on earth and to fulfill his belief in the nobility of his existence.”

  • Finnish-born American Architect

  • dramatically different designs that displayed a richer & more diverse vocabulary

  • Style: neo-futuristic style

  • architectural examples:

    • The Gateway Arch

    • TWA Flight Center

    • MIT Chapel

    • North Christian Church

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Remment Lucas Koolhaas (November 17, 1944 - present)

“We live in an almost perfect stillness and work with incredible urgency.”

  • Dutch architect and former journalist

  • known for works that embrace modernity

  • Style: no distinct style but caters to each project

    • utilizes the best of modern technology and materials that suit the needs of a particular site and client

  • Pritzker Architecture Prize (2000)

  • architectural examples:

    • CCTV Headquarters

    • Qatar National Library

    • Dee and Charles WYLY Theatre

    • Seattle Central Library

    • Maison de Bordeaux

    • De Rotterdam

    • Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Russia

    • Casa de Musica in Portugal

    • 121 East 22nd in New York City, U.S.

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Jean Nouvel (August 12, 1945 - present)

“Art should be created for life, not for the museum.”

  • French architect

  • visual landscape - bldgs. that fit the context. Can sometimes contrast with the environment

  • Style: no signature style

  • Pritzker Architecture Prize (2008)

  • architectural examples:

    • Louvre Abu Dhabi

    • National Museum of Qatar

    • Torre Glories

    • Arab World Institute

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Richard Buckminster Fuller (July 12, 1895 - July 1, 1983)

“Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.”

  • American engineer, architect, and futurist; poet and philosopher

  • developed geodesic dome

  • architectural examples:

    • Science World

    • Geodesic Dome, ‘67 Expo Montreal

    • Dymaxion House

    • Calico Dome

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Louis Sullivan (September 3, 1856 - April 14, 1924)

“A proper building grows naturally, logically, and poetically out of all its conditions.”

  • American architect

  • spiritual father of modern American architecture

  • early skyscraper design

  • style: richness of ornament

  • architectural examples:

    • Wainwright Builing

    • Guaranty Building

    • Auditorium Building

    • National Farmers Bank

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Cesar Pelli (October 12, 1926 - present)

“The desire to reach for the sky runs very deep in the human psyche.”

  • Argentine-born American architect

  • perfected the technology of glass skins, producing bldgs. of lightweight, almost tent-like appearance

  • bldg. surfaces were often in glass or thin stone veneer

  • abstract, crystalline glass shapes w/ lines of colored stone or metal

  • architectural examples:

    • Petronas Towers

    • Connecticut Science Center

    • International Finance Center

    • Salesforce Tower

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Walter Adolph Geeorg Gropius (May 18, 1883 - July 5, 1969)

“Architecture begins where engineering ends.”

  • German-American architect and educator; director of the Bauhaus (1919-’28)

  • essential in the development of modern architecture

  • included school buildings and faculty housings

  • style: turned away from personal and subjective aspects → intellectual solutions for larger and socially urgent problems (HUMANISM)

  • architectural examples:

    • Bauhaus Dessau

    • MetLife Building

    • John F. Kennedy Federal Building

    • Haus Am Horn