Institute for Sound and Vision, The Netherlands
Along with architecture firm Neutelings Riedijk, Jaap Drupsteen covered the façade of the massive media archive and museum with images from Dutch television, abstracted into a giant four-sided mural and baked directly onto cast glass. (Design by Neutelings Riedijk Architecten/Photo by Scagliola Brakkee)
The Golden Temple, Amritsar, India
This most sacred Sikh shrine sits in the middle of what was once a wooded lake. The radiance of this gilded building is amplified by reflections in the surrounding water and the devotional music that emanates from the temple. (Geetesh Bajaj)
Burj Al Arab, Dubai, UAE
This 60-story sail-shaped hotel was designed to be a national icon. But the interior is where the beauty lies: a nearly 600-foot-tall atrium. The undersides of tier after tier of semicircular balconies reveal a spectrum of colours. (Courtesy of Burj al Arab)
Sagrada Família, Barcelona
Antoni Gaudí spent more than 40 years on this glorious, chaotically complex, Gothic-Art Nouveau cathedral. Though he died in 1926, construction continues today. Completion is scheduled for sometime between 2017 and 2026. (Kelly Kollar)
National Congress Hall, Brasilia, Brazil
Architect Oscar Niemeyer’s colonnaded marvel, with its grand sci-fi entrance ramp, skinny twin towers, and two bowl-shaped meeting halls, treats the business of government as a monumental work of art. (Courtesy of Embratur)
The Guggenheim, Bilbao,Spain
The Frank Gehry–designed, titanium-clad phenomenon that upstaged the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright transformed the way the world understands architecture, art museums, and the strategies for reviving depressed industrial cities. Today, the shiny undulating museum doesn’t look as shocking as it once did, but it does embody a certain kind of late 20th-century thinking—the thrill of formal complexity and high art.
The Chrysler Building, New York City
Designed by architect William van Alen, the Chrysler’s shiny, filigreed Art Deco spire is the most indispensable piece of the New York City skyline, perfectly balancing the primal thrust of the classic American skyscraper with the desire for a little bling. (It was the world’s tallest for less than a year in 1931 before that zeppelin-masted tower eight blocks south took the spotlight.) Day or night, its stainless-steel crown still dazzles like nothing else.
Mont St. Michel, Normandy, France
Though not as lavish as some landlocked cathedrals, this abbey is certainly the most dramatically situated, enjoying prime real estate just off the coast of Normandy. The first abbey was built in 709, with construction continuing for hundreds of years. Spurning the safety of the causeway (built in 1879 and currently being reconstructed), pilgrims still scamper across the sands at low tide to reach the Mont, and risk being overtaken by fast-moving waters.
ICMC at Brandenburg Technical University, Cottbus,Germany
While many architects prefer the smoothest, clearest glass, Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron specializes in texture. This technologically sophisticated university library, in an obscure corner of Eastern Germany, is clad in frosted glass—and embossed with letters from the world’s alphabets. Shaped like an amoeba, with its central spiral staircase in bright magenta and green, the seven-story building looks like a carnival ride.
