Fine & Performing Arts

Architecture

Architectural styles, landmark buildings, and major architects.

A study reference, not a substitute for primary sources. Updated 2026-06-02.

Architectural Styles Through History

Ancient and Classical

Ancient Egyptian — monumental stone construction; post-and-lintel system; massive pylons, hypostyle halls, obelisks. Key forms: the pyramid, mortuary temple (Karnak, Luxor), mastaba.
Mesopotamian — mud-brick construction; the ziggurat (stepped temple platform); Babylon’s Ishtar Gate (c. 575 BCE) features glazed blue-brick reliefs.
Greek orders — three canonical column systems: Doric (plain capital, no base; Parthenon), Ionic (scroll volutes; Erechtheion), Corinthian (acanthus-leaf capital; Temple of Olympian Zeus). The entablature sits above columns: architrave, frieze, cornice.
Hellenistic — expansion of Greek forms across Alexander’s empire; larger scale, greater ornament; the Corinthian order predominates.
Roman — adopted Greek orders but added the arch, the barrel vault, the groin vault, and the dome. Invented opus caementicium (Roman concrete, pozzolana-based). Signature building types: basilica, amphitheater, bath complex, triumphal arch, aqueduct.

Late Antique and Medieval

Byzantine — centralized church plan; pendentive carries a dome over a square bay; mosaic decoration; marble revetment. Key marker: the pendentive (curved triangular surface transitioning from square to round).
Romanesque (c. 1000–1150) — thick stone walls; semicircular arches; barrel and groin vaults; heavy piers; small windows; twin-tower facade. Examples: Durham Cathedral (UK), Speyer Cathedral (Germany), Santiago de Compostela (Spain).
Gothic (c. 1140–1500) — pointed arch, ribbed vault, and flying buttress work together to transfer load outward, enabling thin walls and large stained-glass windows. Originated at Saint-Denis (Abbot Suger, 1137–44). High Gothic: Chartres, Reims, Amiens cathedrals. English variant: Salisbury, Canterbury; “Perpendicular” tracery in later English work.
Abbot Suger — Abbot of Saint-Denis (r. 1122–51); patron of the first Gothic building (Saint-Denis choir, 1140–44); articulated the theology of lux nova (divine light through colored glass) as the rationale for Gothic luminosity.
Amiens Cathedral — begun 1220; France. Highest Gothic nave in France (42.3 m); west facade with three deeply recessed portals and a Gallery of Kings; architect Robert de Luzarches; nave completed c. 1236.
Reims Cathedral — begun 1211; Reims, France. Coronation church of French kings; fully developed High Gothic; smiling angel (L’Ange au Sourire) on west facade; rose windows; architect Jean d’Orbais began the choir.
Cologne Cathedral — begun 1248, completed 1880; Germany. World’s largest Gothic cathedral by facade width; holds the Shrine of the Three Kings; its completion was driven by the 19th-century Gothic Revival; twin spires at 157 m.
Mudejar — Iberian hybrid of Islamic and Christian Romanesque/Gothic elements; decorative brickwork and tilework; Alcázar of Seville.
Islamic architecture — iwan (vaulted hall), muqarnas (stalactite vaulting), geometric tilework, hypostyle mosque, minaret. Regional peaks: the Alhambra (Granada, 14th c.), Süleymaniye Mosque (Istanbul, Sinan, 1558), Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque (Isfahan, 1619).

Renaissance and Baroque

Italian Renaissance (c. 1420–1600) — revival of classical orders; symmetry; proportion derived from Vitruvius; the pilaster, the loggia, the rusticated base. Florence, then Rome, as center. Key text: Leon Battista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria (1452).
Pazzi Chapel — c. 1441–61; Florence, Italy. Filippo Brunelleschi; small chapter-house in the cloister of Santa Croce; paradigm of early Renaissance design — grey pietra serena pilasters on white plaster, twelve terracotta roundels by Luca della Robbia, precise modular geometry.
Tempietto — 1502; San Pietro in Montorio, Rome. Donato Bramante; small circular martyrium marking the traditional site of St. Peter’s crucifixion; Doric colonnade, drum, and hemispherical dome; considered the first High Renaissance building.
Villa Rotonda (Villa Capra) — c. 1566–91; Vicenza, Italy. Andrea Palladio; four identical Ionic porticos on a square plan with central dome; the single most imitated Renaissance building (Jefferson’s Monticello, Chiswick House, etc.).
Four Books of Architecture — I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (1570); Andrea Palladio; illustrated treatise codifying classical principles and publishing Palladio’s own designs; transmitted Palladian influence to England and the American colonies via Inigo Jones and Lord Burlington.
Laurentian Library — begun 1524; Florence, Italy. Michelangelo; vestibule staircase with triple-split central stair, blind niches, brackets that serve no structural purpose; canonical example of Mannerism (deliberate violation of classical rules); reading room completed by Tribolo and Ammannati.
Mannerism (c. 1520–1600) — deliberately complex, rule-bending; elongated forms; Giulio Romano’s Palazzo del Te (Mantua, 1534).
Baroque (c. 1600–1750) — drama, movement, light/shadow (chiaroscuro in space); curved forms; grand axes; integration of sculpture and painting. Centers: Rome, Versailles, Vienna, Prague. Key figures: Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Francesco Borromini, Jules Hardouin-Mansart.
St. Peter’s colonnade — 1656–67; Vatican City. Gian Lorenzo Bernini; two sweeping hemicycles of 284 Doric columns defining the piazza; Bernini described them as the church’s “motherly arms” embracing the faithful.
Baldachin of St. Peter’s — 1623–34; Vatican City. Gian Lorenzo Bernini; bronze canopy 29 m tall over the high altar and tomb of St. Peter; twisted Solomonic columns; first major commission of Bernini’s career under Urban VIII.
San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane — 1638–46; Rome, Italy. Francesco Borromini; tiny church with undulating convex-concave facade; oval interior; a masterpiece of Baroque spatial complexity; Borromini’s first independent commission.
Vierzehnheiligen (Basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers) — 1743–72; Upper Franconia, Germany. Johann Balthasar Neumann; German Rococo pilgrimage church; lavish stucco interior; interlocking oval spatial sequences; the central shrine (Gnadenaltar) sits mid-nave, not at the east end.
Rococo (c. 1720–1780) — lighter, more ornamental offshoot of Baroque; pastel colors; asymmetric shell and scroll ornament; predominantly interior decoration; Amalienburg (Munich, François de Cuvilliés, 1739).
Mughal — synthesis of Persian, Central Asian, and Indian traditions; red sandstone and white marble; bulbous domes; formal char-bagh gardens. Apogee under Shah Jahan (r. 1628–58).

Neoclassical and 19th Century

Neoclassical (c. 1750–1850) — reaction against Baroque excess; return to Greek and Roman purity; influenced by Winckelmann and the Pompeii excavations. Key works: Panthéon (Soufflot, Paris, 1790), Brandenburg Gate (Langhans, Berlin, 1791), U.S. Capitol (Thornton/Latrobe/Bulfinch/Walter, Washington, 1800–1868).
Panthéon (Paris) — 1758–90; Paris, France. Jacques-Germain Soufflot; originally a church dedicated to St. Geneviève, secularized as a mausoleum for French national heroes (Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, Curie); Greek-cross plan with a Corinthian portico; shallow dome on a drum with a colonnade; Soufflot’s masterwork and one of the first buildings to integrate iron reinforcement into masonry construction.
Monticello — 1768–1809 (multiple phases); Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. Thomas Jefferson; Palladian-inspired plantation house; Jefferson designed it himself, incorporating ideas from European travels; octagonal dome visible from the east; appears on the US nickel.
University of Virginia Rotunda — 1826; Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. Thomas Jefferson; modeled on the Pantheon at half scale; centerpiece of Jefferson’s “academical village”; the Lawn flanked by colonnaded ranges — a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Altes Museum — 1830; Berlin, Germany. Karl Friedrich Schinkel; 87-column Ionic colonnade across the entire facade; central rotunda modeled on the Pantheon; widely regarded as the definitive German Neoclassical building.
US Capitol — 1793–1868; Washington, D.C., USA. Multiple architects (William Thornton won original competition; Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Charles Bulfinch, Thomas U. Walter extended and added the cast-iron dome); the dome was completed during the Civil War as a symbol of national unity.
Gothic Revival (c. 1740–1900) — Romantic re-embrace of medieval forms; England as center. Pugin argued Gothic was morally superior. Palace of Westminster (Barry and Pugin, London, 1840–70); Trinity Church (Richardson, Boston, 1877) blends Romanesque Revival.
Crystal Palace — 1851; Hyde Park, London. Joseph Paxton (originally a gardener and greenhouse designer); prefabricated cast-iron and sheet glass; built in nine months for the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations; modular unit system; moved to Sydenham 1854; destroyed by fire 1936. Pioneered industrial prefabrication.
Paris Opera (Palais Garnier) — 1875; Paris, France. Charles Garnier; opulent Beaux-Arts; grand marble staircase; polychrome stone facade; the chandelier crash episode inspired The Phantom of the Opera; the auditorium ceiling was overpainted by Marc Chagall in 1964.
Eiffel Tower — 1889; Paris, France. Gustave Eiffel (engineer Émile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin designed the ironwork); built for the Centennial Exposition; 330 m with antenna; wrought-iron lattice; initially opposed by artists (the “Committee of Three Hundred”); saved by its use as a radio antenna.
Richardsonian Romanesque — style named for H. H. Richardson; heavy rusticated stone, round arches, squat columns, polychromatic masonry; Trinity Church, Boston (1877) is the canonical example; also Allegheny County Courthouse (Pittsburgh, 1888).
Beaux-Arts (c. 1880–1920) — French academic tradition; monumental civic and institutional buildings; elaborate ornament; grand staircases. New York Public Library (Carrère and Hastings, 1911); Grand Central Terminal (Reed & Stem / Warren & Wetmore, New York, 1913).
Arts and Crafts — British and American reaction to industrialization; handcraft, natural materials, honest structure; William Morris; Gamble House (Greene & Greene, Pasadena, 1908).
Art Nouveau (c. 1890–1910) — organic, sinuous ornament derived from plants; whiplash line; integration of structure and decoration. Victor Horta’s Hôtel Tassel (Brussels, 1893); Gaudí in Barcelona; Hector Guimard’s Paris Métro entrances.
Hôtel Tassel — 1893; Brussels, Belgium. Victor Horta; the first mature Art Nouveau building; exposed iron columns with whiplash tendrils, mosaic floors, integrated structural and ornamental ironwork; UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Guimard’s Métro entrances — 1900–12; Paris, France. Hector Guimard; cast-iron Art Nouveau canopies (“edicules”) for Paris Métro stations; organic plant-form ironwork; two original glass-and-iron pavilions survive at Abbesses and Porte Dauphine.
Sagrada Família — begun 1882 (design by Gaudí from 1883), ongoing; Barcelona, Spain. Antoni Gaudí; Roman Catholic basilica; Gaudí devoted his last 43 years to it; parabolic arches, hyperboloid vaults, branching tree-columns; UNESCO World Heritage Site; projected completion date late 2020s; Gaudí’s crypt is inside.
Casa Batlló — 1904–06; Barcelona, Spain. Antoni Gaudí; remodel of an existing building; dragon-scale tiled roof, ossified balconies, ceramic-mosaic facade; UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Casa Milà (La Pedrera) — 1906–12; Barcelona, Spain. Antoni Gaudí; apartment building; undulating stone facade with no straight lines; rooftop warrior-helmet chimneys; UNESCO World Heritage Site.

20th-Century Movements

Chicago School (c. 1880–1900) — steel-frame skyscrapers; “form follows function” (Sullivan); the elevator enabling vertical expansion. Home Insurance Building (Jenney, Chicago, 1885) often cited as first skyscraper.
“Form Follows Function” — phrase coined by Louis Sullivan in his 1896 essay “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered”; the watchword of functional Modernism, though Sullivan himself used rich ornament and meant it philosophically rather than as a ban on decoration.
Art Deco (c. 1920–1940) — geometric ornament; zigzag motifs; polished materials; optimism of the Machine Age. Chrysler Building (Van Alen, New York, 1930); Rockefeller Center (Harrison et al., New York, 1930–39).
Expressionism — emotional, sculptural forms; Einstein Tower (Mendelsohn, Potsdam, 1921); Chilehaus (Höger, Hamburg, 1924).
De Stijl / Neoplasticism — primary colors, right angles, abstract grid; Rietveld Schröder House (Utrecht, 1924).
Bauhaus (1919–1933) — school founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar; unified fine and applied arts; clean geometry; industrial materials. Bauhaus Dessau building (Gropius, 1926). Closed under Nazi pressure.
Barcelona Pavilion — 1929 (demolished 1930; reconstructed 1986); Barcelona, Spain. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition; crucible of Miesian principles — free plan, travertine and onyx marble planes, the Barcelona Chair, reflecting pool.
“Less Is More” — aphorism attributed to Mies van der Rohe; epitomizes the reductive aesthetic of the International Style; parodied by Robert Venturi’s counter-slogan “Less is a bore” (Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, 1966).
Five Points of a New Architecture — Le Corbusier’s 1927 manifesto principles: (1) pilotis (structural columns freeing the ground), (2) free plan (structure separate from partition walls), (3) free facade (non-load-bearing exterior), (4) horizontal ribbon windows, (5) roof garden; embodied in Villa Savoye (1931).
Unité d’Habitation — 1952; Marseille, France. Le Corbusier; 337-apartment “vertical city” on pilotis; rooftop communal facilities (running track, nursery, gymnasium); typology influenced post-war public housing worldwide.
Notre-Dame du Haut (Ronchamp) — 1955; Ronchamp, France. Le Corbusier; pilgrim chapel; thick curved concrete walls with irregular punched windows of colored glass; upswept concave roof; sculptural departure from his rectilinear Purism; UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Prairie Style — Frank Lloyd Wright’s early residential idiom (c. 1900–1910); horizontal emphasis echoing the flat Midwestern landscape; low-pitched overhanging roofs; open interconnected plan; natural materials; hearth as spatial anchor. Robie House (1910) is the canonical example.
Usonian houses — Frank Lloyd Wright’s term (from c. 1936) for affordable single-story houses for middle-class Americans; slab-on-grade, radiant floor heating, no basement or attic, natural materials, carport rather than garage.
Farnsworth House — 1951; Plano, Illinois, USA. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; glass-walled weekend retreat on steel columns; ultimate expression of “less is more”; client Edith Farnsworth later sued Mies over cost overruns.
International Style / Modernism (c. 1920–1970) — flat roofs; ribbon windows; open floor plans; steel and glass curtain wall; no applied ornament; pilotis (Le Corbusier’s “Five Points”). Seagram Building (Mies van der Rohe, New York, 1958); Lever House (SOM, New York, 1952).
TWA Flight Center — 1962; John F. Kennedy Airport, New York. Eero Saarinen; concrete shell resembling a bird in flight; expressive swooping vaults; repurposed as a hotel lobby within the TWA Hotel (2019). Saarinen died before its completion.
Dulles International Airport — 1962; Chantilly, Virginia, USA. Eero Saarinen; catenary cable-hung roof between concrete pylons; designed around the “mobile lounge” concept; one of the first airports planned from scratch for the jet age.
Gateway Arch — 1965; St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Eero Saarinen (design 1948 competition); 192 m stainless-steel catenary arch; tram inside; commemorates westward expansion; Saarinen died in 1961, four years before completion.
Salk Institute for Biological Studies — 1965; La Jolla, California, USA. Louis Kahn; two mirrored laboratory wings with “served” lab spaces and “servant” utility towers; central travertine courtyard with a single water channel by Luis Barragán; no plants in the courtyard.
Kimbell Art Museum — 1972; Fort Worth, Texas, USA. Louis Kahn; cycloid concrete vaults with silver-reflector skylights producing natural diffuse light; widely regarded as the finest museum building in the United States.
Brutalism (c. 1950–1980) — exposed raw concrete (béton brut); bold massing; sculptural service towers. Barbican Centre (Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, London, 1982); Boston City Hall (Kallmann, McKinnell & Knowles, 1968); National Theatre (Lasdun, London, 1976).
Metabolism (Japan, 1960s–70s) — modular, interchangeable “cells” on a megastructure “spine”; Nakagin Capsule Tower (Kurokawa, Tokyo, 1972; demolished 2022).
Postmodernism (c. 1970–1990) — rejection of modernist austerity; historical allusion; irony; decoration. AT&T Building (now 550 Madison; Johnson/Burgee, New York, 1984) with Chippendale top; Piazza d’Italia (Moore, New Orleans, 1978).
“Less Is a Bore” — Robert Venturi’s rejoinder to Mies’s “less is more,” in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966); the foundational text of architectural Postmodernism; MoMA published it; described by Philip Johnson as “the most important writing on architecture since Le Corbusier.”
Vanna Venturi House — 1964; Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, USA. Robert Venturi; designed for his mother; deliberately quotes and distorts classical elements (broken pediment, oversized arch, split gable); first major built statement of Postmodernism.
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture — 1966; Robert Venturi; polemic against Miesian orthodoxy; advocates richness, ambiguity, and historical reference; canonical Postmodern manifesto.
Deconstructivism (c. 1988–) — fragmented, dissonant forms; non-rectilinear geometry; influenced by Derrida. MoMA exhibition “Deconstructivist Architecture” (1988) canonized the movement. Practitioners: Gehry, Hadid, Libeskind, Tschumi.
Walt Disney Concert Hall — 2003; Los Angeles, California, USA. Frank Gehry; stainless-steel billowing facade; home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic; acoustics by Yasuhisa Toyota; interior Douglas-fir cladding nicknamed “french fries” by locals.
East Building, National Gallery of Art — 1978; Washington, D.C., USA. I. M. Pei; trapezoidal site resolved with a triangulated plan; sharp marble prow at the acute corner; skylit atrium with Calder mobile; connects to the West Building via underground concourse.
Louvre Pyramid — 1989; Paris, France. I. M. Pei; glass-and-steel pyramid in the Cour Napoléon as the new main entrance to the Louvre; 21.6 m tall; initially controversial, now considered a successful juxtaposition of old and new.
Centre Pompidou — 1977; Paris, France. Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers; color-coded exposed services on exterior (blue = air, green = water, yellow = electrical, red = circulation); the building was “turned inside-out.”
Guggenheim Bilbao — 1997; Bilbao, Spain. Frank Gehry; titanium-clad curved surfaces generated by CATIA software; triggered the “Bilbao Effect” — cultural tourism reviving post-industrial economies; Pritzker Prize came before (1989).
High-Tech / Structural Expressionism — exposes structural and mechanical systems as aesthetic; Pompidou Centre (Piano and Rogers, Paris, 1977); Lloyd’s of London (Rogers, 1986); HSBC Hong Kong (Foster, 1985).
Reichstag dome — 1999; Berlin, Germany. Norman Foster; glass dome added to the restored Reichstag parliament building; public walkway spiraling up inside; mirrors direct daylight into the chamber below; symbolizes democratic transparency.
Church of the Light — 1989; Ibaraki, Osaka, Japan. Tadao Ando; simple concrete box with a cross-shaped slit in the east wall flooding the interior with light; Ando’s most celebrated smaller work.
Santiago Calatrava — (b. 1951, Spain) — engineer-architect; structures inspired by the human skeleton and natural forms; City of Arts and Sciences (Valencia, 1998–2009); Milwaukee Art Museum Quadracci Pavilion (2001, with movable brise-soleil “wings”); Oculus (World Trade Center, New York, 2016).
Critical Regionalism — response to placeless universalism; incorporates local climate, culture, material; Jørn Utzon, Álvaro Siza, Glenn Murcutt.
Contemporary / Parametric — computational design; complex curved surfaces; algorithmic optimization; sustainability integration. Zaha Hadid Architects, BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), Heatherwick Studio.

Landmark Buildings

Ancient and Medieval

Dome of the Rock — completed 691 CE; Jerusalem. Commissioned by Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik; the oldest surviving Islamic monument; an octagonal shrine (not a mosque) built over the rock from which the Prophet Muhammad is said to have ascended to heaven and which marks the site of the Jewish Temple; the interior is richly decorated with Byzantine-style mosaics; the distinctive gilded dome was restored with gold plating in 1994.
Angkor Wat — c. 1113–1150; Siem Reap Province, Cambodia. Built by Khmer king Suryavarman II; originally a Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu, later converted to Theravada Buddhism; the world’s largest religious monument (162.6 hectares); a quincunx of towers representing Mount Meru surrounded by a vast moat; bas-relief galleries nearly 800 m long depict Hindu epics and scenes of heaven and hell; UNESCO World Heritage Site; its silhouette appears on the Cambodian national flag.
Forbidden City (Imperial Palace Museum) — 1406–1420 (Ming dynasty); Beijing, China. Commissioned by the Yongle Emperor; 980 surviving buildings on a 72-hectare site; served as the Chinese imperial palace for 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties (until 1912); organized on a strict north-south axis with the Meridian Gate, Gate of Supreme Harmony, and three great ceremonial halls; surrounded by a 52-meter-wide moat; UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Pyramids of Giza — c. 2560–2510 BCE; Giza, Egypt. Great Pyramid (Khufu) originally 146.5 m; only surviving ancient Wonder of the World.
Parthenon — 447–432 BCE; Athens, Greece. Doric temple dedicated to Athena; architects Ictinus and Callicrates; sculptural program by Phidias. Famous refinements: entasis (slight column bulge), platform curvature correcting optical distortion.
Pantheon — c. 118–125 CE; Rome, Italy. Built under Hadrian; unreinforced concrete dome 43.3 m diameter; oculus 8.7 m. The dome’s coffered interior uses progressively lighter aggregate toward the crown. Best-preserved building of ancient Rome.
Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheatre) — 72–80 CE; Rome, Italy. Seated ~50,000–80,000; four stories combining Doric, Ionic, Corinthian pilasters; 80 arched entrances (vomitoria).
Hagia Sophia — 532–537 CE; Istanbul (then Constantinople), Turkey. Architects: Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus; commissioned by Emperor Justinian I. Dome 31 m diameter at 55 m height; four massive piers via pendentives. Church until 1453, mosque, museum, mosque again (2020).
Alhambra — 13th–14th c.; Granada, Spain. Nasrid Palace; muqarnas (stalactite vaulting) in the Hall of the Two Sisters; Court of the Lions with 124 marble columns.
Notre-Dame de Paris — begun 1163; Paris, France. Gothic; flying buttresses added c. 1180s; twin towers; rose windows; largely destroyed by fire 2019, reconstruction ongoing.
Chartres Cathedral — begun c. 1194; Chartres, France. High Gothic; earliest surviving flying buttresses; 176 original stained-glass windows.
Salisbury Cathedral — 1220–1320; England. English Early Gothic; tallest medieval spire in Britain (123 m); holds one of four original copies of Magna Carta.

Renaissance through 19th Century

St. Basil’s Cathedral — 1555–1561; Moscow, Russia. Commissioned by Ivan the Terrible to commemorate the conquest of Kazan; architects traditionally named as Postnik Yakovlev and Barma; nine chapels arranged around a central tower, each crowned with a differently shaped and colored onion dome; no two domes are alike in color or pattern; located at the south end of Red Square; now a museum.
Katsura Imperial Villa — c. 1615–1663; Kyoto, Japan. Built for imperial prince Toshihito and his successors; integrates architecture, garden, and tea ceremony into a unified aesthetic whole; characterized by asymmetrical massing, natural materials, and modular tatami-grid planning; Modernist architects including Bruno Taut (who visited in 1933) and Walter Gropius identified it as a precursor of functionalist design.
Castle Howard — begun 1699; North Yorkshire, England. Designed by John Vanbrugh (playwright turned architect) with Nicholas Hawksmoor; the first major commission of either architect; the central dome was unprecedented in English domestic architecture; grounds include the Mausoleum (1729) and Temple of the Four Winds (1724); depicted in the TV adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.
Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore) — dome completed 1436; Florence, Italy. Filippo Brunelleschi’s octagonal double-shell dome; herringbone brick without wooden centering; 114 m at lantern top. Brunelleschi won the commission in 1418 after defeating Ghiberti in a competition; the double shell with interlocking herringbone (a spina pesce) brick courses allowed construction without traditional wooden centering.
St. Peter’s Basilica — 1506–1626; Vatican City. Successive architects: Bramante (plan), Michelangelo (dome design), Maderno (nave and facade), Bernini (colonnade, 1656–67). Dome 42 m diameter; largest church in the world by interior area.
Château de Versailles — main palace 1661–1710; Versailles, France. Louis XIV’s residence; architects Jules Hardouin-Mansart and Louis Le Vau; landscape by André Le Nôtre; Hall of Mirrors (357 mirrors, 73 m long).
St. Paul’s Cathedral — 1675–1710; London, UK. Christopher Wren; English Baroque; dome 111 m; rebuilt after Great Fire of London (1666).
Taj Mahal — c. 1632–1653; Agra, India. Mughal funerary complex; Shah Jahan commissioned for Mumtaz Mahal; chief architect Ustad Ahmad Lahori (attributed); white marble inlaid with semi-precious stones; char-bagh (four-part garden); 73 m dome.
Palace of Westminster — 1840–1876; London, UK. Charles Barry (plan) and Augustus Pugin (Gothic detailing); rebuilt after 1834 fire; Elizabeth Tower holds Big Ben bell.

20th–21st Century

Glass House — 1949; New Canaan, Connecticut, USA. Philip Johnson; a steel-framed single-room pavilion with floor-to-ceiling glass walls on all four sides; the only solid element is a brick cylinder housing the bathroom; the design was influenced by Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House project (which Johnson had seen in drawings) and by a barn Johnson had seen in a painting; Johnson lived there until his death in 2005; National Historic Landmark.
Johnson Wax Research Tower and Administration Building — 1936–1939 (Administration Building), 1950 (Research Tower); Racine, Wisconsin, USA. Frank Lloyd Wright; the Administration Building’s main workroom features “dendriform” columns (mushroom-shaped reinforced concrete piers with broad lily-pad tops) supporting a glass-tubed roof; the Research Tower is a 15-story structure suspended from a central concrete core like a tree’s branches from its trunk; together considered among Wright’s finest non-residential works.
Habitat 67 — 1967; Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Moshe Safdie; built as the pavilion for Expo 67; 354 prefabricated concrete modules arranged in an irregular pyramid of 146 residences; each unit is stacked and interlocked to give every apartment a private roof garden; Safdie’s thesis project realized at full scale; a landmark of modular Brutalism and prefabricated housing experimentation; now privately owned apartments.
Marina City — 1964; Chicago, Illinois, USA. Bertrand Goldberg; twin cylindrical reinforced-concrete towers on the Chicago River; the lower 18 floors of each tower serve as parking (with pie-shaped parking spaces), above which are 40 stories of fan-shaped residential apartments; nicknamed “corncob towers”; the first mixed-use urban towers in the United States, designed to keep residents in the city; their image became a symbol of Chicago.
Flatiron Building — 1902; New York, USA. Daniel Burnham; steel-frame; triangular plan at Broadway/Fifth Ave intersection; early skyscraper landmark.
AEG Turbine Factory — 1910; Berlin, Germany. Peter Behrens; often called the first modernist building; steel and glass, exposed structure.
Robie House — 1910; Chicago, USA. Frank Lloyd Wright; Prairie Style; cantilevered rooflines, horizontal emphasis, integration with landscape.
Empire State Building — 1930–1931; New York, USA. Shreve, Lamb & Harmon; Art Deco; 443 m to roof (102 stories); tallest building in the world 1931–1970.
Chrysler Building — 1930; New York, USA. William Van Alen; Art Deco stainless-steel crown; eagle gargoyles; 319 m.
Villa Savoye — 1931; Poissy, France. Le Corbusier; embodies his “Five Points”: pilotis, free plan, free facade, ribbon windows, roof garden.
Fallingwater (Kaufmann Residence) — 1939; Mill Run, Pennsylvania, USA. Frank Lloyd Wright; cantilevered terraces over Bear Run waterfall; reinforced concrete; organic integration with site.
Lever House — 1952; New York, USA. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (Gordon Bunshaft); first glass curtain-wall skyscraper on Park Avenue.
Seagram Building — 1958; New York, USA. Mies van der Rohe with Philip Johnson; bronze I-beams on curtain wall; set back from street creating plaza (influenced NYC zoning reform).
Guggenheim Museum (New York) — 1959; New York, USA. Frank Lloyd Wright; spiraling concrete ramp; circular plan; one of Wright’s last works.
Sydney Opera House — 1973; Sydney, Australia. Jørn Utzon (design); Peter Hall completed interior after Utzon resigned 1966; shell-vault roof made of precast concrete ribs; Utzon won Pritzker Prize 2003. UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Pompidou Centre — 1977; Paris, France. Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers; exposed ducts, escalators, structure in primary colors on exterior; inside-out Brutalism meets High-Tech.
AT&T Building (550 Madison Avenue) — 1984; New York, USA. Philip Johnson and John Burgee; Postmodern skyscraper with broken-pediment “Chippendale” top.
Lloyd’s of London — 1986; London, UK. Richard Rogers; services (elevators, ducts) on exterior; stainless steel and glass.
Petronas Towers — 1998; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. César Pelli; twin towers 452 m; Islamic geometric plan; sky bridge at floors 41–42; world’s tallest 1998–2004.
Jewish Museum Berlin — 2001; Berlin, Germany. Daniel Libeskind; zinc-clad zinc facade with angular “voids”; deconstructivist; underground axes symbolizing exile, Holocaust, continuity.
Millennium Dome (The O2) — 2000; London, UK. Richard Rogers; PTFE fabric over steel cables; 365 m diameter.
CCTV Headquarters — 2012; Beijing, China. Rem Koolhaas / OMA; two leaning towers joined at top and bottom forming a loop; structural expressionism.
Arc de Triomphe — completed 1836; Paris, France. Jean-François-Thérèse Chalgrin (original architect; died 1811, project continued under Louis-Robert Goust); commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 to honor the Grande Armée; stands at the center of the Place Charles de Gaulle at the western end of the Champs-Élysées; 50 m tall, 45 m wide; Neoclassical with high-relief sculptural friezes including François Rude’s The Departure of 1792 (“La Marseillaise”); the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (1920) and its Eternal Flame lie beneath it.
Taipei 101 — 2004; Taipei, Taiwan. C. Y. Lee & Partners; 508 m (101 floors); world’s tallest building 2004–2010; postmodern pagoda-like stacked sections with giant steel “ruyi” (good luck) cap motifs; features a 660-metric-ton tuned mass damper visible from the interior, the largest in the world at completion; designed to withstand typhoons and earthquakes.
Burj Khalifa — 2010; Dubai, UAE. Adrian Smith (SOM); 828 m; world’s tallest building; buttressed-core structural system (William F. Baker, engineer); 163 occupied floors.
The Shard — 2012; London, UK. Renzo Piano; 310 m glass spire; tapered shards of glass reflecting sky.
Heydar Aliyev Center — 2012; Baku, Azerbaijan. Zaha Hadid Architects; undulating white fiberglass-reinforced concrete; no sharp corners.
Chandigarh Capitol Complex — 1950s–60s; Chandigarh, India. Le Corbusier; master plan and civic buildings (Secretariat, High Court, Assembly) for India’s new Punjab capital; UNESCO World Heritage Site (2016).
Nakagin Capsule Tower — 1972; Tokyo, Japan. Kisho Kurokawa; Metabolist icon; 140 prefabricated capsule units attachable to two concrete shafts; demolished 2022 despite preservation campaigns.
Bauhaus Building, Dessau — 1926; Dessau, Germany. Walter Gropius; three interconnected wings (workshop, dormitory, vocational school); glass curtain-wall workshop wing; pinwheel plan; icon of early Modernism; UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Oculus (World Trade Center Transportation Hub) — 2016; New York, USA. Santiago Calatrava; white steel-rib structure resembling a bird taking flight; the most expensive train station ever built (verify: cost cited at ~$4 billion).
30 St Mary Axe (“The Gherkin”) — 2003; London, UK. Norman Foster (Foster + Partners); distinctive tapering glass cylinder with diagonal lattice; aerodynamic form reduces wind load; spiral atria provide natural ventilation.
MAXXI (National Museum of 21st Century Arts) — 2010; Rome, Italy. Zaha Hadid Architects; first national museum of contemporary art and architecture in Italy; intersecting concrete bands housing galleries; Pritzker Prize building.

Major Architects

Vitruvius (1st c. BCE) — Roman military engineer; wrote De architectura (Ten Books), the only surviving major architectural treatise from antiquity; defined firmitas, utilitas, venustas (strength, utility, beauty).
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446, Florence) — pioneered linear perspective; engineered Florence Cathedral dome; Ospedale degli Innocenti (1419, first Renaissance facade); developed classical vocabulary for Renaissance architecture.
Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472, Italy) — theorist and practitioner; De re aedificatoria (1452); Santa Maria Novella facade (Florence); Sant’Andrea (Mantua).
Donato Bramante (1444–1514, Rome) — Tempietto (San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, 1502); original centralized plan for St. Peter’s Basilica.
Andrea Palladio (1508–1580, Vicenza) — I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (1570); Villa Rotonda (Vicenza, c. 1592); Church of Il Redentore (Venice, 1592); Palladian influence enormous on English and American architecture.
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) — designed dome of St. Peter’s Basilica (completed after his death); Campidoglio (Capitol Hill, Rome); Laurentian Library vestibule (Mannerist).
Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680, Rome) — Baroque sculptor-architect; colonnade of St. Peter’s Square (1656–67); Sant’Andrea al Quirinale; Palazzo Barberini (with Borromini).
Francesco Borromini (1599–1667, Rome) — rival to Bernini; complex geometries; San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (1646); Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza.
Inigo Jones (1573–1652, England) — introduced Palladianism to England; Banqueting House (Whitehall, London, 1622); Queen’s House (Greenwich, 1635).
Christopher Wren (1632–1723, London) — 52 London churches after Great Fire, including St. Paul’s Cathedral (1710); Baroque and classical synthesis; also a scientist (Savilian Professor of Astronomy).
Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646–1708, France) — chief architect to Louis XIV; Palace of Versailles additions; Chapel of the Invalides (Paris, 1708).
Johann Balthasar Neumann (1687–1753, Germany) — German Baroque; Würzburg Residence (1744, grand staircase ceiling fresco by Tiepolo); Basilika Vierzehnheiligen.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778, Rome) — printmaker/theorist; Carceri d’Invenzione (imaginary prisons); influenced Romantic and later avant-garde architects.
Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841, Berlin) — leading German Neoclassicist; Altes Museum (Berlin, 1830); Neue Wache; also designed in Gothic Revival mode.
Henri Labrouste (1801–1875, Paris) — Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (Paris, 1851); early expressive use of iron structure.
Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879, France) — Gothic Revivalist restorer; Notre-Dame de Paris restoration; wrote Entretiens sur l’architecture, influencing structural rationalism.
Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886, USA) — Romanesque Revival; Trinity Church (Boston, 1877); Marshall Field Warehouse (Chicago, 1887); “Richardsonian Romanesque.”
Louis Sullivan (1856–1924, Chicago) — “form follows function”; Chicago skyscraper facades; mentor to Wright; Guaranty Building (Buffalo, 1896); Carson Pirie Scott (Chicago, 1904).
Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926, Barcelona) — organic, sculptural Catalan Modernisme; Sagrada Família (began 1882, ongoing); Casa Batlló (1906); Casa Milà / La Pedrera (1912); Güell Park (1914). Devout Catholic; beatification cause opened.
Peter Behrens (1868–1940, Germany) — AEG Turbine Factory (Berlin, 1910); trained Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe in his office.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959, USA) — Prairie Style; organic architecture; Fallingwater (1939); Guggenheim NY (1959); Usonian houses; Unity Temple (Oak Park, 1908); over 1,000 designs.
Walter Gropius (1883–1969, Germany/USA) — founded the Bauhaus (Weimar, 1919); Bauhaus Dessau building (1926); emigrated to Harvard 1937.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969, Germany/USA) — “Less is more”; Barcelona Pavilion (1929); Farnsworth House (Plano IL, 1951); Seagram Building (1958); IIT campus (Chicago).
Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, 1887–1965, France/Switzerland) — Five Points of Architecture; Villa Savoye (1931); Unité d’Habitation (Marseille, 1952); Chandigarh Capitol complex (India, 1960s); Notre-Dame du Haut chapel (Ronchamp, 1955); only non-American to be featured on a country’s currency (India, 2016 note).
Alvar Aalto (1898–1976, Finland) — humanist modernism; organic forms; natural materials; Paimio Sanatorium (1933); Finlandia Hall (Helsinki, 1971); Viipuri Library.
Louis Kahn (1901–1974, USA) — “served and servant spaces”; Salk Institute (La Jolla, 1965); Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, 1972); Bangladesh National Assembly (Dhaka, 1982, posthumous).
Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012, Brazil) — expressive reinforced concrete curves; Brasília’s civic buildings (National Congress, Palácio do Planalto, 1960); worked with Le Corbusier.
Eero Saarinen (1910–1961, USA) — TWA Flight Center (New York, 1962); Dulles International Airport (1962); Gateway Arch (St. Louis, 1965, posthumous).
I. M. Pei (1917–2019, USA/China) — Louvre Pyramid (Paris, 1989); East Building National Gallery of Art (Washington, 1978); Bank of China Tower (Hong Kong, 1990).
Robert Venturi (1925–2018, USA) — postmodern theorist; Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966); Learning from Las Vegas (1972, with Scott Brown); Vanna Venturi House (1964).
Renzo Piano (b. 1937, Italy) — Pompidou Centre (with Rogers, 1977); The Shard (London, 2012); Whitney Museum (New York, 2015); Pritzker Prize 1998.
Richard Rogers (1933–2021, UK) — Pompidou Centre; Lloyd’s of London (1986); Millennium Dome (2000); Pritzker Prize 2007.
Norman Foster (b. 1935, UK) — HSBC Hong Kong (1985); 30 St Mary Axe “Gherkin” (London, 2003); Reichstag dome (Berlin, 1999); Millau Viaduct (engineer: Michel Virlogeux); Pritzker Prize 1999.
Frank Gehry (b. 1929, Canada/USA) — Gehry residence (Santa Monica, 1978); Guggenheim Bilbao (1997); Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles, 2003); titanium cladding; Pritzker Prize 1989.
Zaha Hadid (1950–2016, Iraq/UK) — first woman to win the Pritzker Prize (2004); MAXXI Museum (Rome, 2010); London Aquatics Centre (2012); Heydar Aliyev Center (Baku, 2012); parametric deconstructivism.
Rem Koolhaas (b. 1944, Netherlands) — OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture); Delirious New York (1978); CCTV Headquarters (Beijing, 2012); Seattle Central Library (2004); Pritzker Prize 2000.
Daniel Libeskind (b. 1946, Poland/USA) — Jewish Museum Berlin (2001); master plan for World Trade Center rebuilding; Royal Ontario Museum extension (2007).
Tadao Ando (b. 1941, Japan) — exposed concrete; Church of the Light (Osaka, 1989); Chichu Art Museum (Naoshima, 2004); Pritzker Prize 1995.
Bjarke Ingels (b. 1974, Denmark) — BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group); 8 House (Copenhagen, 2010); VIA 57 West (New York, 2016); sustainability-integrated parametric design.

Structural and Decorative Terms

Post-and-lintel — the most basic structural system: vertical supports (posts/columns) carry a horizontal beam (lintel). Limits span due to stone’s weakness in tension.
Arch — curved structure transferring load laterally to abutments via compression; the keystone at the crown locks the arch. Roman semicircular arch; Gothic pointed arch. The pointed arch reduces lateral thrust.
Vault — continuous arch forming a ceiling or roof. Barrel vault: a simple tunnel of semicircular arches. Groin vault: two barrel vaults intersecting at right angles; concentrates load on four piers. Ribbed vault: Gothic innovation; ribs carry load, allowing infill panels to be thin.
Dome — a vault of revolution. The oculus is an open eye at the dome’s crown. Pendentive: a curved triangular surface allowing a circular dome to sit on a square bay (Byzantine). Squinch: an arch across a corner for the same purpose (Romanesque/Islamic).
Flying buttress — an arched masonry strut that transfers lateral thrust from a high vault over an aisle roof to an outer pier; defines Gothic; first appears at Notre-Dame de Paris (c. 1180s).
Classical orders — the five canonical systems: Doric (plain capital, sturdy), Ionic (volute scroll capital), Corinthian (acanthus leaves), Tuscan (simplified Roman Doric), Composite (Ionic + Corinthian). Codified by Vitruvius and later by Serlio and Palladio.
Entasis — a slight convex swelling in the middle third of a column shaft; corrects the optical illusion that a straight-sided column looks concave; used in the Parthenon and throughout classical architecture.
Truss — a structural framework of triangulated members in tension and compression; triangles are rigid and cannot deform; iron trusses enabled wide-span 19th-century train sheds and exhibition halls (Crystal Palace).
Pendentive — a curved triangular concave surface filling the gap between a circular dome and its square supporting bay; the defining structural solution of Byzantine architecture; used at Hagia Sophia.
Squinch — an arch or series of arches thrown across the upper corners of a square space to support an octagonal or round drum above; alternative to the pendentive; common in Romanesque and Islamic architecture.
Pilaster — a flat column engaged (attached) to a wall; decorative but echoes structural column.
Entablature — in classical architecture, the horizontal band above columns: architrave (lowest), frieze (middle), cornice (top projecting molding).
Pediment — a triangular gable above a classical portico; the tympanum is the triangular space within, often sculpted.
Capital — the topmost element of a column, between shaft and entablature. The three Greek orders are distinguished primarily by capital design.
Rustication — stone blocks with deliberately rough, recessed joints; used for bases to suggest solidity (Renaissance).
Curtain wall — non-structural exterior cladding (glass and metal) hung from a building’s structural frame; defining feature of the International Style skyscraper.
Cantilever — a projecting beam or slab supported only at one end; relies on the tensile strength of the material (steel, reinforced concrete). Fallingwater’s terraces are the canonical example.
Pilotis — Le Corbusier’s term for ground-floor columns that lift a building off the ground, freeing the ground plane; the first of his Five Points of Architecture.
Fenestration — the arrangement and design of windows in a building.
Clerestory — a row of high windows above an adjoining roofline, admitting light to the nave of a church or tall interior.
Tracery — decorative stone ribwork in Gothic windows, subdividing the window opening. Plate tracery (earlier): openings cut through stone. Bar tracery (later): slender stone bars forming patterns.
Muqarnas — three-dimensional stalactite or honeycomb vaulting in Islamic architecture; purely decorative; transitions between geometric forms.
Atrium — an inner courtyard or central hall open to the sky (Roman); in modern architecture, a glazed interior courtyard.
Brise-soleil — fixed horizontal or vertical louvers on a facade to shade windows from direct sunlight; used by Le Corbusier and in tropical modernism.
Tensegrity — structures of isolated compression members (struts) within a continuous tensile network; associated with Buckminster Fuller and Kenneth Snelson.
Geodesic dome — approximates a sphere with triangulated struts; Buckminster Fuller’s innovation; U.S. Pavilion, Expo 67 (Montreal).
PTFE / ETFE membrane — modern tensile roofing materials; ETFE cushions used in Allianz Arena (Munich, Herzog & de Meuron, 2005) and Beijing National Aquatics Center (2008).
Hypostyle hall — a large roofed space whose ceiling is supported by rows of columns; defining feature of ancient Egyptian temples (Karnak) and Islamic mosques (Great Mosque of Córdoba).
Caryatid — a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support in place of a column; Erechtheion Porch of the Maidens (Athens, c. 421–406 BCE) is the canonical example.
Spandrel — the triangular space between an arch and the rectangular frame surrounding it; also a panel on a curtain-wall building between the top of one window and the sill of the window above.
Nave — the central longitudinal space of a church, flanked by aisles; from Latin navis (ship).
Apse — the semicircular or polygonal east-end termination of a church, containing the altar; common in Romanesque and Gothic churches.
Transept — the transverse arm of a cruciform church, crossing the nave at right angles; the crossing is where nave, transept, and chancel meet.
Campanile — a freestanding bell tower; Italian term; the Leaning Tower of Pisa is a campanile; also the bell tower of San Marco in Venice.
Piano nobile — the principal floor of an Italian Renaissance or Baroque palace, elevated above the ground-floor rusticated base; contains the grandest reception rooms.
Belvedere — a structure (tower, pavilion, or raised terrace) designed to command a view; also the name of the papal villa in the Vatican where Bramante created an outdoor theatre (Cortile del Belvedere, c. 1506).