Famous Architects

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Born in Wisconsin, this architect worked under Louis Sullivan before founding a Chicago practice. His early homes, like the Robie House, which is adjacent to the campus of the University of Chicago, are in the “Prairie” style: horizontal orientation and low roofs. His “organic architecture” tries to harmonize with its inhabitants and site; examples include the Kaufmann House(or Fallingwater) in Pennsylvania; the Johnson Wax Building in Racine, Wisconsin; and Taliesin, his home and studio in Spring Green, Wisconsin. (There is also a Taliesin West, his home and studio in Arizona.) Other notable works by this architect include the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the Larkin Building in Buffalo, the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.

Even though this architect designed the Fagus Factory in Alfeld, Germany, and the Pan American Building in New York City, he is best known for founding the Bauhaus. Beginning in Weimar in 1919 and moving to a designed facility by this architect in Dessau in 1925, the Bauhaus school emphasized functionalism, the application of modern methods and materials, and the synthesis of technology and art. He would later head Harvard’s architecture department from 1938 to 1952, shifting its focus to incorporate modern design and construction techniques.

This leading architect of the International Style of skyscraper design worked in the office of Peter Behrens. He directed the Bauhaus from 1930 to 1933, shutting it down before the Nazis could do so. His works include the Barcelona Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition; two adjacent apartment buildings at 860 and 880 North Lake Shore Drive in Chicago; the New National Gallery in Berlin; and the Seagram Building in New York, which he co-designed with Philip Johnson. This architect asserted that “less is more” as a principle of his architectural style. His glass-covered steel structures influenced the design of office buildings in nearly every major city in the U.S.

Born in China, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1935. Though he has also designed moderate-income housing, he is best known for large-scale projects. His works include the Mile High Center in Denver, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, the John Hancock Building in Boston, the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Fragrant Hill Hotel in Beijing, and the recent Miho Museum of Art in Shiga, Japan. He may be best known for two fairly recent works: the glass pyramid erected outside the Louvre in 1989, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, completed in 1995.

When fire destroyed much of London in 1666, this architect was an Oxford astronomy professor who had designed his first building just four years earlier. Charles II named him the King’s Surveyor of Works in 1669, and he was involved in rebuilding more than 50 London churches in the next half-century, including Saint Paul’s Cathedral. An inscription near his tomb in Saint Paul’s declares “Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.”

Possibly more influential even than Wright, he wrote the 1923 book Towards a New Architecture, standard reading in architectural theory courses. One famous quote by this architect is “A house is a machine for living in.” His floor plans were influenced by Cubist principles of division of space, and the Villa Savoye (Poissy, France) is his best-known early work. He wrote of the “Radiant City” begun anew, a completely planned city with skyscrapers for residents. Applications of his approach to government buildings (such as in Brasilia or in Chandigarh, India), however, largely failed, as did many urban renewal projects produced on the same ideological foundation. Nonetheless, he influenced every other 20th-century figure on this list.

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This architect did not design the first skyscraper, but did become a vocal champion of skyscrapers as reflections of the modern age. Though most associated with Chicago, his best-known work is the 1891 Wainwright Building in St. Louis. His partnership with Dankmar Adler produced over 100 buildings. Later works, such as the Babson, Bennett, and Bradley Houses, reflect an organic architecture distinct from that of his onetime employee Frank Lloyd Wright. His dictum that “form should follow function” strongly influenced modern architecture; his writings helped break the profession from classical restraints.

A friend of Donatello, this architect was a skilled sculptor and goldsmith, whose 1401 competition with Lorenzo Ghiberti for the commission of the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery is a frequent question topic (Ghiberti got the chief commission). As an architect, he is mainly known for the extraordinary octagonally-based dome of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, which dominates the Florentine skyline and is across the street from the Florence Baptistery. The task required an innovative supporting framework and occupied much of his career (as described in detail in Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists). Other projects include the Spedale degli Innocenti, the Old Sacristy at San Lorenzo, and the Pazzi Chapel in the Cloisters of Santa Croce, all from 1421 to 1430.

Winner of the 1989 Pritzker Prize, this architect is best-known today for large-scale compositions like the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle (formerly known as the EMP Museum and Experience Music Project), the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the recent, controversial Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. (Bilbao natives describe the latter as “the artichoke,” because of its layers of abstract titanium structures.) This architect often uses uncommon materials such as plywood and limestone; his designs range from Kobe’s Fishdance Restaurant, shaped like a giant fish, to the soft-sculpture look of the so-called “Fred and Ginger” buildings in Prague. He also designs furniture: the Easy Edges line is made of laminated cardboard; his collection consists of chairs named for hockey terms.

This architect designed villas in and near Venice, including the Villa Rotonda and Villa Barbaro. He integrated Greco-Roman ideas of hierarchy, proportion, and order with contemporary Renaissance styles. His Four Books on Architecture from 1570 relates his theoretical principles. Among architects heavily influenced by this man were Inigo Jones and Thomas Jefferson.

This architect was born in Finland but spent most of his life in the U.S. and died in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He designed many buildings on the campuses of MIT and Yale, as well as Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. and the TWA terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. This architect may be best known for designing the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, though he died before it was completed. Many of his works are characterized by elegant, sweeping forms, such as the Kresge Auditorium at MIT.

This architect created many extraordinary buildings in Barcelona in the early 20th century. His Art Nouveau-inspired works include the Casa Mila and Casa Batllo apartments, known from their undulating façades, and several works for patron Eusebi Guell, including the Parc Guell, a park in Barcelona. He spent 40 years working on the Expiatory Church of the Holy Family (also known as La Sagrada Familia), which will be finished in 2026. He was also fond of using hyperbolic paraboloids in his work.