#191: MY TOP TEN FROM HISTORY

Last year, I tried to answer the common question, “Hey Anthony, who is your favorite architect?” To provide some parameters, I responded with my favorite living architects. Today, I respond with my favorite architects from the recent past and centuries ago.

There are many greats from history, from Ustad Ahmad Lahori (1580- 1649), the Taj Mahal architect, to Eero Saarinen (1910-1961), the visionary of Terminal 5, JFK airport, from Hemiunu (2570 BC), the creator of the Great Pyramid of Giza, to another designer of pyramids, I.M. Pei (1917-2019). Though there are many, here are merely ten.

1: Louis Kahn (1901-1974)
When in grad school, I wrote a paper on how the work of this Estonian-born, American architect relentlessly embeds his work into one’s memory. What is it about his bold and other-worldly buildings that exist as profoundly iconic? Influenced by the ruins of antiquity in Europe and Egypt witnessed as a traveling student, Kahn delivered rigorous geometry within spiritual monumentality.

2: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969)
Few design statements are more powerful then Mies’ proclamation, “Less is more.” The German-American headmaster of Minimalism was the last director of the Bauhaus school in Germany, prior to emigrating in 1937 to the US in opposition of Nazism. Mies work is known for its absence of ornamentation, efficiency and simplicity, modern construction methods, and his other profound quote, “God is in the details.”

3: Michael Graves (1934-2015)
Contrasting the strict and austere compositions of Mies, Graves offered color, whimsy, and clever references to historical styles. Perhaps my design education in the 80s allowed me to enjoy this controversial style of Post-Modernism. Aesthetics aside, Graves’ work was expansive, from buildings around the globe to housewares sold at Target stores. After partial paralysis, he designed hospitals and housing for the disabled, including wheelchairs and hospital furniture.

4: Le Corbusier (1887-1965)
Known simply as “Corbu,” Le Corbusier is the giant of Modernist architecture and urban planning. His 1923 manifesto, Towards an Architecture, and his famous 1927 essay, Five Points of Architecture, continue to influence architects today. Pioneering the use of reinforced poured-in-place concrete, 17 of his projects gracing seven countries are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

5: Ricardo Bofill (1939-2022)
With so much of architecture being imitation or worse, derivative—one has to praise Bofill’s unusual creativity. The Spanish architect’s work stands as deeply personal and uniquely surreal. From the bizarre to classical, from monumental to geometric, the work breathes ambition. Clearly cinematic and spectacular, Bofill’s projects provide world building for film and television, e.g. Squid Game, Brazil, and The Hunger Games.

6: Charles Gwathmey (1938-2009)
One half of the famed New York firm, Gwathmey Siegel architects, Charles Gwathmey launched his prolific career designing modest geometric houses in and around the Hamptons, each an exquisitely composed masterpiece. Joining Michael Graves (above) and three other New York pioneers (Richard Meier, John Hejduk, and Peter Eisenman), Gwathmey founded the New York Five, a group of Modernist architects who heavily influenced the 1960s design scene.

7: Erik Gunnar Asplund (1885-1940)
Considered one of the most significant Scandinavian architects, Asplund represented the 1920s movement, Nordic Classicism, also referred to as Swedish Grace. As this architect blended Neo-Classical theories to tenets of the Functionalists, his buildings captured an exceptional blend of Romanticism, Classicism, and effortlessness. His famed Woodland Crematorium integrates structure and landscape, psychological journey and profound silence.

8: Luis Barragán (1902-1988)
Considered the most important architect of Mexican Modernism, Barragan stood against the severity of most Modernist structures. He claimed to engage an “emotional architecture” through vibrant colors and textured materials like natural stone, rough wood, and coarse plaster. The sources of illumination, both artificial and natural, were often obscured, providing a dreamlike magical environment.

9: Étienne-Louis Boullée (1728-1799)
Considered a reluctant architect and one who built very little, Boullée’s fantastical visions remain mostly theoretical. Regardless, this French Neoclassical architect paved the way for others centuries later, such as Louis Kahn (above), Aldo Rossi, Philip Johnson, and Rem Koolhaas. Boullée’s theatrical concepts find strength in size, scope, and scale.

10: Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926)
Inspired by nature, Gothic architecture, Asian design, personal dreams, religious struggles, and whatever else, Gaudi pursued an architecture so original and individual that no one came before him, nor after him. He offered us shapes and forms, details and patterns—human heads and faces even—as if from either a mythical faraway land or nightmare. His tombstone reads, “The ashes of so great a man await the resurrection of the dead.”

Some may ask why Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) is not on my list, as prolific as he was, as influential as he was. I have visited many of his works. Though his virtuosity is apparent, it just never clicked for me as much as the above architects. Sorry. And to the claim that all his buildings leak, Wright argued, “If the roof doesn’t leak, the architect hasn’t been creative enough.” And to the eight murdered individuals associated with Wright, I have a Hollywood screenplay in mind.

Lastly, here are my favorite buildings in Los Angeles and around Los Angeles.