Top 10 Greatest Architects of all Time

Script written by Caitlin Johnson

Top 10 Most Awe-Inspiring Architects

Every space should be beautiful. Welcome to WatchMojo. and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the top 10 most awe-inspiring architects.

For this list, we’re looking at the most celebrated and influential architects in history.

#10: Buckminster Fuller

One of America’s most influential thinkers, Bucky Fuller was a man of many talents. A visionary futurist, he was responsible for popularizing the geodesic dome, still regarded by many as one of the most efficient and stable structures. At the forefront of design for much of the 20th century, Fuller pushed for a design science revolution that would regenerate ecosystems and better mankind. He spent most of his life travelling the world, refusing to stay in one place for long. His work inspired numerous others, including Norman Foster, the English architect famous for designing the Gherkin, now a main fixture of London’s skyline.

#9: Renzo Piano

You’ll never see this designer do the same trick twice, and his buildings are some of the most varied of any architect still working today. This makes it tricky to discern which structure has his unique touch, but they’re all distinctive and stand-out in their own ways. In partnership with Richard Rogers, Piano’s first major triumph was Paris’s Centre Georges Pompidou, an ‘inside-out’ building wearing all of its plumbing and wiring on the exterior walls. He also designed the Auditorium Parco della Musica, an enormous concert hall in Rome, and more recently was responsible for the Shard, a 95-storey skyscraper in central London.

#8: Michelangelo

While he’s best known as the genius behind “David”, “Pietà”, and the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michelangelo was a true “Renaissance man” who also worked as an architect. In 1523 he was commissioned by Pope Clement VII to build the Laurentian Library, an early Mannerist structure that was built on top of an existing convent. But by far his most iconic structure is the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, although it was only completed after his death. Since its construction, the basilica dome has influenced countless buildings around the world, including Washington D.C.’s Capitol Building.

#7: Le Corbusier

An integral figure in the architectural movement we now associate with modernism, this Swiss-French artist remains hugely influential today. In fact, 17 of his projects have been deemed UNESCO World Heritage Sites. His designs sought to combine functionalism and expressionism. As he worked extensively as an urban planner, few major cities escaped his distinct influence. His most famous building today is arguably the Villa Savoye, but he’s also remembered for his Villa La Roche, now home to the Fondation Le Corbusier, and his sculptural, iconic chapel Notre Dame du Haut, built in 1955 in Ronchamp, France.

#6: Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe

A strong believer in the “less is more” philosophy, German-American architect Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe was a designer who wanted his buildings to be judged on their own merit, without ornamentation. Many of his designs are precursors to minimalism, prioritizing the materials he used over the contents of the houses. His most famous building is Farnsworth House, completed in 1951, which epitomized his minimalist ideas. It influenced other architects who worked in the International Style, including Philip Johnson. Johnson used Mies’s ideas to build his Glass House, which itself is said to have impacted luxury design practices still in use today.

#5: Zaha Hadid

A highly celebrated deconstructivist architect, Zaha Hadid was the first woman to win the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 2004. Her designs are radical, fluid, and distinctly her own, drawing more comparisons to UFOs than buildings on our own planet. They were so radical that many of her earliest were never built, the designs themselves considered works of art. Vast, swooping structures with flowing, curved lines mark her style, and you’ve probably admired more than a few of her projects. Some of the most notable are the London Aquatics Centre, the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Azerbaijan, and the MAXXI in Rome.

#4: Ieoh Ming Pei

Born in 1917, I. M. Pei had over 100 years to travel the world and design some of the most iconic buildings standing today. Originally from China, Pei attended MIT and got his start designing buildings across America before achieving worldwide fame. As well as designing lots of government buildings, like the distinct Mesa Laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research outside Boulder, Colorado, he also put his hand to a wide variety of other projects. These included the Louvre’s now unmistakable glass pyramids, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, and the vast Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong.

#3: Frank Gehry

He’s the most famous living architect in the world, and many of his buildings are attractions just because they were designed by him – including his own home. Now in his 90s, Gehry hasn’t stopped working, still taking commissions for all sorts of prestigious clients. His most famous building is the 1997 Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, but he’s also the mastermind behind the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA. Some of his stranger designs include the Ray and Maria Stata Center at MIT, and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum in Minnesota.

#2: Frank Lloyd Wright

An incredibly prolific architect whose work spans the 19th and 20th centuries, Frank Lloyd Wright designed some 1,000 structures, around half of which were constructed. He was a huge proponent of making buildings in harmony with the natural world, carefully navigating natural obstacles rather than trying to bulldoze them. This is exemplified through Fallingwater, an ingenious house built atop a waterfall without restricting the flow of the river. He also founded the Prairie School of architecture, focusing on easily available, mass-produced materials and large, spacious designs to give people more room to breathe.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few Honorable Mentions:

Richard Rogers

Mimar Sinan

Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Santiago Calatrava

Daniel Libeskind

#1: Antoni Gaudí

Spain’s most famous architect, Gaudí lived and worked in Barcelona for his entire life, and his unique touch is evident throughout the entire city, including its most famous landmark. La Sagrada Familia is an enormous Catholic church blending half a dozen different architectural styles, including Gothic, Baroque, and Moorish. It’s been under construction since 1882. Gaudí died in 1926, a century before the church’s estimated completion date, but he lives on in the unending project which was proclaimed a basilica in 2010. He also built Casa Mila, a famous apartment block modelled on a mountain.