Faraway Places ~ Amazing Homes
Architect Frank Gehry uses computers to help design and build his famous wavy, shiny, psycho-structures. The EMP in Seattle is a museum of rock-and-roll, but even if you don’t like rock music, you’ll want to see Gehry’s rebellious design for the building.
Learn more > Frank Gehry, Architecture Portfolio of Selected Works
Architect Frank Gehry has been making waves for more than sixty years, and his concert hall in Los Angeles ranks as one of his most controversial—and most celebrated.
The stainless steel Walt Disney Concert Hall expanded the Los Angeles Music Center, adding a 2,265-seat main auditorium, a 266-seats theater, and two outdoor amphitheaters. Critics complained that the glittering facade posed a traffic hazard, so Gehry later tweaked the finish to tone down the metallic sparkle.
With a six-story spiraling ramp, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum is a hallmark example of hemicycle design. At the center, an open rotunda offers views of artwork on several levels. Wright, who was known for his self-assurance, said that his goal was to “make the building and the painting an uninterrupted, beautiful symphony such as never existed in the World of Art before.”
The circular building seems as revolutionary today as it did when the museum first opened on October 21, 1959.
Frank Lloyd Wright Exhibition at the Guggenheim >>
Who is Peter Eisenman? Is he a “Structuralist”? A “Deconstructionist”? A “Postmodern theorist”? The venerable architect may be difficult to classify, but his works demand attention.
Eisenman’s Berlin Holocaust Memorial (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe) is both abstract and chilling. Composed of 2,711 enormous stone slabs, the Berlin memorial opened in 2005 and continues to stir controversy.
What’s known as the Chicago School is not a school at all, but a small group of architects who creatively and competitively solved problems of building and design. This new multi-page article looks at Chicago architecture that changed the face of modern commercial buildings.
In 2006, architect Jean Nouvel used color to dramatize the diverse collection housed in the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, France. He also played architectural tricks with glass walls, shifting ceiling heights, spiral staircases, and concealed lights.
The Great Fire of June 6, 1889 devastated most of Seattle, Washington. Flames began around 2:30 pm when a woodworker mishandled some glue. For the next 18 hours, the inferno engulfed the business district down to the waterfront. When Seattle rebuilt, the land of timber frames turned to modern masonry and a new construction material called steel.
Read more > See the Best Architecture in Seattle, Washington
