100 Buildings Every Student of Architecture Should Know

#1 College of William and Mary

• 1695-1702
• Williamsburg
• Virginia

#2- Temple of Heaven

• 15th Century
• Beijing
• China

#3-Pont du Gard

• 27 BC-AD 14
• Roman aqueduct
• Nimes, France

#4-Puerta del Sol

#5-Pyramids of Giza

• 2530-2470 BC
• Gize
• Egypt

#6-San Vitale Church

• 526-547AD
• Ravenna Italy

#7-St. Basil’s

• 1554-1560 AD
• Moscow
• Russia

#8-St. Mark’s Cathedral

• begun in 1063 AD
• Venice, Italy

#9-Stonehenge

#10-Stupa at Borobudur

• 8th Century AD
• Java, Indonesia

#11-Stupa at Sanchi

• 1st Centruy AD
• India

#12-Taj Mahal, 1630-1650 AD, Agra, India

#13-Temple of Athena Nike, c. 427 BC, Athens

#14-Temple of Bacchus, 2nd Century, Baalbek, Lebanon

#15-Temple of Poseidon, c 550 BC, Paestum, Italy

#16-Temple of Horus, Edfu, 327 BC, Egypt

#17-Temple of Horyu-ji, Asuka period, begun AD 607, Nara, Japan

#18-Temple of Quetzalcoatl, 770-829 AD, Teothuacan, Mexico

#19-Temple of Rameses II, c. 1257 BC, Abu Simbel, Egypt

#20-Temple of Tirukalikunram, South India

#21-The Alhambra, Court of the Lions

#22-Toledo Cathedral, 1732, Toledo, Spain

#23-Treasury of Atreus, c 1300-1250 BC, Mycenae

#24-Tula Ruins, 12-13th Century, Toltec, near Mexico City

#25-Houses of Parliament, 1836 – 1860, London, England ~ Sir Charles Barry

#26-Colonnade of St Peter’s, Begun 1656, Rome ~ Gianlorenzo Bernini

#27-San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane. 1665-1667, Rome ~ Francesco Borromini

#28-Tempietto, San Pietro in Montorio, 1502, Rome ~ Donato Bramante

#29-Cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore, (cathedral), 420 -436, Florence ~ Filippo Brunelleschi

#30-Chiswick House, 1725-1729, London ~ William Kent, Lord Burlington

#31-Eiffel Tower

• 1889
• Paris, France
• Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel

#32-Opera House, 1861 – 1875, Paris ~ Charles Garnier

#33-Church of the Sagrada Familia, 1883-1926, Barcelona, Spain ~ Antoni Gaudi

#34-Casa Mila, 1905-1910, Barcelona, Spain ~ Antoni Gaudi

#35-Bauhaus

#36-McGraw Hill Building, 1930, New York City ~ Raymond Hood

#37-Parthenon, 447-432 BC, Acropolis, Athens ~ Ictinus and Callicrates

#38-Pyramid of King Djoser, c 2630 BC, Sakkara, Egypt ~ Impotep

#39-Hagia Sophia

#40-Monticello, 1772, near Charlottesville, Virginia, USA ~ Thomas Jefferson

#41-Notre Dame du Haut

• 1955
• Ronchamp, France
• Le Corbusier

#42-Villa Savoye

• 1929 – 1931
• Poissy, France
• Le Corbusier

#43-Versailles, c 1669, France ~ Louis Le Vau and Jules Hardouin Mansart

#44-Louvre, east front, 1667 Paris ~ Le Vau, Lebrun, Perrault

#45-Church of Sao Fransisco, 1766-1794, ouro Preto, Brazil ~ Antonio Fransisco Lisboa

#46-Chapel of the Rosary, 1950-1951, Vence, France ~ Henri Matisse

#47-Cupola of St Peter’s, 1546-1564, Rome ~ Michelangelo Buonarroti

#48-Medici Chapel, Church of San Lorenzo, 1524-1534, Florence ~ Michelangelo Buonarroti

#49-Royal Pavilion at Brighton, 1815, Brighton, England ~ John Nash

#50-Palazzetto dello Sport, 1956-1957, Rome ~ Pier Luigi Nervi

#51-Church of Vierzehnheiligen, 1743-1771, Vienna, ~ Balthasar Neumann

#52-Wurzburg Palace

• 1720-1724
• Wurzburg, Germany
• Balthasar Neumann

#53-Palace of National Congress

• 1960
• Brasilia, Brazil
• Oscar Niemeyer

#54-Queluz Palace

• 1747-1752
• Lisbon, Portugal
• Mateus Vicente de Olivera

#55-Villa Rotunda

• 1567
• Vicenza, Italy
• Palladio

#56-Crystal Palace

• 1851
• London (destroyed in fire)
• Sir Joseph Paxton

#57-Melk Monastery

• 1702-1738
• Melk, Austria
• Jakob Prandtauer

#58-Marshall Field Warehouse

• 1885-1887
• Chicago, Illinois
• Henry Hobson Richardson

#59-Jefferson Arch

• c 1965
• St Louis, Missouri
• Eero Saarinen

#60-Dulles International Airport

• 1958
• Washington DC
• Eero Saarinen

#61-Pantheon (Ste Genevieve)

• 1755-1792
• Paris, France
• Jacques Germain Soufflot

#62-Carson, Pirie, Scott Store

• 1899
• Chicago, Illinois
• Louis Sullivan

#63-Opera House

• 1956
• Sydney, Australia
• Jorn Utzon

#64-Seagram Building

• 1958
• New York City
• Mies van der Rohe

#65-Blenheim Palace

• 1705 – 1724
• Oxfordshire, England
• Sir John Vanbrugh

#66-Church of the Madeleine

• 1806-1843
• Paris, France
• Alexandre-Pierre Vignon

#67-Karlskirche

• 1716-1737
• Vienna, Austria
• Johann Fischer Von Erlach

#68-Saint Paul’s Cathedral

• 1675-1710
• London
• Sir Christopher Wren

#69-House of Falling Water

• 1936
• Bear Run, Pennsylvania
• Frank Lloyd Wright

#70-Pisa, Leaning Tower & Cathedral Complex

#71-Pantheon

#72-Palace Knossos

• Heraklion, Crete, Greece
• 1400 BC
• Made of Ashlar blocks of limestone or gypsum, wood, mud-brick, rubble for fill, plaster.
• The Palace of Knossos is the most important monument in Crete.
• The palace of Knossos was undoubtedly the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture.
• The 1,300 rooms are connected with corridors of varying sizes and direction, which differ from other contemporaneous palaces that connected the rooms via several main hallways.
• The 6 acres (24,000 m²) of the palace included a theater, a main entrance on each of its four cardinal faces, and extensive storerooms (also called magazines).

#73-Mosque of Cordoba

• Córdoba, Andalusia, Spain
• 600 AD
• Architectural styles: Renaissance architecture, Moorish architecture
• Architects: Hernán Ruiz the Younger, Hernan Ruiz the Elder, Hernan Ruiz III, Juan de Ochoa Praves, Diego de Ochoa Praves
• The Cathedral is regarded as the one of the most accomplished monuments of Renaissance and Moorish architecture.
• The building is most notable for its arcaded hypostyle hall, with 856 columns of jasper, onyx, marble, and granite.
• These were made from pieces of the Roman temple which had occupied the site previously, as well as other destroyed Roman buildings, such as the Mérida amphitheatre.

#74-Mont Saint Michel

• Normandy, France
•  It is a rocky tidal island of  247 acres in size.
• Since the eighth century AD has been the seat of the monastery from which it draws its name.
• The structural composition of the town exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it.
• On top God, the abbey and monastery, below this the Great halls, then stores and housing, and at the bottom, outside the walls, fishermen and farmers housing.
• Mont Saint-Michel and its bay are part of the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sitesand more than 3 million people visit it each year.
• William de Volpiano, the Italian architect who had built the Abbey, was chosen as building contractor by Richard II of Normandy in the 11th century.

#75-Mausoleum of Galla Placidia

• Ravenna, Italy
• 420 AD
• It was listed with seven other structures in Ravenna in the World Heritage List in 1996.
• The UNESCO experts describe it as “the earliest and best preserved of all mosaic monuments”.
• The mausoleum is laid out in a cruciform floor plan, with a central dome on pendatives and barrel vaults over the four transepts. The exterior of the dome is enclosed in a square tower that rises above the gabled lateral wings. The brick surface is set with narrow mortar joints and decorated with blind arcades.
• This ancient building was made to house the tomb of Galla Placidia, daughter of Emperor Theodosius.

#76 -Library of Celsus

• Ephesus, Turkey
• 135 AD
• The building is important as one of the few remaining examples of an ancient Roman-influenced library.
• This type of façade with inset frames and niches for statues is similar to that found in ancient Greek theaters and is thus characterized as “scenographic”.
• The facade of the library has two-stories, with Corinthian style columns on the ground floor and three entrances to the building.
• The statues symbolize wisdom (Sophia), knowledge (Episteme), intelligence (Ennoia) and valor (Arete). These are the virtues of Celsus.
• The library was restored with the aid of the Austrian Archaeological Institute and  the originals of the statues were taken to Ephesus Museum in Vienna in 1910.

#77-Funerary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut

• Thebes, Egypt
• 1504-1483 BC
• Construction of the temple of Hatshepsut took fifteen years.
• It sits directly against the rock which forms a natural amphitheatre around it so that the temple itself seems to grow from the living rock.
• Hatshepsut was the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty and one of the few female rulers of Ancient Egypt.

#78-Forum Romanum

• Rome
• 78BC – AD 608
• The Roman Forum is a rectangular plaza surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome
• Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum Magnum
• Unlike the later imperial fora in Rome—which were self-consciously modeled on the ancient Greek public plaza—the Roman Forum developed gradually, organically and piecemeal over many centuries

#79-Great Wall of China

• Near Beijing, China
• unified in 210 BC
• It is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China.
• Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century BC
• An archaeological survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measures out to be 21,196 km (13,171 mi).

#80-Qutub Minar

• Delhi, India
• AD 1200
• Is the tallest minaret (a distinctive architectural feature of Islamic mosques, generally a tall spire with an onion-shaped or conical crown) in India
• Is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
• It is made of red sandstone and marble.
• The tower has 379 stairs, is 72.5 meters high, and has a base diameter of 14.3 meters, which narrows to 2.7 meters at the top story.

#81-Forbidden City

•   Beijing, China
• 1406
• Architectural style: Chinese architecture
• The Forbidden City is a rectangle, measuring 961 metres (3,153 ft) from north to south and 753 metres (2,470 ft) from east to west. It consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,886 bays of rooms.
• Yellow is the color of the Emperor. Thus almost all roofs in the Forbidden City bear yellow glazed tiles.

#82-Escorial

• Madrid, Spain
• 1563-1584
• The building is the most important architectural monument of the Spanish Renaissance.
• Has four principal stories with large towers at each corner.
• Today, the Escorial is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it is one of Spain’s most visited landmarks.

#83-Erechtheum

• Portico of the Caryatids
• 421-405 BC
• Architectural styles: Classical architecture, Ionic order
• Architect: Mnesikles
• The name, of popular origin, is derived from a shrine dedicated to the Greek hero Erichthonius.

#84-Colosseum

• Rome
• 72-80 AD
• Architectural style: Ancient Roman architecture
• The elliptical building is immense, measuring 188m by 156m and reaching a height of more than 48 meters (159 ft).
• The Colosseum could accommodate some 55,000 spectators who entered the building through no less than 80 entrances.
• Above the ground are four stories, the upper story contained seating for lower classes and women.
• The lowest story was preserved for prominent citizens.
• Below the ground were rooms with mechanical devices and cages containing wild animals. The cages could be hoisted, enabling the animals to appear in the middle of the arena.
• The southern side of the Colosseum was felled by an earthquake in 847.

#85-Chartres Cathedral

• Chartres, France
• 1140-1220
• Architectural style: Gothic architecture
• The plan of the Gothic cathedral is a Latin cross with three aisles, a short transept and an ambulatory.
• Chartres’ extensive cycle of portal sculpture remains fully intact and its glowing stained-glass windows are all originals.
• Dating from the early 13th century, the glass largely escaped harm during the religious wars of the 16th century; it is said to constitute one of the most complete collections of medieval stained glass in the world.
• Chartres was the first building on which buttresses were used as a structural element that determined the overall external appearance of the building.
• I have visited this cathedral!!

#86-Chichen Itza

• Yucatan, Mexico
• 12th Century
• It is a UNESCO World Heritage area of immense cultural significance.
• I is the largest, most famous and most accessible Mayan site, about 125 kilometers west of Cancun and Cozumel.
• It’s 75 feet tall.
• The large steps end in two big serpent heads.
• Architect: Mayans

#87-Chateau de Chambord

• France
• 1526-1544
• Architectural styles: Classical architecture, French Renaissance architecture
• The Château de Chambord displays a unique silhouette, with its 156 metre façade, 426 rooms, 77 staircases, 282 fireplaces and 800 sculpted capitals.
• Architects: Domenico da Cortona and Pierre Nepveu.

#88-Audience Hall of the Temple

• Persepolis, Iraq
• c. 500 BV
• Architect: Unknown

#89-Basilica of St Denis

• Paris
• 1135-1144
• Notable for its Gothic architecture.
• It is the burial site of French monarchs, which makes it comparable to Westminster Abbey in England.

#90-Basilica of Sant’ambrogio

• Milan, Italy
• 11-12th Century
• Architectural style: Romanesque. This is seen in the two bell towers, the facade long and low, the porch and red brick construction.
• Originally built by Bishop Ambrose in 379-386, it was completely reconstructed in 11th and 12th century.
•  Saint Ambrose was an archbishop of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century.
• He was one of the four original doctors of the Church and is the patron saint of Milan.

#91-Angkor Wat Temple-Mountain

• Angkor, Cambodia
• 1113-1150
• It was built for King Suryavarman II.
• This elaborate, awe-inspiring temple was built as a yantra – an instrument to help humans realize the divine.
• Architectural styles: Khmer, Dravidian.

#92- Alcazar of Seville

• Seville, Spain
• 14th Century.
• The Alcázar is a spectacular medley of architectural  influences, but most famously, an important example of Mudéjar architecture.
•  It was registered in 1987 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
• It is the oldest royal palace still in use in Europe.
• Architect: Unknown

#93- Arch of Constantine

• Rome
• AD 312
• The arch is 21 meters high and divided into three archways, altogether the arch is about 26 meters wide.
•  It is also richly decorated with statues and reliefs representing Dacian captured soldiers, defeated by the Trajan army.
• Inscriptions: To the Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantinus, the greatest, pious, and blessed Augustus: because he, inspired by the divine, and by the greatness of his mind, has delivered the state from the tyrant and all of his followers at the same time, with his army and just force of arms, the Senate and People of Rome have dedicated this arch, decorated with triumphs.
• Architect: Unknown

#94-Borgund Church

• Borgund, Norway
• c1150
• The best preserved of Norway’s 28 extant stave churches.
• Its walls are formed by vertical wooden boards, or staves, hence the name “stave church”.
• The floor plan of this church resembles that of a central plan, double-shelled Greek cross with an apse attached to one end in place of the fourth arm.

#95- Machu Picchu Fortress Ruins

• Inca, Peru
• 16th century
• Machu Picchu sits nearly 8,000 feet above sea level, on top of a ridge between two peaks.
• The smaller peak, called the “Huayna Picchu”, is the one most often seen in photographs of the ruins.
• Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti.
• It is often referred to as the “City of the Incas” & it is perhaps the most familiar icon of Inca civilization.

#96- Kailasa Temple

• 8th Century AD
• Maharashtra, India
• This shrine was not constructed of stone on stone, it was in fact not constructed at all: it was carved, sculpted in total from the volcanic hillside.
• Est. 200,000 tons of rock excavated, reputedly using 1″ chisels over a span of nearly 100 years.
• Architect: Unknown

#97- Durham Cathedral

• C1093
• Durham, England
• It is renowned as a masterpiece of Romanesque architecture.
• It was begun in 1093 and completed within 40 years.
• It is the only cathedral in England to retain almost all of its Norman craftsmanship.

#98- Diocletian’s Palace

• AD 300
• Split, Croatia
• The ground plan of the palace is an irregular rectangle with towers projecting from the western, northern, and eastern facades.
• The palace is enclosed by walls, it housed over 9000 people.
• Architect: Unknown

#99-The Church of the Holy Apostles

• The Church of the Holy Apostles is a 14th-century Byzantine church in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki.
• The building belongs to the type of the composite, five-domed cross-in-square churches, with four supporting columns.
• The interior decoration consists of rich mosaics on the upper levels, inspired by Constantinopolitan models. 
• Architect: Unknown

#100-Palazzo Rucellai

• The Palazzo Rucellai is a 15th century townhouse on the Via della Vigna Nuova in Florence, Italy.
• The ground floor was for business, the second story for formal reception and the third a private family area and sleeping quarter. A fourth, hidden, floor under the roof was for servants. 
• Architects: Leone Battista Alberti, Bernardo Rossellino