I see no life at all in something like this:
http://data.greatbuildings.com/gbc/i...id_2345761.jpg
Or this:
http://data.greatbuildings.com/gbc/i...er_maw_001.jpg
Or this:
http://data.greatbuildings.com/gbc/i...id_2464522.jpg
Or your beloved convent:
http://data.greatbuildings.com/gbc/i...id_2463890.jpg
Others may see genius, but I look at that building above, and I see a dungeon.
Other architects practiced the International and Modernist architecture better than Corbu. Even Frank Lloyd Wright, who professed to hate the International style, could build a much better building in that fashion (Fallingwater) than anything Corbu put his name on.
The thing with Le Corbusier is that people are taken with the humanist philosophy he expressed; he was a well-meaning guy. But his actual buildings look hideous, devoid of elegance. The only building of his that appeals to me at all is the UN Headquarters, and even that one now reeks of dated utilitarianism.
In my view, these are among the ones who deserve to be remembered:
Louis Sullivan, as revered as he is, still doesn't get the credit he deserves. But when you consider the time in which he worked, structures such as the
Schlesinger and Meyer Department Store and
National Farmers' Bank are phenomenal. Just remember that without Sullivan, there is no Frank Lloyd Wright.
Speaking of
Frank Lloyd Wright, he deserves his monumental reputation. Because he was so idiosyncratic, his influence is not as far-reaching as Corbu's, but Wright's individual buildings --
Fallingwater,
Johnson Wax, the
Marin County Civic Center and the
Guggenheim Museum, to name a few -- have far more aesthetic value.
Eero Saarinen built some magnificent structures, such as the
TWA Terminal.
Kenzo Tange's most notable buildings, such as the
National Gymnasium and the
Tokyo City Hall, leave a striking, unique impression.
I'm sure I'm missing a few, and there are certainly some very good architects out there (Pei, Calatrava, Gehry sometimes), but the ones above come to mind immediately.
You mean besides almost every architect under the age of 60?
The quality of post-modern architecture varies widely, but one of the nice things about contemporary architecture is that it simply is not as rigid as the previous iteration. Yes, some post-modern architecture is so abtruse and self-indulgent that it's irrelevant, and quite a lot of it consists of unimaginative knockoffs of previous work -- but some of it is creative, free-flowing and memorable.
Only by Americans, and not by all American architects. The International style, which Wright often criticized, was by far the dominant style of architecture (at least for public buildings) in the 20th century.
