Architectural Hotspots

Cross Country HORIZON

Words By Nick Burry

Architects must be masters of both art and science. Their goal is to manipulate space, aiming to make it practically efficient and aesthetically pleasing.

The following is our list of the 20 most glamorous, provocative and functional examples.

1 Best Landscape Architecture

BELLE ISLE PARK, DETROIT

New Yorkers can’t live without the urban oasis of Central Park. But Detroit boasts a gem of landscape architecture that rivals that storied green swath: Belle Isle Park. Belle Isle was conceived by Frederick Law Olmstead, Sr.—also the father of Central Park—in 1883, and at 982 acres, it’s actually larger than its New York sister. Comprised of everything from baseball diamonds to orchid-sheltering conservatories to stands of original forest, Belle Isle fuses nature and recreation, learning and relaxation—all located within five minutes of the city center. www.ci.detroit.mi.us

2 Best Museum

HIGH MUSEUM OF ART, ATLANTA

Atlanta’s gleaming white-enameled High Museum is not only the region’s art capital, it is a work of art in itself. Architect Richard Meier flooded the galleries with light, and his swirling central atrium recalls Frank Lloyd Wright’s design of the Guggenheim. In 2005, Italian architect Renzo Piano added a central piazza and three buildings to the site, more than doubling the size of the exhibition space. He also utilized conical skylights, drawing in natural light to illuminate the increasingly diverse and renowned exhibitions. www.high.org

3 Best Stadium

ORIOLE PARK AT CAMDEN YARDS, BALTIMORE

During the ’60s and ’70s, major league stadiums adopted a “concrete donut” style. The utilitarian units were often fitted with Astroturf and not always located downtown. Oriole Park at Camden Yards changed that trend. The asymmetrical playing field, steel trusses and brick archways sparked a renaissance of retro-style ballparks across the country. Instead of occupying the fringe of the city, Oriole Park is embedded in Baltimore’s downtown landscape. The location is also tied to baseball lore: it’s roughly a long foul ball from Babe Ruth’s birthplace. www.orioles.mlb.com

4 Best Convention Center

WASHINGTON CONVENTION CENTER, WASHINGTON, DC

The designers of the Washington Convention Center were charged with the task of turning six blocks into a multi-use building without disturbing the continuity of the urban streetscape. Remarkably, they created a 2.3-million-square-foot building that complements its surroundings. With 700,000 square feet of exhibit space and a 52,000-square-foot ballroom, it’s a study in confined open space. www.dcconvention.com

5 Best Residential Building

FALLINGWATER, PITTSBURGH

When is viewing a home you cannot buy worth a 90-minute drive from Pittsburgh? When it’s Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, Fallingwater, in Mill Run, PA. Designed as a home for the Kaufmann family, it’s a testament to Wright’s organic style—a home that reflects and relates to its environment. Built over a waterfall, tiered concrete “trays” harmonize with the surrounding rocky ledges. The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy runs tours of Fallingwater, during which visitors can marvel at the integrated planning of the building, as well as Wright’s original furniture designs. www.paconserve.org

6 Best Office Building

JOHNSON WAX BUILDING, MILWAUKEE

Just south of Milwaukee stands a monument to light and space in the workaday world. Another example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural vision, the Johnson Wax Building shuns the idea of enclosure.

The wide-open interior is broken only by futuristic, tapering lily pad support columns. Specialized glass tubes substitute for windows, filling the space with soft, diffused light. Detail-oriented Wright even designed the office chairs, which only had three legs and would fall from underneath an employee with bad posture. www.racinecounty.com/golden

7 Best Public School

DIAMOND RANCH PUBLIC SCHOOL, LOS ANGELES

Maverick architect Thom Mayne and his firm Morphosis are no strangers to controversy, as some of their modern designs for public buildings have left taxpayers a little bewildered. The construction of Diamond Ranch High School, just outside of Los Angeles in Pomona, was no different, as conflict arose from perceived funding inequities in the surrounding district. But at a cost of $28 million, Diamond Ranch is a modern architectural bargain, with a visually striking, aggressively angular metal-clad exterior. It’s also a movie star, having featured prominently in films like The Cell, Orange County and Serenity. www.pusd.org

8 Best Research Center

MESA LABORATORY OF THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH, DENVER

Nestled into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder, legendary architect
I.M. Pei’s impressive complex rises like a medieval castle from its subtly landscaped surroundings. The center is covered in a rough, red-brown concrete finish, evoking both the stone mesas of the desert and the hand-hewn cave dwellings of early indigenous peoples. www.ucar.edu

9 Best Bridge

BROOKLYN BRIDGE, NEW YORK CITY

San Franciscans will cry foul, but the Brooklyn Bridge takes the top bridge spot. At the time of its completion (1883), the Brooklyn Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world, and its towers the largest structures in the Western Hemisphere. As for function, the Brooklyn Bridge has no peer, linking the bustling mega-skyscraper commercial district of downtown Manhattan with burgeoning Brooklyn—NYC’s most populous borough. The design is both beautiful and eerie; a web of cables supports the sandy-colored limestone and granite structure as commuters pass under the pointed Gothic archways.

10 Best Colonial-era Building

MISSION DOLORES, SAN FRANCISCO

Founded in 1776, Mission Dolores is the only intact chapel in the chain of settlements established by Spanish missionaries along the California coast in the 18th century, and it is the oldest standing building in San Francisco. It even survived the great earthquake and fire of 1906, a testament to the Native American laborers who constructed the four-foot-thick adobe walls and hung the sturdy redwood beams. Mission Dolores also still serves its original function; services are still held regularly. www.missiondolores.org

11 Most Animal- Friendly Building

ANIMAL FOUNDATION DOG ADOPTION PARK,LAS VEGAS

The goal of the Animal Foundation Dog Adoption Park is to create an environment that is healthy for the animals and pleasant for visitors, increasing the likelihood of adoption. To make the dog bungalows comfortable, designers calculated sunlight ray angles to admit the proper amount of natural light and used aerodynamics software to develop a wind-powered ventilation system that keeps the desert temperatures bearable. To reduce operating costs, solar panels were used to create shade canopies, and an on-site plant treats wastewater for reuse. Technology meets compassion. 702-384-3333

12 Best Theatre

CHICAGO THEATRE

Many theaters try to project an image of grandeur, but none do it better than the French Baroque-style Chicago Theatre.

The five-story high lobby mirrors the Royal Chapel at Versailles; the design of the grand staircase is borrowed from the Paris Opera House; and the façade sports a miniature version of the Arc de Triomphe. And, the six-story, blazing, vertical “CHICAGO” sign is a landmark in itself, placing the theater smack in the heart of the American architectural landscape. www.thechicagotheatre.com

13 Best Building Designed by a President

MONTICELLO, RICHMOND, VA

Thomas Jefferson was a man of many interests, including archaeology, viticulture, European cuisine and education.

But perhaps foremost among his accomplishments—besides helping to found a country—was in architecture. Jefferson actually helped bring the Neo-Palladian style to America, a school of architecture associated with the Enlightenment ideals he held so dear. As the architect of his own Colonial Georgian home in Charlottesville, Jefferson saw fit to include previously unheard of details like sliding doors and a swivel chair. Monticello is definitely worth a visit when you’re in the Richmond area. www.monticello.org

14 Best Architectural District

ART DECO DISTRICT, MIAMI

The Art Deco movement, with its emphasis on a decorative, modern look, found a lasting home in flashy Miami. Visitors cruising up and down Ocean Drive, Collins Avenue and Washington Avenue will be treated to the highest concentration of these architectural gems. The local variations on the Art Deco style include Streamline Moderne, with its rigid, industrial inspired lines, and MiMo, which plays with asymmetry, sharp angles and non-standard patterns and shapes. www.mdpl.org

15 Best Outdoor Music Venue

HOLLYWOOD BOWL, LOS ANGELES

Over the years, the Hollywood Bowl has benefited from the interest of architectural aristocracy. Lloyd Wright (Frank’s eldest son) designed the instantly recognizable, segmented shell in 1928. In the ’70s and ’80s, Frank Gehry made important contributions to the acoustics of the venue. But the Bowl itself outshines the marquee status of its architects. Elegant and functional, the curvilinear lines of the shell funnel the music towards crowds of up to 18,000. Its most recent facelift preserved the iconic ’20s style while increasing stage space and improving acoustics. www.hollywoodbowl.com

16 Best Example of Postmodernism

VANNA VENTURI HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA

The house Robert Venturi built for his mother embraces the contradictions that epitomize postmodern architecture. It is traditional: the façade is balanced on each side by five windows. At the same time, it thumbs its nose at tradition: the “balanced” front windows have completely different arrangements. The building is both a simple, American wooden structure, and an homage to European designs such as Michaelangelo’s Porta Pia in Rome. Venturi described it most accurately as “a little house with big scale.”

17 Best “Healthy” Building

SCHOOL OF NURSING AND STUDENT COMMUNITY CENTER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER, HOUSTON

The designers favored low-impact building materials such as reclaimed brick and recycled aluminum.

They used breezeways, atria and raised floors to help circulate air and reduce the need for cooling. Rainwater harvesting and efficient fixtures cut down significantly on the building’s water waste. The result is a building that fosters both medical and environmental wellness. www.uthouston.edu

18 Best Capitol Building

NORTH CAROLINA STATE CAPITOL, RALEIGH

The State Capitol building in Raleigh is exactly what we have come to expect in a civic building: a stately Greek Revival edifice, constructed of stone and capped with a copper dome. These features, coupled with the front-facing Doric columns—modeled after the Parthenon—give the building an air of authority and permanence. Much of the ornamental detail takes its cue from classic Greek examples, further linking the building to the dawn of democracy. www.ncstatecapitol.org

19 Best Library

THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

Maybe it’s the sense of academia emanating from the nearby universities, but it just feels right to be in a historic library in Boston. In 1895, architect Charles Follen McKim put the finishing touches on his “palace for the people.” One of the many architectural highlights of the Renaissance Revival-style building is Bates Hall, featuring a barrel-arched ceiling and a carved limestone balcony. Throughout the library, marble fireplaces and oak bookcases are interspersed with murals and sculptures. Guided tours are available. www.bpl.org

20 Best Bank

NATIONAL FARMERS’ BANK, MINNEAPOLIS

Louis Sullivan’s National Farmers’ Bank is both solid and graceful. The squat form, red brick and strong arches project a sense of security, while the detail work of blue-green terra cotta suggests the stacks of bills protected within. The interior features stained glass windows, large-scale murals, and intricate ironwork. It’s well worth the hour drive from Minneapolis to the town of Owatonna, even if you’re not making a deposit. www.mnhs.org