20 Famous House Architects from around the World

Peter_Zumthor photo By KovacsDaniel Wikimedia

20 Famous House Architects from around the World

Many famous architects across the world do amazing work. Most of these famous architects all over the world know how to render steel, glass and stone to design buildings that transform and define cities and spaces.

They have different styles and master plans to design the buildings but in the end, they come up with astonishing buildings which are attractive to all eyes passing. Architecture is an important and impressive form of art in the world and all the buildings architects build have a practical purpose.

In this article, we have talked of the most famous architects in the world and their amazing works. The following architects have had a great impact on the architectural field and have left a lasting legacy.

1. Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank_Lloyd_Wright photo By New York World Wikimedia

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, designer, educator and writer. He was born on June 8, 1867, in Richland Center, Wisconsin, U.S. and died on April 9, 1959, in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. For the seventy years he was in the field of architecture he designed approximately over 1000 structures.

Frank was one of the successful architects of the 20^th century and played a main role in the architectural movements and motivating architects all over the world through his amazing works.

In the year 1991, Frank Lloyd Wright was recognized as the greatest American architect of all time by the American Institute of Architects (a professional organization for architects in the United States). Some of his work was also selected in 2019 and listed as a World Heritage Site.

2. Mies Van der Rohe

Mies Van der Rohe  Photo By Hugo Erfurth Wikimedia

Mies Van der Rohe was born in Aachen, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire on March 27, 1886. He was one of the famous German-American architects and he is known as one of the pioneers of modernist architecture.

Mies started designer work when he was young and worked in his father’s stone carving shop and other local design firms before he joined the interior designer Bruno Paul in Berlin.

Later on, Rohe established his architectural style to present modern times. He has designed many buildings throughout his career such as Highfield House, One Charles Center, New National Gallery, Crown Hall, Toronto-Dominion Centre, Westmount Square, and Tugendhat House among others.

Check out the 15 Famous Spanish Architects.

3. Renzo Piano

Renzo_Piano By Columbia GSAPP Wikimedia

Renzo Piano is best known for his high-tech public spaces mostly for designing the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris back in 1977 together with Richard Rogers. This high-tech design used in Centre Georges Pompidou gained the attention of the international architectural community immediately.

It is interesting to know that Piano was born into a family of builders. After completing his Polytechnic in 1964, he worked with different architects including his father till 1970 when he established a partnership with Rogers. One of his known 21^st Century projects was the building of the California Academy of Sciences in 2008 in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park famous for its green architecture.

4. Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on February 28, 1929. He is a Canadian- American architect and designer. Since a young age, Frank was a creative child, he spent his Saturday mornings in his grandfather’s hardware store, his mother introduced him to art activities and he spend time with his father drawing. Gehry being creative since childhood help him in his future career as an architect.

In 1954, Frank graduated from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Architecture. Since then, he has designed several buildings, one of his famous designs is the renovation of his private residence located in Santa Monica, California. Other buildings Frank has designed include Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro and California Aerospace Museum among others.

5. Jeanne Gang

Jeanne_Gang photo By Columbia GSAPP Wikimedia

Jeanne Gang is an American architect born on March 19, 1964, in Belvidere, Illinois. She is the founder of the Studio Gang (an American architecture and urban design practice with offices in Chicago, New York, Paris and San Francisco) founded in 1997.

She was widely known after designing the Aqua Tower, which was the tallest woman-designed building in the world at the time of its completion. Gang projects have been widely awarded and she is one of Chicago’s famous architects.

Gang has received several awards throughout his career such as the 2017 Louis I. Kahn Memorial Award, and the 2013 National Design Award. Some of the buildings he has designed include One Hundred, WMS Boathouse at Clark Park, 40 Tenth Avenue and St Regis Chicago.

6. Shigeru Ban

Shigeru Ban photo by Prospective Architects Handbook Website Wikimedia

Shigeru Ban is known for always coming up with new ideas in the architecture field. He is never interested in the newest materials or techniques but only in the expression of the concept behind his building. Since he is a Japanese architect, he uses several themes and methods found in traditional Japanese architecture.

Some of the famous buildings Ban has designed include Aspen Art Museum, USA, Cardboard Cathedral, Christchurch, New Zealand and Centre Pompidou-Metz, France among others. In 2014, he was the lucky architect to be elected and was awarded the Pritzker Prize.

Read also 10 Famous Japanese Architects.

7. Gordon Bunshaft

When we talk of famous architects, we cannot forget the American architect Gordon Bunshaft. He was the leading promoter of modern design back in the mid-twentieth century.

 Some of his notable and famous buildings include Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, Lever House in New York, National Commercial Bank in Jeddah, and 140 Broadway.

Since he did a great job in his career he won several awards such as the Pritzker Architecture Prize, and the American Institute of Architects Twenty-Five Year Award not forgetting he was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

 8. Daniel Burnham

Daniel Burnham By unattributed Wikimedia

Daniel Burnham is an American architect born in Heidelberg, Germany. He was an urban planner whose impact on the American city was substantial. From 1892 – 1993 he was selected as the Director of Works for the World’s Columbian Exposition.

Daniel had a major role in the creation of master plans for the growth of several cities such as the plans for Manila, Baguio, Plan of Chigaco and plans for downtown Washington, D.C. He not only created a master plan but also designed several famous buildings such as Union Station in Washington D.C., San Francisco’s Merchants Exchange, London’s Selfridges department store, and the Flatiron Building of triangular shape in New York City among others.

9. Rem Koolhaas

Rem Koolhaas photo by Forgemind ArchiMedia Wikimedia

Rem Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, urbanist, and architectural theorist. He was born on November 17, 1944, in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He comes from a family of architects, his paternal cousin known as Teun Koolhaas was an architect and urban planner from 1940 to 2007.

Some of his notable buildings include Qatar National Library, China Central Television Headquarters, De Rotterdam, Netherlands Embassy Berlin, Seattle Central Library and Casada Musica among others.

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10. Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid in Heydar Aliyev Cultural center in Baku nov 2013 photo By Dmitry Ternovoy Wikimedia

Zaha Hadid is an Iraq-British architect born on October 31, 1950, in Baghdad, Kingdom of Iraq and died on March 31, 2016, in Miami, Florida, U.S. She joined Architecture school in 1972 at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in search of different system to traditional architectural drawing.

Hadid is Known as the ‘Queen of the curve’ who freed architectural geometry giving it a new identity. Her famous works include the Broad Art Museum, the Guangzhou Opera House, Rome’s MAXXI Museum, the London Aquatics Centre for 2012, Riverside Museum, Bridge Pavilion, Heydar Aliyev Center and Contemporary Arts among others.

Zaha was the first ever woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize award in 2004. She also received the Stirling Prize award in 2010 and 2011, the UK’S most prestigious architectural award.

Some of her buildings were still under construction when she died such as Daxing International Airport in Beijing, a venue for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and the AI Wakrah Stadium in Qatar.

11. Didi Contractor

The President, Shri Ram Nath Kovind presenting the Nari Shakti Puruskar for the year 2018 to Ms. Delia Narayan Contractor, on the occasion of the International Women’s Day, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi on March 08, 2019 photo by Government of India Wikimedia

Didi Contractor was a famous architect who left a good legacy behind. She was widely known for her work on the vernacular traditions in India and used adobe, stone and bamboo as the material to construct her buildings. She was a self-taught architect and was motivated by the talk of architect Frank Lloyd Wright when she was still a child.

 Contractor won the Women Artists, Architects and Designer Asia Life Time Achievement Award in 2017. She was the recipient of the Nari Shakti Puraskar, in 2019, given to her by the president of India for recognizing the achievements and contributions of women.

Read also 10 Most Famous architects of all time.

12. Anupama Kundoo

Anupama Kundoo photo by GSAPPstudent Wikimedia

Anupama Kundoo is one of the famous Indian architects. She studied at the University of Mumbai and graduated in 1989. Later, she joined TU Berlin to attain her PhD and graduated in the year 2008.

She has taught at different international universities, Architecture and Urban Management, which has strengthened her expertise in climate change-related development issues and rapid urbanization issue.

She has won several awards due to her amazing work such as the 2021 RIBA Charles Jencks award due to her contribution to architectural theory, the 2021 Building Sense Now global award of the Germany Sustainable Building Council and the 2021 Auguste Perret Prize for architectural technology.

13. Tadao Ando

Tadao Ando photo By Christopher Schriner Wikimedia

Tadao Ando was born in Osaka, Japan on September 13, 1941. He is a Japanese architect known for his minimalist concrete buildings. The interesting thing about Tadao is that he is a self-taught architect and in 1969 he launched his practice in Ōsaka.

Ando was the winner of the Pritzker Prize in the year 1995. Due to the spread of the good work, he was doing, Andō received a number of commissions outside of Japan which gave him a chance to continue his aesthetic in more-public spaces.

Some of his notable works include the Japanese Pavilion at Expo ’92 in Sevilla in 1992, the Ando Gallery at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1992, and the UNESCO Meditation Space in Paris in 1996 among others.

14. Toyo Ito

Toyo Ito photo by Jerome Tobias Wikimedia

Toyo Ito is one of the famous architects of Japan known for his Innovative designs. He was the winner of the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize Award. He studied architecture at the University of Tokyo and graduated in 1965.

In 1971, Ito established his practice known as Urban Robot whose main aim was to Focus on residential and other small-scale projects. White U house is one of his early known designs, designed back in 1976 in Tokyo.

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15. Norman Foster

Norman Foster photo By Andy Miah Wikimedia

Norman Foster is a British architect associated with the growth of high-tech architecture. He is a key role in British modernist architecture. Foster has his architectural practice known as Foster + Partners which was founded in the year 1967 as Foster Associates, it is the largest in the United Kingdom.

He is the president of the Norman Foster Foundation which was started with aim of promoting interdisciplinary thinking and research to assist the new generation of architects, urbanists and designers to predict the future.

Norman Foster has designed several buildings such as Apple Park, 30 St Mary Axe, Willis Faber and Dumas Headquarters, Wembley Stadium, HSBC Main Building, and Reichstag building among others.

16. Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier photo By Joop van Bilsen / Anefo Wikimedia

Le Corbusier is one of the famous architects from Switzerland. Apart from being an architect, he was also a designer, urban planner, writer and painter. He worked in different countries and he designed buildings in Japan, India, South America, Europe and North America.

He was dedicated and passionate about providing better living conditions for the people living in crowded cities and advocated for urban planning. Le Corbusier was among the founders of the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne, an organization founded in 1928 and disbanded in 1959, and it was responsible for a series of events and congresses arranged across Europe by the most famous architect of the time.

Notable buildings he has designed include Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, Villa Savoye, Poissy, Villa La Roche, Paris, Unité d’habitation, and Marseille among others.

17. Peter Zumthor

Peter_Zumthor photo By KovacsDaniel Wikimedia

Peter Zumthor is a Swiss architect born on April 26, 1943, in Basel, Switzerland. His work is mostly described as uncompromising and minimalist. He was exposed to the designer world since childhood because his father was a cabinet maker.

Zumthor studied industrial design and architecture, in 1966, as an exchange student at Pratt Institute in New York. Since then, he has done notable work such as Therme Vals in 1996, Kolumba in 2007, and Kunsthaus Bregenz in 1997 among others.

He has won several awards such as the 2009 award of Pritzker Prize, the Royal Gold Medal in 2013, the 2008 Praemium Imperiale and Carlsberg Architectural Prize in 1998.

Read also 10 Most Famous American Architects.

18. Moshe Safdie

Moshe Safdie photo By Sa-rp-2021 Wikimedia

Moshe Safdie is one of the most famous and successful architects. He has received several awards due to his amazing works such as the Gold Medal, American Institute of Architects, Champion of the Order of Canada, Gold Medal, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and Lifetime Achievement for Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum among others.

He is mostly known for designing Jewel Changi Airport and Marina Bay Sands not forgetting Habitat 67. Since he completed his studies at the McGill University Faculty of Engineering and graduated with a degree in architecture, he has been doing great work all over the world.

Today, his architectural headquarters are located in Boston. However, he has opened several offices in other countries, in Jerusalem, Shanghai, Singapore and Toronto.

19. Bijoy Jain

Bijoy_Jain photo By Rossi101 Wikimedia

Bijoy Jain was born in 1965, in Mumbai, India. He is an Indian architect known worldwide. Jain has been doing remarkable work when it comes to design, his work has been presented in several venues and international locations such as the architectural League of New York, the Alvar Aalto Symposium and the Canadian Center for Architecture.

In 2009, he was awarded the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture from L’Institut Francais D’Architecture. In the same year, he was awarded the Design for Asia Award from the Hong Kong Design Centre. In 2012, Jain was awarded the Third BSI Swiss Architectural Award in Switzerland.

20. Chitra Vishwanath

Chitra Vishwanath has been active in the architect career from 1991 to date. She has been operating her architectural firm, co-working with other architects on many projects mostly in Africa and India.

She has done more than 500 projects in the construction of buildings of different sizes. Mud is always the basic element in her architectural designs, to promote her theme of mud architecture of buildings, Chitra constructed her own mud house in Bengaluru.