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Celebrating 125 Years: The Past

RECORD’s Top 125 Buildings

A selection of the most significant works that defined architecture in our era.

Top 125 Buildings Collage
Top 125 Buildings

Wainwright Building | 1891 | St. Louis | Adler & Sullivan

Photo courtesy Library of Congress 

Top 125 Buildings

Glasgow School of Art | 1899 | Glasgow | Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Photo © Alan McAteer, courtesy Glasgow School of Art 

Top 125 Buildings

Larkin Building | 1906 | Buffalo | Frank Lloyd Wright

Photo © Architectural Record 

Top 125 Buildings

Morgan Library & Museum | 1906 | New York | McKim, Mead & White

Photo © Graham Haber, courtesy the Morgan Library and Museum 

Top 125 Buildings

Austrian Postal Savings Bank | 1906 | Vienna | Otto Wagner

Photo © Doris Herlinger, Postparkasse Archive 

Top 125 Buildings

Gamble House | 1908 | Pasadena, California | Greene & Greene

Photo © Alexander Vertikoff, The Gamble House, USC 

Top 125 Buildings

Unity Temple | 1908 | Oak Park, Illinois | Frank Lloyd Wright

Photo courtesy Library of Congress 

Top 125 Buildings

Kärntner Bar | 1909 | Vienna | Adolf Loos

Photo © Robin Roger Peller, Design Atelier

Top 125 Buildings

AEG Turbine Factory | 1910 | Berlin | Peter Behrens

courtesy Siemens 

Top 125 Buildings

First Church of Christ, Scientist | 1910 | Berkeley, California | Bernard Ralph Maybeck

Photo © Wayne Andrews/ ESTO

Top 125 Buildings

Pennsylvania Station | 1910 | New York | McKim, Mead & White

Photo courtesy Library of Congress 

Top 125 Buildings

Robie House | 1910 | Chicago | Frank Lloyd Wright

Photo courtesy Library of Congress 

Top 125 Buildings

New York Public Library Main Branch | 1911 | New York | Carrère and Hastings

Photo courtesy New York Public Library

Top 125 Buildings

Casa Milà | 1912 | Barcelona | Antoni Gaudí

Of the many masterpieces sprung from the eccentric and utterly individualistic mind of Antoni Gaudí, this is perhaps the most serene. Called La Pedrera (the Quarry) for its undulating sculpted and self-supporting stone facade, the apartment block is an orchestrated symphony of natural forms that cover or color nearly every surface of the interior courts and passages, and erupt in the fanciful landscape of its famous roof. —Carol Willis

Photo courtesy Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera 
Top 125 Buildings

Grand Central Terminal | 1913 | New York | Reed & Stem and Warren & Wetmore

Photo courtesy Library of Congress 

Top 125 Buildings

Woolworth Building | 1913 | New York | Cass Gilbert

Photo courtesy Library of Congress 

Top 125 Buildings

American Radiator Building | 1924 | New York | Hood & Foullhoux

Photo courtesy Bryant Park Hotel 

Top 125 Buildings

Schröder House | 1924 | Utrecht, Netherlands | Gerrit Rietveld

Photo © Ernst Moritz/Centraal Museum 

Top 125 Buildings

Lovell Beach House | 1926 | Newport Beach, California | Rudolph M. Schindler

Photo courtesy Library of Congress 

Top 125 Buildings

Bauhaus Building | 1926 | Dessau, Germany | Walter Gropius

Photo © Christin Irrgang/Bauhaus Dessau Foundation 

Top 125 Buildings

Stockholm Public Library | 1927 | Stockholm Public Library | Gunner Asplund

Photo courtesy City of Stockholm 

Top 125 Buildings

Ford River Rouge Complex | 1928 | Dearborn, Michigan | Albert Kahn Associates

Photo © Charles Sheeler/Lane Collection/Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY 

Top 125 Buildings

Lovell Health House | 1929 | Los Angeles | Richard Neutra

Photo courtesy Architectural Record 

Top 125 Buildings

Barcelona Pavilion | 1929 | Barcelona | Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Photo © Pete Sieger 

Top 125 Buildings

Viceroy’s House | 1929 | New Delhi | Edwin Lutyens

Photo courtesy Christian Haugen/Creative Commons 

Top 125 Buildings Collage
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September 1, 2016

To commemorate Architectural Record’s 125th anniversary, our editors have chosen to honor 125 of the most important works of architecture built since the magazine’s founding in 1891. This was not an easy task. We started by polling a group of distinguished critics and scholars for nominations, but the final list is ours. While many inclusions are obvious, others may be surprising, or a little controversial—as are some omissions. And, we know, all 125 might not make the list at RECORD's next big birthday: time inevitably changes not only our tastes, but how we understand history.

Click through the slideshow above, and visit the pages below, to see all the buildings on our list.


26-50    51-75    76-100    101-125

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