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Celebrating 125 Years: The Past

RECORD’s Top 125 Buildings: 26-50

Top 125 Buildings

Chrysler Building | 1930 | New York | William van Alen

Photo courtesy Library of Congress 

Top 125 Buildings

Kiefhoek Housing | 1930 | Rotterdam | J.J.P. Oud

Photo courtesy State Service for Cultural Heritage (Netherlands)

Top 125 Buildings

Empire State Building | 1931 | New York | Shreve, Lamb & Harmon

It is the most indispensably iconic symbol of the skyscraper type and of New York for a world audience beyond the professional culture of architecture. It was the world’s tallest building for longer than any other structure (1931–74). I have always admired its overall form, silhouette, and profile as a masterly solution by its Beaux Arts–trained architect, Thomas Lamb, as the main designer. He modeled it partly on French medieval churches with dominant towers, such as the 12th-century Cathedral of St. Lazare at Autun, which he admired from his travels as a student. In this way, the Empire State connects to a long tradition of monumental architecture. —Joseph Siry

Photo courtesy Library of Congress 

Top 125 Buildings

Villa Savoye | 1931 | Poissy, France | Le Corbusier

Photo courtesy Paul Kozlowski / © Fondation Le Corbusier/Artists Rights Society 

Top 125 Buildings

Aluminaire House | 1931 | Palm Springs, California | Albert Frey

Photo courtesy Michael Schwarting 

Top 125 Buildings

Maison de Verre | 1932 | Paris | Pierre Chareau and Bernard Bijvoet

Photo © Mark Lyons 

Top 125 Buildings

PSFS Building | 1932 | Philadelphia | Howe & Lescaze

Photo courtesy Hagley Museum and Library 

Top 125 Buildings

Paimio Sanatorium | 1933 | Paimio, Finland | Alvar Aalto

Photo © Flickr user Leon/Creative Commons 

Top 125 Buildings

Johnson Wax Building | 1939 | Racine, Wisconsin | Frank Lloyd Wright

Photo courtesy Library of Congress 

Top 125 Buildings

Fallingwater | 1939 | Bear Run, Pennsylvania | Frank Lloyd Wright

Photo courtesy Library of Congress 

Top 125 Buildings

Rockefeller Center | 1939 | New York | The Associated Architects: Reinhard & Hofmeister; Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray; Hood, Godley & Fouilhoux

Photo © David Shankbone/Creative Commons 

Top 125 Buildings

Crow Island School | 1940 | Winnetka, Illinois | Perkins, Wheeler & Will and Eliel & Eero Saarinen

Photo © Ken Hedrich, Hedrich Blessing Photographers

Top 125 Buildings

Casa Luis Barragán | 1948 | Mexico City | Luis Barragán

Photo © Casa Luis Barragán 1947, property of Gobierno del Estado de Jalisco and Fundación de Arquitectura Tapatía Luis Barragán A.C. 

Top 125 Buildings

Eames House | 1949 | Los Angeles | Charles and Ray Eames

I’m not so sure if it was the architecture, the wonderful displays of the Eameses’ folk objects, or a combination of the two that I loved so much when I saw their house years ago. But I also suspect that it might have been Ray Eames herself. She served me and two other guests breakfast with candles and three perfectly arranged strawberries. At the time, I just felt that the house was an extension of her.
—Mary McLeod 

Photo © Julius Shulman, courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles 

Top 125 Buildings

Glass House | 1949 | New Canaan, Connecticut | Phillip Johnson

Photo © Peter Aaron, courtesy Glass House 

Top 125 Buildings

Farnsworth House | 1951 | Plano, Illinois | Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

his is one of the great villas of the 20th century—the ultimate “machine in the garden”—where you place a man-made, fabricated, industrial object of great beauty within the garden greenery. It was actually kind of a culmination of things Mies had been doing at IIT, perfecting how to put steel together. He put the house right by a huge tree, very purposely. This idea of marrying nature and the building, you see, he had done before with the Tugendhat House in Brno. The Seagram Building continues this idea, but within a cityscape. —Phyllis Lambert

Photo courtesy Library of Congress 

Top 125 Buildings

Unité d’Habitation | 1952 | Marseilles, France | Le Corbusier

Photo courtesy Paul Kozlowski / © Fondation Le Corbusier/Artists Rights Society 

Top 125 Buildings

Lever House | 1952 | New York | Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Photo © Florian Holzherr/SOM 

Top 125 Buildings

Säynätsalo Town Hall | 1952 | Säynätsalo, Finland | Alvar Aalto

Photo © Jonathan Rieke 

Top 125 Buildings

United Nations Headquarters | 1952 | New York | International Committee of Architects (including Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier), Wallace K. Harrison, chariman

Photo courtesy Library of Congress 

Top 125 Buildings

Chapelle Notre Dame du Haut | 1955 | Ronchamp, France | Le Corbusier

Photo courtesy Paul Kozlowski / © Fondation Le Corbusier/Artists Rights Society 

Top 125 Buildings

Seagram Building | 1958 | New York | Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Phillip Johnson

Photo © Ezra Stoller/ESTO 

Top 125 Buildings

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum | 1959 | New York | Frank Lloyd Wright

Photo © David Heald/ Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York 

Top 125 Buildings

National Congress Building | 1960 | Brasília | Oscar Niemeyer

Photo © Andreas Kornfeld/ESTO 

Top 125 Buildings

Trans World Airlines (TWA) Terminal | 1962 | New York | Eero Saarinen

Photo courtesy Library of Congress

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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.


1-25    51-75    76-100    101-125

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