My Top 10 Buildings

Something that I love to do is overseas travel. There is something simply inspiring about experiencing different places - the cities, people, cultures, landscape - all while having a holiday! It broadens your horizons and connects you in with world history. Unfortunately I haven't been able to do this for the last few years, however I thought it would be great to reminisce and share my top 10 buildings that I've visited. This list is limited to buildings that I've experience inside and out, not just based on the exterior, and since most of my travel has been concentrated in Europe that's where most of the buildings are located! 

1 - Pompidou Centre - Paris 

I've blogged about this before, and quite simply there's no doubt for me that this at the top of the list. Over 40 years old now, this building is still so radical with the services around the exterior of the building and so much adaptability of interior space. The engineering is the architecture and it's so honest about what it is and how the structure works, not hiding the structure away like usual. A beautifully brilliant, technical building that blows my mind. 

 2 - Sydney Opera House - Sydney 

If ever a building could symbolize a city or a nation, this is it. Locate on the prominent Benelong Point this building shows what can be built to really inspire us. The masterstroke in the Opera house is not only the complex sail shapes, but the clever way of elevating the building to hide the necessary building services which allows the sail form to shine. This is unlike many of the other design entries (architects competed for the Opera House job) that were bland and undoubtably would have had visible services on the roof. Yes the building went through political controversies, and yes it had a budget blowout. But, at $100million, I'd say it's paid for itself many times over with the tourism exposure for Australia. American Architect Louis Kahn said, “The sun did not know how beautiful its light was, until it was reflected off this building". I couldn't agree more. 

3 - Glasgow School of Art - Glasgow 

An unassuming exterior gives way to a rich interior with a Japanese inspiration using dark timber and the combination of light and shadow. The 'piece de resistance' is the Library, which is everything you could ever want in a library: a sense of volume created by the double height space, yet cosy and intimate. It’s an underrated masterpiece, but since I wasn’t allowed to take photos inside the unassuming exterior will have to do for an image!

 4 - Temppeliaukio Church - Helsinki 

A sacred, sheltering, reflective and contemplative space, brought about by the materials and diffused light from above. I felt calm and enclosed by the warmth and strength of the round exterior walls. Who says you need oodles of decoration to point the soul heavenward. 

5 - Hagia Sophia - Istanbul 

Initially a cathedral, then a mosque - the building is a strange mix of Christian mosaics and Islamic patterns from over 1500 years. The building isn't much to look at from the outside, but I really liked the artwork, light and the voluminous internal space. 

 6 - Coliseum - Rome 

The beauty of this building combines with its technical features to put on a show. While thankfully we have moved on from killing people for sport, the stadium as a grand-scale gathering space for public entertainment still holds true to this day, especially fully enclosed stadia. 

 7 - The Louvre - Paris 

How do you adapt a palace into a museum?… Construct a glass pyramid of course! It just fits perfectly with the existing building, and is one of those examples that show it's often so much better to build in a different style rather than trying to copy the existing structure. It has a really wonderful way to enter the building by descending down an escalator to the underground lobby. 

 8 - Burj Khalifa - Dubai 

A monument to humanity's unsatiable desire to build bigger! It's just amazing considering the technical challenges with building so tall and how it dwarfs skyscrapers that are still 200-300m tall in the Dubai skyline. 

 9 - Pantheon - Rome 

Those ancient Romans were pretty clever with their use of concrete to create this building, complete with dome and open oculus (hole in the middle of the dome). This dome brings light into the space, as well as the weather! Can't help but gawk up at the ceiling. 

 10 - Eiffel Tower - Paris 

This is an engineering marvel, and its structure is the architecture. A classic example of people hating it when it was constructed, only to eventually become a much loved building and an icon of Paris and even France. I savoured the experience by walking up the stairs for the first two levels, before the short disconcerting ride in the elevator to the top! 

 I could keep going with the amazing places I've been blessed enough to visit. Some honourable mentions include:  St Pauls, London; The Gherkin, London; and the Enzo Ferrari Museum, Modena. 

While there are so many places I'd still love to explore, my top ones are the Empire State Building, New York; La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona; La Alhambra, Granada; and Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao. 

At Reform Architecture we have a passion for architecture. While we may not achieve a world famous building, when you work with us you have the opportunity to create something that is cherished, with beauty and integrity that will last many lifetimes. Get in touch if you'd like to find out more. 

*all images in this post are by Jonathan Jones