PBS has released their selections of the top ten buildings that have changed the way Americans live, work and play. From Thomas Jefferson’s 224-year-0ld Virginia State Capitol to Robert Ventui’s postmodern masterpiece the Vanna Venturi House, each building on the list will be featured in a new TV and web production coming to PBS in 2013. Continue after the break to view the top ten influential buildings and let us know your thoughts!
1) Virginia State Capitol / Thomas Jefferson (1788)
Richmond, Virginia
2) Trinity Church / H.H. Richardson (1877)
Boston, Massachusetts
3) Wainwright Building / Louis Sullivan (1891)
St. Louis, Missouri
4) Robie House / Frank Lloyd Wright (1910)
Chicago, Illinois
5) Highland Park Ford Plant / Albert Kahn (1910)
Highland Park, Michigan
6) Southdale Center / Victor Gruen (1956)
Edina, Minnesota
7) Seagram Building / Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1958)
New York, New York
8) Dulles International Airport / Eero Saarinen (1963)
Chantilly, Virginia
9) Vanna Venturi House / Robert Venturi (1964)
Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania
10) Walt Disney Concert Hall / Frank Gehry (2003)
Los Angeles, California
What buildings would make your list?
Reference: PBS wttw11
Photographer is unique to each photo. Flickr user’s Steve Tatum, Joshua_d, Nat Hansen, Robert Ostmann and Maria Buszek, licensed through Creative Commons.
Wich America? North? South? Central? or only US?
Wrong!!
Monadnock Building, Chicago, Illinois – Burnham and Root
S.C. Johnson and Son Administration Building and Research Tower, Racine WI – Frank Lloyd Wright
Dymaxion House – R. Buckmister Fuller
S. R. Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL– Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Case Study House No. 8, Los Angeles, CA – Charles and Ray Eames
Levitt Town Housing, Levitt Town, NY – William Levitt
The Gateway Arch, St. Louis, MO – Eero Saarinen
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA – Louis I. Kahn
Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas – Donald Judd
Sony Building, formerly the AT&T Building , Philip Johnson and John Burgee
Roden Crater Celestial Observatory, near Flagstaff, AZ – James Turrell
balloonframe house / suburbs
trailer / trailerpark
#9 and #10 should not be on the list at all – they are simply too recent to have “changed the way Americans live, work and play.” Right now the jury is very much still out on these two, especially #10.
Based on the criteria, I would suggest that Independence Hall in Philadelphia should be #1 on the list. The building was as important a part of the creation of the US Constitution in 1787 as many of the delegates.
No Fallingwater?
Top 10 list of ‘Top 10 lists’ ever created:
#1: Not this one
Taliesin West, Falling Water, Johnson’s Glass House in New Caanan,CT., Fuller’s Geodesic Dome,
The Twin Towers, Monticello, The Golden Arches!
Dumb-bell tenements/NYC
Pruit-Igoe/St. Louis
Anything in Levittown.
Those sadly shaped American Architecture!
I can’t believe they omitted Wright’s Larkin Administration building (demolished 1950)
And Buffalo’s grain elevators (still extant)
The list is for the buildings that changed USA (not America btw) as in the general people way of undestanding architecture, not the buildings that most influenced architects. You may or not agree with the list, but It’s my opinion that most commenters point of view is skewed by their architectural background, not understanding the real perspective of the list.
That is why I can understand why a mall is side be side with Seagrams and a beautiful (but mostly unknown) Ford plant, and not a single building from “the other” Kahn present.
I’m surprised the Tribune Tower in Chicago (and the competition that brought it and the modern skyscraper) didn’t make the list.
And fichare neutra, and aulló van, the jhonson sax, and lots moré?
I agree with Alvaro Flores. The list represents arguably the most significant american works of the most influencial architects. I’m not familiar with the Venturi House and I might question The Disney Concert Hall, but I can’t think of a better alternative. Future works in NY by Daniel Liebeskind and Bjarke Ingels (among others) could deserve mention, but then it’s too late, isn’t.
where is “Falling Waters” in this list?!
There is not any domestic architecture listed. The Venturi house is influential for architects, but not so much for architecture–the Shed style house, PostModernism and so forth. Big about 30 years ago, not so much now. So I wouldn’t really call that as influential for domestic architecture as for architectural theory.
Just off the top of my head, I would list:
Balloon framing, metal nails, machine saws, factory-made windows, standardized parts, mail-order houses, eclectricity, indoor plumbing, big box stores and synthetic materials as technological changes that made America. And cars and highways and electronic communications of course.
In domestic and venacular architecture it is hard to pick specific buildings but I would include:
The log cabin
American barns and farmsteads
Old growth timber and Boomtown commercial buildings
World Fair pavillions and pattern books
mail-order houses
The garage and the parking lot
Levitown
Strip malls
roadside architecture
Ex-urbs and McMansions
Me hubiese gustado la inclusion del Edificio Sears,ya que es integrante de la fuerza: laboral,economica,arquitectonica e icono de nacion incipiente a nacion grandiosa de todo el mundo. Con todo respeto.
Old North Church, Boston; U.S. Capitol Building (originial design and revisions); University of Virginia (original buildings and campus);Lyndhurst, Tarrytown, N.Y.; Marshall Field’s Wholesale Store, Chicago; Wainright Building, Saint Louis; Robie House, Chicago; Seagram Building, New York; Richards Medical Labs, Philadelphia; Vanna Venturi House, Philadelphia
I would love to see the Gamble House in Pasadena on this list!
I look forward to MyArchDaily, a source I have missed for the first 86 years of my loving Architecture! Weimar, Germany (after 20 years in Detroit and 50 in Philadelphia, when I wasn’t roaming the globe to appease my hunger for good architecture!)
Right on point! Chronologically speaking, it’s what has influenced my work from day from day one. Sure they could of added many more architects to the list but 10 is a finite number!