There is no surprise that the historically, culturally and artfully rich Parthenon in Athens has been placed first by leading architects on their list of 16 favourite buildings worldwide.
Business Insider recently asked leading architects to tell them the one building they believed to be a “game-changer for building design, inspired them to become architects, or that they simply find stunning.”
The architects were able to narrow it down to a list of 16 buildings around the world that they felt were a complete stand out.
“It's the quintessential beautiful architectural form,” Tara Imani, founding architect of Tara Imani designs stated, “...columns, the use of entasis (a slight curve in columns) to make sure the columns didn't look spindly from a distance...the siting on a hilltop -- it gave us our initial ABCs of architecture that we keep trying to use and improve upon today,” she added.
The National Congress of Brazil in Brasília came in second and others ranked as the best included the Forbidden City temple in China, Hubertus House in Amserdam, the ‘Big Lebowski’ Sheats Goldstein residence in LA, and the Empire State Building in New York. The list is made up of museums, universities, airport centres, historical icons and even actual homes.