Vanity Fair, an American magazine of pop culture, fashion, and politics published by Condé Nast Publications, surveyed 52 prominent architects, critics and deans of architecture schools to name the most important pieces of architecture built since 1980. Star architect Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum has emerged as the winner for this informal survey, which will be published in the magazine’s August issue.
The curvaceous, free-form sculptural style of the museum has become a Gehry signature. The structure consists of radically sculpted, organic contours. It is intended to resemble a ship to complement its location in a port town. Its brilliantly reflective titanium panels resemble fish scales. Computer Aided Three Dimensional Interactive Application (CATIA) and visualizations were used heavily in the structure’s design. The Guggenheim opened in 1997 is one of the several museums belonging to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
The Guggenheim Bilbao was placed as the top architectural piece by 28 participants out of the total 52 participants. Gehry received four additional votes for three other projects: the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Millennium Park in Chicago and Gehry’s own residence in Santa Monica.
The participants named 132 different structures. Vanity Fair listed the top 21 on its website.
