Michelangelo
Italian · 1475–1564
Sculptor, painter, and architect whose designs for St. Peter's Basilica defined the dome as a symbol of sacred authority.
Early Modern (Pre-19th Century)
Christopher Wren
English · 1632–1723
Rebuilt 52 London churches after the Great Fire of 1666, crowning the skyline with St. Paul's Cathedral's iconic dome.
Mimar Sinan
Ottoman · c. 1490–1588
Imperial architect to three sultans who mastered the domed mosque with the Süleymaniye and Selimiye complexes.
19th–20th Century Pioneers
Antoni Gaudí
Spanish · 1852–1926
The visionary of Catalan Modernisme whose organic, nature-derived forms culminate in Barcelona's still-unfinished Sagrada Família.
Frank Lloyd Wright
American · 1867–1959
Pioneer of organic architecture and the Prairie Style, best known for Fallingwater — a house built over a waterfall.
Le Corbusier
Swiss-French · 1887–1965
Author of the Five Points of Architecture whose buildings — from Villa Savoye to Chandigarh — rewrote the rules of modern space.
Mies van der Rohe
German-American · 1886–1969
"Less is more" — Mies distilled architecture to pure structure and glass, giving the 20th century its defining skyscraper language.
Walter Gropius
German-American · 1883–1969
Founder of the Bauhaus school, whose synthesis of fine art and industrial design shaped design education worldwide.
Oscar Niemeyer
Brazilian · 1907–2012
The poet of concrete whose sweeping curves defined Brasília — an entire capital city built from scratch in four years.
Late 20th–21st Century
Renzo Piano
Italian · 1937–present
Co-designer of the Centre Pompidou, Piano makes buildings that wear their structure proudly and connect to their communities.
Norman Foster
English · 1935–present
From the Reichstag dome to HSBC Hong Kong, Foster's high-tech approach redefined what glass and steel could express.
Tadao Ando
Japanese · 1941–present
Self-taught master of raw concrete and controlled light whose buildings fuse Japanese spatial tradition with Western Modernism.
Jørn Utzon
Danish · 1918–2008
Won the Sydney Opera House competition with a sketch on a napkin — the building that launched the age of signature architecture.
I.M. Pei
Chinese-American · 1917–2019
The Louvre Pyramid and the National Gallery East Building — Pei made geometry into a language of civic grandeur.
Zaha Hadid
Iraqi-British · 1950–2016
First woman to win the Pritzker Prize; her parametric curves dissolved the boundary between architecture and sculpture.