Amazing Architecture: Melbourne
Recital Center and Theater Company
These modern
structures being designed and built in cities around the world may be some of
the most spectacular architecture you’ll ever see.
The Melbourne Recital Center and Theater Company complex opened earlier this year and is helping to
revitalize Melbourne’s gritty Southbank neighborhood. The exterior features a
combination of angles, two-dimensional textures and glowing tubes. The walls
inside the main performance space are covered with famous theater quotes that
are illuminated when the stage is dark. The complex won the 2009 Victorian
Architecture medal for best new building in Australia.
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Amazing Architecture: The Gherkin,
London
Nicknamed the Gherkin for its unique round, tapered shape,
the office tower at 30 St Mary Axe in London’s financial district opened in
2004. Despite its appearance, there is only one piece of curved glass on the
entire building, a lens-shaped piece that caps the very top. The tower reaches
nearly 600 feet high, and its 40 stories house insurance companies and other
financial businesses.
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Amazing Architecture: Dancing House,
Prague
Known for designing grand venues from
Spain to California, renowned Canadian-born architect Frank Gehry transformed a
neo-Renaissance house in Prague to a structure known as the "Dancing House" upon its completion in 1996. It
was initially named the Astaire & Rogers Building since it resembles a
dancing couple. Even though some initially referred to it derisively as the
Drunk House, this tipsy, tilting modern edifice is now considered a highlight
of Prague’s modern architecture.
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Amazing Architecture: Theatres on the
Bay, Singapore
Esplanade -
Theatres on the Bay in Singapore, opened in 2002, houses a concert hall and a theater beneath
its distinctive spiked shells. Some have likened its spiky glass domes to the
durian fruit or the eyes of a fly.
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Amazing Architecture: Oslo Opera House
The Oslo Opera House in Norway, opened in 2008, appears to
emerge out of the neighboring Oslofjord like an iceberg. The sloping marble
roof is an open plaza for the public to enjoy and covers the 1,350-seat
auditorium below. In 2009, the Opera House received the Mies van der Rohe award
for contemporary
architecture.
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Amazing Architecture: Ray & Maria
Stata Center
Another Gehry
design is the Ray & Maria Stata Center, opened in 2004 at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Although the building’s aesthetics have
been hotly debated, its teetering walls and swooping curves certainly leave an
impression on visitors. One reviewer suggested that the structure is “a
metaphor for the freedom, daring, and creativity of the research that's
supposed to occur inside it.”
Correction –
August 5, 2009: We previously stated that MIT was located in Boston,
when in fact it is located in Cambridge, Mass.
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Amazing Architecture: Seattle Central
Library
The Seattle Central Library, designed by Dutch architect Rem
Koolhaas and opened in 2004, is a beacon for bookworms in a city said to be one
of the most literate in the U.S. Its steel-and-glass exterior is modern and
futuristic, yet the interior includes some intimate reading spaces. Visitors
can also catch a glimpse of Puget Sound from inside the 11-story downtown
building.
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Amazing Architecture: Hearst Tower
The Hearst Tower in New York City, designed by British
architect Norman Foster and opened in 2006, is the headquarters of the Hearst
Publishing Company. The 46-story structure extends above the six-story building
that housed the original Hearst headquarters that was completed in 1928. The
triangular pattern of the tower’s exterior provides a sharp contrast to the
stone façade of the original building at its base. It was the first skyscraper
to break ground in New York City after September 11, 2001, and was the first
“green” high-rise office building completed in the city.
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Amazing Architecture: City of the Arts
and the Sciences, Valencia, Spain
The City of the Arts and the
Sciencescomplex in
Valencia, Spain, houses a science museum, theaters, performance halls, an
aquarium and more. Built in a dried-out riverbed, its space-age educational and
recreational structures were designed and developed by Spanish architect
Santiago Calatrava as a present to his home city. Shown above is
“L'Hemisfèric,” a dome opened in 1998 that includes, among other features, an
Imax cinema.
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Amazing Architecture: New Museum of
Contemporary Art, New York
New York City’s New
Museum of Contemporary Art, opened in 2007 and named one of the seven architectural wonders by Conde
Nast Traveler the following year, rises out of the gritty Bowery neighborhood
in lower Manhattan like a layered wedding cake. It’s an appropriate venue for
the contemporary works exhibited inside its walls.
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Amazing Architecture: Chicago Spire
The Chicago Spire, another Calatrava-designed structure,
is under construction in the Windy City but has not yet been completed. The
rendering above shows what it will look like if the remaining financing can be
secured. The Spire would be located near the shores of Lake Michigan near Navy
Pier and if completed, would be one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world at
2,000 feet and 150 stories. About 350 of the residential units have been
pre-sold, including the penthouse to Ty Warner, CEO of Ty, Inc., manufacturer
of Beanie Babies.
Source: Bing Travel; photo editing by Connie Ricca, Slide
show text by Sonja Groset
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