Top Ten Modern Architects

I love listening to your videos while doing my plates. Your videos are great, and they really inspire me to pursue architecture. I'll look forward to seeing more of your videos. Please continue making more videos.

I lived in New York City for 13 years. I passed through Walter Gropius' Pan Am building lobby hundreds of times coming out of Grand Central Terminal; was employed at 270 Park Avenue for two years (Skidmore, Owings and Merrill) a building which has since been dismantled and is being rebuilt as a mega-tall skyscraper; and worked around the corner from Mies' Seagram Building (52nd and Park Ave) where I spent many hours sitting on its plaza and experiencing its excellence.

Thanks for list. I’d include some more architects who influenced residential home building. It seems to me that the homes we live in influence us more than a public building we may see only a few times. Cliff May is a favorite.

Phillip Johnson does not belong on this list and Alvar Aalto is a glaring omission. One leading historian of modern architecture, William J.R. Curtis, would say that Corb, Mies, Wright, Aalto and Kahn were the most significant/influential/consequential modern architects.

Wonderful list. I was just hoping to see Niemeyer with such names...

I love your channel. I am a fine-artist and illustrator, and do concept art. Your videos are immensely insightful. I would love to see you deal with turn of the century architecture like Gaudí or elements from art deco and art nouveau.

glad to have found your channel!

You make me so Glad putting dear Carlo Scarpa in this list. Bravíssimo!!!

How about Alvar Aalto, considered as one of 5 pioneer modernist architect, considered by architectural historians & critics/theorists(Giedion, Frampton) who influenced lots of Scandinavian/Nordic architects as well as other US Postmodern, Deconstructivist & Post- structuralist architects & designers of Mier, Gehry & even 3rd/4th generation of contemporary architects (Utzon & Saarinen) through his buildings, urban planning, interior, furniture/furnishing designs greatly influenced a humanist as well as environmentalist designs & architecture w/the sensible/sensitive Finnish response for places & people.

Whatever one thinks of the list, what I found hopeful as an non-architect was an acknowledgement that the major trends of the 20th Century were the tail wagging the dog. The tail was the corporate world and it's architectural fulfillment in the "International Style." We are the dog, and what Wallace Harrison (Empire State Plaza) did not learn from Oscar Niemeyer's Brasilia, it is to be hoped that 21st Century architects have, i.e., that human beings want more than to be cogs in a corporate utopia.

FLW brings in such a combination of elements. Most others on this list lean so heavily to concrete and glass. But I’m a wright fan so I’m probably biased 😂

Yes. Saarinen. Minus the St.Louis arch) Dulles airport is one of his best. Also his furniture. The spool table.

Excellent presentation. Precise in relating the essentials. And very convincing. Indispensable for students and others alike. Great quotations from the masters.

Alvaro Siza, maybe after ten but i love him so much. Beauty lirism minimalistic version of Aalto, hero of sudeuropa that made beautiful things also all over the world.

I respect your picks but I do disagree with some of them. But you have hooked me and I look forward to other videos.

the tower concept in architectuer has ruined human habitat. Eco-friendly architecture is the need. When I walk in Thane the Tower Architecture covers the blue sky above us besides water and sanitary issues. Thanks Ranjan

In the late 20th century, I saw a "post, beam, panel" architecture of the Arab palaces. They were not for outsiders. They had huge spaces, with protective elements against the heat and dryness of their world. Just enough light, but with expansive spaces, and sheltered privacy.

I put Pier Luigi Nervi on the same level as Leonardo Da Vinci. His creations in reinforced concrete are Works of Art.

As an architect I agree with all the architects on the list but one, that would be Philip Johnson. He wasn't a particularly good architect he was however a power broker and connected. There are a host of other architects with equal influence. Saarinen comes to mind. Johnson did a few buildings and talked a lot, copied the trends and talked a lot.

Niemeyer and Saarinen are glaring omissions. Both were more influential than Scarpa or Nervi. Saarinen's connection to Yale establishes a direct lineage between him and Rodgers and Foster. You can even glimpse the future (i.e., Zumthor and others) in Saarinen's Yale residential colleges. I would also take Neutra over Johnson. Johnson followed the trends from the International Style to Postmodernism. Though not intentionally, but more because of the clarity of his work, (specifically its massing and detailing), Neutra almost single-handedly created the style that we know today as midcentury modern. ... Gehry is NOT a modern architect. To make that point, Phillip Johnson labeled Gehry a Deconstructivist. Gehry also does NOT belong that high on any list. He is a designer of spectacular forms. On the inside, his buildings are sheetrock palaces with no profound understanding of human scale, movement, and atmosphere. As to SOM, its modern reputation is more or less the product of one architect (Gordon Bunshaft) and perhaps one building. It's not the Hancock Center, but the Lever House in New York.