The Petronas Twin-Towers located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia was designed by Cesar Pelli. Construction of these towers began January 1 1992 and took 3 years to complete. These two towers were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998- 2004, and another interesting fact is that these buildings sit on the world’s deepest foundation, due to being built on soft rock. These towers were designed with Islamic art and structure design in mind. This structure also features a sky bridge between the two towers. These towers still remain the tallest structures in Malaysia.

The Burj Khalifa was designed by architect Adrian Smith when he worked at the firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. The Burj Khalifa is to this day the tallest building in the world. However, Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia is planned to be the first one-kilometer tall building and may overtake it. Coincidentally, Jeddah Tower was also designed by Adrian Smith.

The Burj Khalifa is more than just the tallest building in the world. It hosts not only residential areas, but a hotel, observation decks, and a restaurant. The park at the base of the tower has a design based on a desert flower. The surrounding area is now filled with shopping and other attractions.

The tower’s design was somewhat derived from the Great Mosque of Samarra, specifically, one of its minarets that is a spiraling tower that gets skinnier the higher up the tower. The y shape of the tower is used to optimize residential and hotel areas. The hexagonal core with wings is used to support the height of the building.

Bizzell Memorial Library, also know as “The Bizz” was built in 1929. With additions being built onto it, the library stands different than it did when it was originally built. Today, it seems to be the face of the beautiful architecture found at the University of Oklahoma. The Bizz is where you may find many students studying until 3 AM hyped up on coffee from The Bookmark, a coffee shop on the bottom floor. It is of significance to me because this is where I too spent my evenings and nights Freshman year of university. It was in walking distance of the dorms that I resided in, and with it, come very fond memories as well as exhausting ones. Overall, it has impacted my positively. This is where I learned how to really apply myself and study. It helped to lay the foundation for how I study today in order to keep track of who I am going to be career wise.

            This was a pavilion that Gerrit Rietveld designed back in 1955. Its purpose was to display sculptures. Some sculptures still remain inside, and they look more along the lines of Beetlejuice type sculptures. I really enjoyed this piece as it is very open but is inviting at the same time. It almost feels like it was meant to be one with nature as you don’t feel trapped inside the enclosure. Brick like walls accompanied by windowpanes above and some on the bottom level throughout gives it a pretty design overall in my opinion.

The Van Gogh Museum was another piece designed by Rietveld. This design caught my eye due to one half of the building being encased in a circular concrete wall while the other half is see through due to the tall glass window panes. This design choice makes me want to travel and go see the building in person just to experience this awesome piece of architecture.

       This is the Rietveld Schroder House in Utrecht. It was designed in 1924 and serves as a heritage sight for the UNESCO. You can book tours to explore the home as no one lives in it to my knowledge. The inside is also furnished with some of Rietveld’s other pieces as he designed furniture also. This piece was designed to welcome nature as all the windows open completely and gave a sense of living within the confides of having no walls. It is just a very fun and quirky design overall with the different colors and geometric shapes covering the outsides walls of the structure.

            As mentioned above, Rietveld not only designed structures, but he also designed furniture. I had to include this one because it just does not seem very practical to me although it is a fun design. It looks like to me the top would snap off as soon as you went to go pop a squat. This was his zig zag chair design and was also some of the furniture that is in the Schroder house today.

This piece of architecture designed by Leon Krier is called the Poundbury. It’s located on the outer parts of Dorchester in the county of Dorset, England. They call Poundbury an experimental town. Leon Krier is a very well known, award winning Architect. Leon Krier began construction on this project in the late 1980’s. The full design plan of the Poundbury will not be officially completed until 2025. The population in Poundbury is currently at 3,500 residents and is Expected to get to only 6,000 residence by the date of completion. 

This building was one of Zaha Hadid’s first designs to be constructed. Built in Well am Rhein, Germany and was finished in 1993. According to Hadid’s website, she wanted the structure to be a representation of a ‘movement frozen’ or ‘alert’ structure. To get this effect, she used concrete as the main building material to get the crisp and simple exterior. The lack of design detailing was purposeful and its absence helps depict this station as ‘alert’. Hadid created a sliding wall that acts as a garage door to display the trucks. This element is concealed within the surrounding exterior style until it is opened.

Like some of Hadid’s more current designs, her use of curved and bending objects is still present, though notably not as flowy. I think her overall goal with this building was to create a space that is useful while also displaying a clean-lined and direct structure that coincides with the demeanor of firefighters. Hadid designed the roof to zig-zag and capture the sounds of the moving water from the Clyde River. I think this was her way of adding movement to her ‘movement frozen’ structure.

This is a building unfamiliar to few. Grand Central Station, also known as Grand Central Terminal, opened in 1913. It was originally meant for railroads, but now that it had been transformed to meet the need of modern day New Yorkers, it has become a hot spot for tourism. Covering 48 acres, it is a sight to be seen. So, why is this important to me? I had the privilege to enter Grand Central Terminal at the age of 13. I have always lived in a small town of Oklahoma, and New York City is the craziest place I have had the honor in visiting. Seeing places that I had only seen on tv growing up like Grand Central Station definitely had an impact on me. It was a positive one. It helped me to realize that if I wanted to, I could continue visiting places like these. Coming from a small town that never felt like a possibility. After my visit, I knew that it will always be an option, if I choose to take it.

In 1995-99, Brit Andresen designed this nature embracing home in North Stradbroke Island, Queensland, Australia. Its main purpose was to do just that, craft a space that would magnify the environment surrounding it. Andresen again, uses her signature of dark wooden beams and shutters throughout the house. This two-story home has a metal roof which illuminates the sounds of natural occurrences, such as rain and wind. It also has wide open rooms with tall windows and timber beams to add a modern perspective with a rustic twist.

These illustrate Aldo Van Eyck’s work on creating a Roman Catholic Church with an innovative design. The church was completed in 1964, Usually, when we think of a Catholic church we think of dozens of pews, very high ceilings and over the top decorative mosaics and marble. Aldo Van Eyck redefined this genre of building with this piece. He created an environment entirely new to a religion that has been around for thousands of years. He incorporated a lot more curvature to buildings that are normally straight to the point.