Buildings & Design

Gaudí's Sagrada Família remains under construction more than a century after building began.

The Colosseum hosted gladiatorial contests in ancient Rome and could reportedly seat tens of thousands.

Rome's Pantheon holds the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world, nearly two thousand years after it was built.

The Palace of Westminster houses the UK Parliament and is home to the bell known as Big Ben.

Notre-Dame de Paris suffered severe fire damage in 2019 during ongoing restoration work.

Saint Basil's Cathedral's colorful onion domes rise over Red Square, commissioned by Ivan the Terrible.

The White House has served as the US president's residence and workplace since John Adams.

The Moscow Kremlin's fortified complex includes cathedrals and palaces at the heart of Russian government.

The Great Mosque of Djenné, the largest mudbrick building on Earth, needs annual replastering after seasonal rains.

The Lotus Temple's flower-shaped design welcomes visitors of all religions to worship in New Delhi.

Berlin's Reichstag building added a glass dome that lets visitors look down into the parliamentary chamber below.

The Eiffel Tower was built as a temporary structure for a world's fair yet became a permanent Paris icon.

The Burj Khalifa rises more than 800 meters, making it the tallest building on Earth.

The Empire State Building was completed in just over a year during the Great Depression and briefly stood as the tallest in the world.

The Chrysler Building's ornamented steel crown helped it briefly claim the title of world's tallest building.

The Shard's tapering glass spike stands as the tallest building anywhere in the United Kingdom.

Taipei 101, shaped like bamboo, uses a giant steel damper ball to resist earthquake and wind sway.

The Petronas Towers, once the world's tallest, are joined by a skybridge linking the two structures.

The Flatiron Building's triangular shape follows an unusual city block and ranks among New York's earliest steel-framed skyscrapers.

One World Trade Center rose on the original site's footprint, its height in feet deliberately referencing 1776.

London's 30 St Mary Axe earned the nickname The Gherkin for its distinctive cone-shaped profile.

Toronto's CN Tower, once the tallest freestanding structure on Earth, includes a glass floor at its observation deck.

The Sydney Opera House's distinctive sail-shaped roofs took far longer to complete than originally planned.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater was built dramatically over a natural waterfall in rural Pennsylvania.

The Guggenheim Bilbao's flowing titanium curves are widely credited with transforming the fortunes of its host city.

I. M. Pei designed the glass Louvre Pyramid that now marks the museum's main entrance.

Habitat 67's stacked concrete modules began as a thesis project before becoming a Montreal world's fair pavilion.