Who is the best architect in the world?

[Carol Parker]

Its not the question of good, Better, Best.

An architects job is influenced by many factors. At times, It may not be necessary that what he has drawn on paper is practical enough to build on ground. the location chosen to construct the structure, the local factors, climatic conditions,surroundings, etc, may bring a lot of changes and differences to what we have on paper and what is to be built.


P.S. : To stay connected with the AEC workshare domain please follow our blog at http://archigenesis.blogspot.com/

[bluboni]

[aierina marina]

my fav. architect was Norman Foster..See The Gherkin

[ctalley5]

Great Thomas Jefferson comment -

I personally don't have a favorite really... rather than 'picking' favorite architects like baseball cards, instead i seem to collect favorite buildings.

[arch2arch]

Past? Present? Future?...there can be not one singular individual over-riding selection; other than categoric and era consideration.

Somewhat interestingly: my good wife me that: surely..."You are: Are you!?"

[kamylood]

The answer is, the best architect in the whole world is not ME !

[menta rocks]

Top five in no paticular order:

Gaudi
Imre Makovecz
Wright
Mies
Piano

[solidred]

[erjavi]

Hello everybody! I wrote an eco-equation applied to sustainable urbanism and I found an interesting abstract of an unknown architect for me in http://- forum abuse -es/basarte/influencia.htm but I did not paid attention to investigate the authorship till now. After see http://www.edicionsupc.es/ftppublic/pdfmostra/AR07501M.pdf I know is Alvar Aalto, for some months he has been the best unknown architect for me. I do not know the circumstances than stopped the initiatives launched by him in the Nordic Conference of Construction (Oslo 1938). Now it looks that his ideas are becoming a tendency http://www.architectureweek.com/2009/0429/index.html.

There are other architects no so deep in concepts at general scale, but with more durable buildings, i.e. authors of Pueblos Blancos together with a significant part of world traditional architecture, but generalising he and she are not architects usually. Maybe the challenge consists in mix both knowledge combining modernity and tradition, i.e. giving colour to Pueblos Blancos, I mean i.e. painting part of the walls so the village perspective form a unity creating at same time a temporal building skin for play with temperatures, messages, flows, messages and others avoiding than traditional houses became abandoned for get comfort.

In a US movie somebody talked about an architect commissioned to build a palace for a king. The architect took the money and distributed it between poor people. The king knew and called the architect and asked him: “where is my palace?”. “I built one for you in the heaven”, answered. And the king, agreed. So if is fiction, ok, but if the history is true, then for me this person is the best architect of the world.

[WalkerARCHITECTS]

The question is annoying to architects who practice. Like who is the best physician, heart surgeon or who is the best priest, the answer is obviously the one who saved your life or the one who saved your soul. The interrogative implies a competition that is subject to objective measurement. Architecture is a profession and should not be a popularity contest.

I have been accused of being the best architect, thank you but no thanks. It is my purpose to change the world by design using the power of design solution to accelerate the most desirable future state of built environment and toward that end I speak to the past, present and future about change. I advocate the rooftop power plant and promote sustainable built environment at every opportunity. Talk long enough and cogently enough and someone will brand you as a visionary or god forbid "best architect."

I wish as a practicing architect I had more opportunity to practice what I preach. So I am in the real world more priest where accused of being the best than I am physician who heals the city. I would much prefer to have built the projects that could have been, rather than the ones that I actually do. That is to say that who is the best architect is largely about who has the opportunity to do the best projects. Somewhat a self referencing loop where great opportunity is rarely the domain of architects who are unknown. I am largely unknown.

No doubt the exceptional emergent talent in the realm of architecture is fostered more by superior resources to a much greater extent than superior talent. Opportunity knocks more frequently in the better neighborhoods.

PEACE!

READ THE SOLAR IMPERATIVE.
TLW

[djswan]

I'm still not buying the "archtecture is a profession" arguement, and is in fact a popularity contest.

[solidred]

I like WalkerARCHITECTS' candid approach here. Popularity contest? It's the kind of crude Darwinian type of reductio ad absurdum that gets the likes of me depressed but it's probably true for all that. However, 'contest' implies 'focus on' or 'privileging of' which is classic Catch 22: focus on popularity and you get popularly exposed as shallow. Popularity has to appear effortless, whilst focusing on something more valuable. But do this, with genuine integrity, and popularity-as-side-effect becomes a game of pure chance because genuine integrity tends to move in small measures; in stealth and quietly. All that effort only to be judged, at the end of the day as an obscure wannabe? Best defence, seemingly, is to dismiss the notion of popularity altogether. But to dismiss the notion is to ignore at least an aspect of the truth, which goes against the grain of honesty and integrity. It is by paying sincere attention to the inconvenient facts that the architect triumphs at all levels. The beauty of that is that, as a modus operandi, 'popularity' isn't ignored; no attempt is made to pretend that the desire to be loved and admired doesn't exist. It simply ceases to matter all that much.

But to side again with WalkerARCHITECTS: I'd far rather be understood in terms of my reactions to opportunities such as they arise, unbeckoned, than to be applauded for the form of the opportunities I've chased. I'd rather be a thinker than a runner, in short.

[djswan]