Architectural Icons
@Archi_icons
Followers
17K
Following
50K
Media
4K
Statuses
12K
World's largest selection of prints & products celebrating iconic modern era architecture around the world. Links to shop below… artwork by @furmadamadam
Joined September 2021
THREAD: The great wooden synagogues of the shtetls were probably the greatest ever architectural expression of Yiddish culture. All lost in the Holocaust.
37
1K
8K
THREAD: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Johnson Wax headquarters must have seemed like a meteor from the future had crashed into Racine Wisconsin when it was completed in 1939
30
394
6K
THREAD: I am totally obsessed with this building, Kenzo Tange’s imperiously elegant Tokyo Metropolitan Government complex from 1990 that is a Akira-style fusion of intricate granite ornament that recalls circuit boards and the towering profile of an ancient gothic cathedral…
48
398
5K
A futurist bust of Il Duce in the Wolfsonian collection. Apologies I dont know who by
195
309
4K
THREAD: One of the world’s great anomalies, Kyoto Station by Hiroshi Hara (1997) is a town-sized, public megastructure, fully built in one go to the coherent and total vision of a brilliant architect, effectively acting as a vast manifesto…
38
379
4K
The Virasoro Bar, divine art-deco excentricity in Buenos Aires
8
232
4K
Iv been in love with, & mesmerized by the Thompson Center since I was a child. The most important postmodern public building in the world by far, it is an incomparably complex, virtuoso & ambitious symphony of geometry, polychromy, structure, space & ornament…
30
294
4K
Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mill Run, Pennsylvania, 1936-9
17
293
3K
Surviving polychromy in Herculaneum that gives a hint of how colourful the ancient world's architecture was
19
399
3K
THREAD Casa Curutchet by Le Corbusier in La Plata, Argentina, 1949-53, is his only building in the country, and one of the most intriguing houses he ever designed
23
232
3K
THREAD: So, most people associate Japanese design with either cute kitsch or zen-like minimalism, but its much more diverse, & 1 of my particular fav periods was the architecture of its 80-90s boom era; wild, strange & incredibly diverse, & unique in world architectural history
35
271
2K
I said stuff like this would happen with the station designs… the now ubiquitous “Elizabeth Line Ghosts” of sweat and dirt and skin and oils left by sitting commuters on the absorbent cementitious panels
60
179
2K
Truly one of the world’s most beautiful early modern buildings… Artists studios by Antonio Bonet, Buenos Aires 1938
25
174
2K
@HRDutson It was teaching me how to exclaim "there is a ghost in this sugar!" The other day. V useful.
7
5
2K
An almost unbelievably perfect little slice of North Italian neo-Gothic in Buenos Aires
11
114
2K
The wholly predictable sadness of a dead green wall. A contemporary urban memento mori. Paris.
19
161
2K
THREAD: The incredible layers of reflections and translucencies that are generated by Renzo Piano’s Maison Hermès in Ginza
10
155
2K
I'll never not be thrilled by the contrasts one constantly comes across in the City
35
95
2K
THREAD Borges 2378 in Buenos Aires, by Pablo Beitía (1987-1994) is one of the most singular, complex, beautiful & sophisticated uses of brick in residential architecture that I have ever seen
14
117
2K
THREAD: Shin Takamatsu is 1 of Japan’s greatest living architects, with an incredibly unique & beautifully executed body of mysterious & pregnant work that ought 2b far better known, & probably wld be if they fit a more stereotypical idea of Japanese design. architect’s photo
8
179
2K
THREAD It is difficult for me to put into words quite how radically sophisticated I find the Charnley-Persky House by Louis Sullivan (& Wright) in Chicago, it is a veritable pandora’s box of architectural delights
11
101
2K
THREAD Palacio Barolo by Mario Palanti in Buenos Aires (1919-1923) is one of the world’s most unusual, intense and imaginative office buildings from the early 20th C, and its almost perfectly perseved… ill start with the incredible period lift cabs
12
145
2K
Ok so Preston Bus Station is even better than everyone says, its the bloody Parthenon of Brutalism, an absolute miracle of a building… there is NOTHING like it anywhere in the world, it is Sublime
36
117
2K
Apparently someone has hacked into all the digital screens in Roma Termini and they're all showing a Mr Robot style jumpy sign saying YOU ARE INSECTS
18
164
2K
So sad what has been done to the lobby of the Loop Transportation Center by Peter Ellis of SOM, it used to be do utterly spectacular 🥺
74
95
2K
One of the most beautiful art-deco crowns in the world, the black granite, green and gold terra cotta, with gold leaf and bronze trim Carbon & Carbide Building in Chicago by the Burnham Brothers, 1929
14
113
1K
This was the pinnacle of car design, we live in its shadow. I shall die on this hill if necessary
32
131
1K
Helmut Jahn's beautiful drawings of the State of Illinois Center
5
168
1K
Ocean Drive in Miami Beach is truly one of the world’s great paraded of architectural delight, a sequence of unrelentingly uplifting facades that are as refreshing as the very best cocktails
10
120
1K
1/3 Banco de Londres in Buenos Aires is one of the world’s most spectacular examples of 60s brutalism, a vast sculptural mammoth skeleton embedded in the city, it is probably the most iconic building designed by the great architect Clorindo Testa… photo from wikipedia
14
86
1K
Gerhard Richter’s perhaps unintentionally beautiful South Transept window of Cologne Cathedral from 2009
12
107
1K
Squished in, but surviving brave old house. Buenos Aires
6
50
1K
THREAD the totally unique, humungous, almost alien megastructural brutalist marvel that is the Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno by Clorindo Testa in Buenos Aires, it took nearly 30 years to complete. We have a collection of products celebrating it here:
17
110
1K
THREAD: the Italians have a very special way with their apartment buildings, with do many of them almost being pieces of art for the city. lets start with Condominio in piazza Carbonari, 1960 - 1961, Milan, by Luigi Caccia Dominioni
9
113
1K
Just LOOK at the solidity, design and craftsmanship of this 1929 Mail Box from the New York Central Railroad Terminal in Buffalo, now in the Wolfsonian Museum, Miami
13
114
1K
Oriel Chambers, the world's first building featuring a metal framed glass curtain wall, Peter Ellis, Liverpool, 1864
11
97
1K
The almost obscene slickness of Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz station in Leipzig by Max Dudler
18
106
1K
1/3 The incredible superficiality of Alejandro Aravena's image-obsessed, Instagram-bait, concrete disneyland EDP Building in Lisbon from 2023
19
62
1K
Reconstructed interior of the Gwoździec Synagogue (circa 1650), on show at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in Warsaw. These were places of joy, life & community, and the incredible decorative art they were covered in reflected this
6
68
1K
They demolished an entire neighbourhood to build this 1st year architecture school student F-grade fail project by Thomas Heatherwick
47
49
1K
Harvard GSD is like the Mars Colony of architecture schools, a hanging gardens of architectural agony
34
70
1K
1/2 A few highlights from the wonderful Museum of Azulejos in Lisbon
4
87
1K
1/3 Apartment building in the Olaias district of Lisbon by Tomas Taveira, early 1980s
4
79
980
1/2 Absolutely fascinating little concrete building buzzing with ideas in Motoazabu, Tokyo, by Koji Aoki, called Azabujuban restaurants, 2021
9
74
954
Just shoot these facades in Lisbon directly into my veins
8
59
906
Swiss Cottage Library never fails to be a delight, a friendly architectural hedgehog by Basil Spence from 1964
10
89
856
The absolute UNIT also known as the Shinjuku Washington Hotel, Sakakura Associates Architects & Engineers, Tokyo, 1986
13
61
896
Design for Americana Plaza, Helmut Jahn, Chicago 1982-3
8
66
881
My new favourite stylistic niche is midcentury jetsons Miami moderne
6
69
835
A photo of the exterior of Gwoździec Synagogue before it was destroyed in the war with another image of the joyous, reconstructed interior
3
49
845
New porcelain colonnade in Croydon, designed by Adam Nathaniel Furman, photo by Gareth Gardner
13
70
822
THREAD: Richard Rogers’ incredibly ornate little hi-tech piece of jewelry in Shinjuku, Tokyo, the Kabuki-Cho Tower from 1983
5
53
835
1/3 The only gotham university skyscraper that I know of… the Cathedral of Learning, Charles Klauder, Pittsburgh, 1926-37
14
67
815
One of many, many beautiful ceramic moments on the Lisbon Underground
5
39
833
1/2 Banco de Londres in Buenos Aires is one of the world’s most spectacular examples of 60s brutalism, a vast sculptural mammoth skeleton embedded in the city, it is probably the most iconic building designed by the great architect Clorindo Testa…
4
92
844
One of the original interiors (theres very little photographic documentation)
1
27
799
THREAD: Kengo Kuma’s ode to the ‘death of architecture’, the M2 Building in Tokyo from 1990 is probably the most famous building that emerged from the logic-defying era of Japanese bubble architecture during the stockmarket boom
7
87
807
THREAD The central hall of Oslo City Hall, Arnstein Arneberg & Magnus Poulsson, 1931-50. This building is a wonder of the world, truly the greatest modern civic building ever conceived and built, and nobody should live a life without having seen it.
6
73
801
The Uni of Leicester Engineering Building by Stirling & Gowan (1963) sent shock waves thru the world of architecture. A paradigm shifting building of picturesque drama that still electrifies 2 this day. We have a collection of products celebrating it:
5
74
773
The most glorious compost heap of modern architecture in the world, Chicago
7
46
723
THREAD Preston Bus Station is even better than everyone says, its the bloody Parthenon of Brutalism, an absolute miracle of a building… there is NOTHING like it anywhere in the world, it is Sublime, so we spent ages making a collection celebrating it:
30
79
724
THREAD: my collection of Penguin Classics about the great and the good of starchitecture.
13
68
715
An art-nouveau/secession beauty worthy of fin de siecle Vienna, but in the centre of Buenos Aires
1
35
706
Yesterday was the last day you could enter this beauty before its transformation into a giant black hole of private apple store aesthetics. Goodbye Thompson Center 🥺.
Iv been in love with, & mesmerized by the Thompson Center since I was a child. The most important postmodern public building in the world by far, it is an incomparably complex, virtuoso & ambitious symphony of geometry, polychromy, structure, space & ornament…
15
55
675
THREAD The exterior of the National Library of Kosovo, designed by Andrija Mutnjaković and completed in 1982, it is one of ex-Yugoslavia’s most important pieces of modern architecture… we have a great collection celebrating it:
13
66
693
1/4 the absolutely astonishing Boston City Hall, by Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles, 1963-8
9
60
693
What an absolute delight of a building to come across, 1–7 Constitution Hill in Birmingham, designed in 1895-6 by William Doubleday and James R. Shaw for H. B. Sale, a die-sinker firm
11
65
669
Nothing can quite prepare you for the symphony of decorative cast iron on the ground floor elevation of Sullivan’s Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Store in Chicago from 1899
15
40
656
Powerfully sculpted little concrete building in Soshigaya, Tokyo
5
50
664
The completely masterful Palace of the Argentine National Congress by Vittorio Meano in Buenos Aires, 1906, one of the world’s great realised triumphs of Beaux Arts romantic classicism
5
63
673
Today I had lunch in a restaurant where the door of my toilet cubicle included a stained glass depiction of Captain Jean-Luc Picard
9
121
624
Adorable pair of happy little weirdos. Kitaaoyama, Tokyo
5
49
636
The vast wall of handmade glass brick sculptures in the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, sadly slated for demolition
8
34
632
One of my favourite skyscrapers in the world, behold the pristine chiaroscuro of Kajima Design’s Akasaka K-Tower in Tokyo, from 2013
15
47
606
Often cited as architects’ favourite brutalist building in the world, the mammoth-skeleton-like Banco de Londres y América del Sur Headquarters, Buenos Aires, Clorindo Testa, 1959-1966
10
37
616
I was admiring these utterly joyful pops of pure pleasure that run all the way up Miami Beach this morning, then after the panel I was on later, who comes up to say hi but William Lane their designer! ❤️❤️
5
49
597
1/2 Azulejos tiled stairway in the old Madre de Deus Convent in Lisbon
4
51
599
THREAD One of my favourite buildings in the entire world, the vast, entirely ceramic, exquisite, be-jewelled, glittering, colourful, encrusted masterpiece that is the completely unique Palacio de Aguas Corrientes in Buenos Aires by Carlos Nyströmer from 1894
8
61
610
1/5 The absolutely mind-boggling beauty and sophisticated, immersively baroque elegance of Richard Gilbert Scott’s Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Birmingham, 1966-7 with stunning glass by John Chrestien
10
41
600
1/3 I was sceptical beforehand but the exterior of Souto de Moura's Casa das Histórias Paula Rego in Cascais near Lisbon really is spectacular
5
32
599
The incredibly well preserved grandeur of Cologne Airport Terminal 1, designed by Paul Schneider von Esleben (whose son Florian Schneider-Esleben later came to fame as co-founder of Kraftwerk), 1970
9
49
580
The base of the mahoosively impressive Monadnock Building, the tallest load-bearing brick building ever built, & the largest office building in the world at the time of completion… by Burnham & Root and Holabird & Roche, Chicago
10
48
560
1/3 The Yasuyo building in Shinjuku, Tokyo, with its razor-sharp aluminium fins and three storey restaurant interior designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, was completed in 1969 (just after the riots!) by Nobumichi Akashi
1
47
574
