buildings

Lifetime Achievement: Moshe Safdie An architect, urbanist, planner, educator, theorist and author, Moshe Safdie has worn many hats over the years. Three years after completing his studies at McGill University, the Israeli-Canadian architect completed his first built project, Habitat '67, a model for community housing that remains seminal today. Originally conceived as his master's thesis project, the structure, completed in 1967, comprises a collage of 354 prefabricated units.

Williams and Tsien found room in the $19.3 million budget to clad the buildings in hand-formed Petersen bricks from Denmark, choosing them for the way they complement the native plants outside. Students use the ramps and staircases carved into and around the berm to move between the buildings and from floor to floor.

By arranging the rooms along the perimeter of each building, the duo managed to comfortably accommodate 40 single rooms on each of four floors, for a total of 160.

Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute (top left) is a stunning building that looks directly out to the sea. Architectural tourists flock to the site, which still functions as a working laboratory.

The Yale School of Architecture by Paul Rudolph in New Haven, CT.

Exterior of Mies van der Rohe's Lake Shore Drive apartments, circa 1951. Photograph by Richard Nickel.

Pallasmaa considers San Diego’s Salk Institute an architectural masterpiece for its spiritually inspiring vistas and poetic sense of monumentality. Designed by Louis Kahn, it was completed in 1965.

The Bayard-Condict Building, New York, New York, built 1897-1899. Photo courtesy of The Richard Nickel Committee and Archive.

Grant Mudford, Phillips Exeter Academy Library by Louis Kahn.

The Donald Judd Home and Studio in SoHo, which recently reopened following a restoration by Architecture Research Office and Walter B. Melvin Architects.

Peter Zumthor, Brother Klaus Chapel, Mechernich, Germany

Bet you didn't know that Pritzker-Prize winning architect Peter Zumthor studied at Pratt as an exchange student in 1966! Pictured here is one of the architect's most celebrated works, the spa at Therme Vals in Switzerland.

Kapelle fur den heiligen Bruder Klaus, Peter Zumthor, 2009, silver gelatin print.

The Peter Zumthor-designed St. Benedict Chapel in Switzerland.

Carlos Scarpa's Brion Cemetery near Treviso, Italy.

Marcel Breuer, St. John’s Abbey (1961) Designed by a Bauhaus icon, the modernist Minnesota church greets the faithful with a bell tower perched upon a curvaceous concrete stand. Breuer follows up a strong introduction with the church itself, boasting a massive wall of hexagonal stained glass and bold concrete tresses. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons