"America's Favorite Architecture" is a list of buildings and other structures identified as the most popular works of

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. In 2006 and 2007, the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

(AIA) sponsored research to identify the most popular works of architecture in the United States. Harris Interactive conducted the study by first

poll Poll, polled, or polling may refer to: Figurative head counts * Poll, a formal election ** Election verification exit poll, a survey taken to verify election counts ** Polling, voting to make decisions or determine opinions ** Polling places o ...

ing a sample of the AIA membership and later polling a sample of the public.American Institute of Architects, "About this Exhibit"
FavoriteArchitecture.org website
In the first phase of the study, 2,448 AIA members were interviewed and asked to identify their "favorite" structures. Each was asked to name up to 20 structures in each of 15 defined categories. The 248 structures that were named by at least six of the AIA members were then included in a list of structures to be included in the next phase, a

survey Survey may refer to: Statistics and human research * Statistical survey, a method for collecting quantitative information about items in a population * Survey (human research), including opinion polls Spatial measurement * Surveying, the techniq ...

of the general public. The survey of the public involved a total of 2,214 people, each of whom rated many photographs of

building A building, or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory (although there's also portable buildings). Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and fu ...

s and other structures drawn from the list of 248 structures that had been created by polling the architects. The public's preferences were ranked using a "likeability" scale developed for the study.American Institute of Architects Releases Poll Showing "America's Favorite Architecture"
, Building Online, March 15, 2007 As part of the commemoration of the organization's 150th anniversary in 2007, the AIA announced the list of the 150 highest-ranked structures as "America's Favorite Architecture".

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

is the location of 32 structures on the list, more than any other place. Of the 10 top-ranked structures, 6 are in

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

, which is the location of 17 of the 150 structures on the complete list.

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

has 16 structures on the list. The 150 top-ranked structures are listed below.

List of "America's Favorites"

Criticisms

When it was released, critics observed that the list of "favorites" did not reflect the judgments of architectural “experts”. Upon the list's release, AIA president R.K. Stewart acknowledged that the rankings did not represent architects' professional judgments, but instead reflected people's "emotional connections" to buildings.John King
When it comes to the tops in architecture, it's all about how it makes people feel
''San Francisco Chronicle'', February 13, 2007 Buildings named by critics as being some that architects consider to be highly significant, but that did not achieve top 150 ranking in the public survey, included the

Salk Institute The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a scientific research institute located in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California, U.S. The independent, non-profit institute was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vacci ...

in La Jolla, California, designed by

Louis Kahn Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky; – March 17, 1974) was an Estonian-born American architect based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. Whi ...

; the Inland Steel and John Hancock buildings in Chicago;

Washington Dulles International Airport Washington Dulles International Airport , typically referred to as Dulles International Airport, Dulles Airport, Washington Dulles, or simply Dulles ( ), is an international airport in the Eastern United States, located in Loudoun County and Fa ...

Chantilly, Virginia Chantilly is a census-designated place (CDP) in western Fairfax County, Virginia, Fairfax County, Virginia. The population was 24,301 as of the 2020 census. Chantilly is named after an early-19th-century mansion and farm, which in turn took the ...

, designed by

Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...

; and the

Seagram Building The Seagram Building is a skyscraper at 375 Park Avenue, between 52nd and 53rd Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with minor assistance from Philip Johnson, Ely Jacques Kahn, ...

in New York City, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.Alex Frangos
Americans' Favorite Buildings
''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', February 7, 2007 John King of the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...

'' pointed out that in 1991 the AIA had named Eero Saarinen's design for Dulles Airport as one of ten "all-time works of American architects." King noted that the public's ratings were based on seeing just one photo of each building, and pointed out that "There's more to architecture than a picture can convey."

Structures ranked below the top 150

The 98 buildings that were listed by architects as significant, but did not rank in the top 150 in the public vote, were: * 860–880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments – Chicago, Illinois *

American Folk Art Museum The American Folk Art Museum is an art museum in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, at 2, Lincoln Square, Columbus Avenue at 66th Street. It is the premier institution devoted to the aesthetic appreciation of folk art and creative expressions of ...

– New York City * Art & Architecture Building –

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

, New Haven, Connecticut * Baker House – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts * Beinecke Rare Book Library – Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut * Beth Sholom Synagogue – Elkins Park, Pennsylvania *

Boston City Hall Boston City Hall is the seat of city government of Boston, Massachusetts. It includes the offices of the mayor of Boston and the Boston City Council. The current hall was built in 1968 to assume the functions of the Old City Hall. It is a con ...

– Boston, Massachusetts * Bradbury Building – Los Angeles, California * Burton Barr Library – Phoenix Public Library, Phoenix, Arizona *

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts is the only building designed primarily by Le Corbusier in the United States—he contributed to the design of the United Nations Secretariat Building—a ...

– Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts *

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels ( es, Catedral de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles), informally known as COLA or the Los Angeles Cathedral, is a cathedral of the Roman Catholic Church in Los Angeles, California, United States. It opened in 2 ...

– Los Angeles * Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption – San Francisco * CBS Headquarters/ Black Rock – New York City *

Yale Center for British Art Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...

/Museum of British Art – Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut * Chapel/W15 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts *Chapel of St. Ignatius – Seattle University, Seattle * Crown Hall –

Illinois Institute of Technology Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...

(IIT), Chicago * Dallas City Hall – Dallas, Texas *

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport , also known as DFW Airport, is the primary international airport serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex and the North Texas Region in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the largest hub for American Ai ...

– Dallas, Texas * M. H. de Young Memorial Museum – San Francisco *

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between ...

– Denver, Colorado *

Denver Public Library The Denver Public Library is the public library system of the City and County of Denver, Colorado. The system includes the Denver Central Library, located in the Golden Triangle district of Downtown Denver, as well as 25 branch locations and ...

– Denver, Colorado * Eames House – Pacific Palisades, California *

Ennis House The Ennis House is a residential dwelling in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States, south of Griffith Park. The home was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Charles and Mabel Ennis in 1923 and was built in 1924. Fol ...

/Ennis-Brown House – Los Angeles *

Esherick House The Margaret Esherick House in Philadelphia is one of the most studied of the nine built houses designed by American architect Louis Kahn. Commissioned by Chestnut Hill bookstore owner Margaret Esherick, the house was completed in 1961. In 2023, ...

– Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania *

Experience Music Project The Museum of Pop Culture or MoPOP is a nonprofit museum in Seattle, Washington, dedicated to contemporary popular culture. It was founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2000 as the Experience Music Project. Since then MoPOP has organized ...

– Seattle * Farnsworth House – Plano, Illinois * First Christian Church – Columbus, Indiana * First Church of Christ Scientist – Berkeley, California *

First Unitarian Church of Rochester The First Unitarian Church of Rochester is located at 220 Winton Road South in Rochester, New York, U.S. The congregation is one of the largest in its denomination, the Unitarian Universalist Association. The non-creedal church conducts progr ...

– Rochester, New York *

Ford Foundation Building The Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice (also known as 321 East 42nd Street, 320 East 43rd Street, or the Ford Foundation Building) is a 12-story office building in East Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Designed by architect Kevin Ro ...

– New York City *Frank

Gehry Residence The Gehry Residence is architect Frank Gehry's home. It was originally an extension, designed by Gehry and built around an existing Dutch colonial style house. It makes use of unconventional materials, such as chain-link fences and corrugated st ...

– Santa Monica, California * Freer Gallery of Art – Washington, DC *Genzyme Center – Cambridge, Massachusetts * Gropius House – Lincoln, Massachusetts * Guaranty Building – Buffalo, New York * Horton Plaza – San Diego * IBM Building – Chicago *

Inland Steel Building The Inland Steel Building is a skyscraper located at 30 W. Monroe Street in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the city's defining commercial high-rises of the post-World War II era of modern architecture.Schulze, Franz & Harrington, Kevin (2003). ' ...

– Chicago * Jacobs Field – Cleveland, Ohio * John Deere World Headquarters – Moline, Illinois *

John Hancock Center The John Hancock Center is a 100- story, 1,128-foot supertall skyscraper located in Chicago, Illinois. Located in the Magnificent Mile district, the building was officially renamed 875 North Michigan Avenue in 2018. The skyscraper was designed ...

– Chicago * Johnson Wax Building – Racine, Wisconsin * Kaufmann Desert House – Palm Springs, California *

Kimbell Art Museum The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, hosts an art collection as well as traveling art exhibitions, educational programs and an extensive research library. Its initial artwork came from the private collection of Kay and Velma Kimbell, w ...

– Fort Worth, Texas *

Kings Road House The Schindler House, also known as the Schindler Chace House or Kings Road House, is a house in West Hollywood, California, designed by architect Rudolph M. Schindler. The house serves as headquarters to the MAK Center for Art and Architectur ...

– West Hollywood, California *

Larkin Administration Building The Larkin Building was an early 20th century building. It was designed in 1903 by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1904-1906 for the Larkin Soap Company of Buffalo, New York. The five story dark red brick building used pink tinted mortar and ...

– Buffalo, New York *

Lever House Lever House is a office building at 390 Park Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building was designed in the International Style by Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) as ...

– New York City * Lovell Beach House – Newport Beach, California * R. H. Macy and Company Store (building) – New York City *

Marin County Civic Center The Marin County Civic Center, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is located in San Rafael, California, United States. Groundbreaking for the Civic Center Administration Building took place in 1960, after Wright's death and under the watch of Wrigh ...

– San Rafael, California *

Marshall Field and Company Building The Marshall Field and Company Building, which now houses Macy's State Street in Chicago, Illinois, was built in two stages—north end in 1901–02 (including columned entrance) and south end in 1905–06, and was the flagship location of the ...

– Chicago *

Menil Collection The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of approximately 17,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawing ...

– Houston, Texas *

Minneapolis Central Library Minneapolis Central Library, a library in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, is the largest library of the Hennepin County Library public library system. It bills itself as having "the third largest per capita public library collecti ...

– Minneapolis *

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (widely referred to as The Modern) is an art museum of post-World War II art in Fort Worth, Texas with a collection of international modern and contemporary art. Founded in 1892, The Modern is located in the c ...

– Fort Worth, Texas *

Monadnock Building The Monadnock Building (historically the Monadnock Block; pronounced ) is a 16-story skyscraper located at 53 West Jackson Boulevard in the south Loop area of Chicago. The north half of the building was designed by the firm of Burnham & Root ...

– Chicago * Morgan Library & Museum – New York City *Mount Angel Library –

Mount Angel, Oregon Mt. Angel is a city in Marion County, Oregon, United States. It is northeast of Salem, Oregon, on Oregon Route 214. The population was 3,748 at the 2010 census. Mt. Angel is part of the Salem Metropolitan Statistical Area. History Mt. Ange ...

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ...

* Museum of Fine Arts, Houston *

Nasher Sculpture Center Opened in 2003, the Nasher Sculpture Center is a museum in Dallas, Texas, that houses the Patsy and Raymond Nasher collection of modern and contemporary sculpture. It is located on a site adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art in the Dallas Art ...

– Dallas * National Gallery of Art (East Wing) – Washington, DC *

North Christian Church The North Christian Church is a church in Columbus, Indiana. Founded in 1955, it is part of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The church building of 1964 was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen (1910–1961) and comp ...

– Columbus, Indiana *

Oakland Museum of California The Oakland Museum of California or OMCA (formerly the Oakland Museum) is an interdisciplinary museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California, located adjacent to Oak Street, 10th Street, and 11th Street in Oakland, Cal ...

– Oakland, California * O'Hare International Airport – Chicago *

Peabody Terrace Peabody Terrace, on the north bank of the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a Harvard University housing complex primarily serving graduate students, particularly married students and their families. Designed in the Brutalist archit ...

– Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts * Petco Park (

San Diego Padres The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1969, the club has won two NL penn ...

) – San Diego * Philadelphia Savings Fund Society Building/PSFS – Philadelphia *

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the po ...

's Glass House – New Canaan, Connecticut *Prada – Los Angeles *Prada – 575 Broadway, New York City *

Price Tower The Price Tower is a nineteen-story, 221-foot-high tower at 510 South Dewey Avenue in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. It was built in 1956 to a design by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is the only realized skyscraper by Wright, and is one of only two vertical ...

– Bartlesville, Oklahoma *Rachofsky House – Dallas, Texas *REI Flagship Store, Seattle *

Reliance Building The Reliance Building is a skyscraper located at 1 W. Washington Street in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The first floor and basement were designed by John Root of the Burnham and Root architectural firm in 1890, with the rest o ...

– Chicago * Richards Medical Research Laboratories – Philadelphia *

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport , sometimes referred to colloquially as National Airport, Washington National, Reagan National Airport, DCA, Reagan, or simply National, is an international airport in Arlington County, Virginia, across ...

– Arlington, Virginia *

Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art The Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) is a contemporary art museum in Cincinnati, Ohio and one of the first contemporary art institutions in the United States. The CAC is a non-collecting museum that focuses on new developments in painting, sculptur ...

– Cincinnati *

– La Jolla, California *

San Francisco Public Library The San Francisco Public Library is the public library system of the city and county of San Francisco. The Main Library is located at Civic Center, at 100 Larkin Street. The library system has won several awards, such as '' Library Journals ...

– San Francisco *

Sandra Day O'Connor United States Courthouse The Sandra Day O'Connor United States Courthouse is a courthouse at 401 West Washington Street in Phoenix, Arizona. Pursuant to , enacted by the United States Congress, it is named after Sandra Day O'Connor, who served as an Associate Justi ...

– Phoenix, Arizona * Seagram's Building – New York City * Frederick J. Smith House – Darien, Connecticut *

Soldier Field Soldier Field is a multi-purpose stadium on the Near South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Opened in 1924 and reconstructed in 2003, the stadium has served as the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) since ...

– Chicago * Sony Plaza (AT&T Corporate Headquarters) – New York City * Staples Center – Los Angeles * Superdome – New Orleans * Tiffany and Company Building – New York City * Unity Temple – Oak Park, Illinois *

University of Phoenix Stadium A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

(Arizona Cardinals Stadium) – Glendale, Arizona *

Vanna Venturi House The Vanna Venturi House, one of the first prominent works of the postmodern architecture movement, is located in the neighborhood of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. It was designed by architect Robert Venturi fo ...

– Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania *

Wainwright Building The Wainwright Building (also known as the Wainwright State Office Building) is a 10-story, terra cotta office building at 709 Chestnut Street in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. The Wainwright Building is considered to be one of the first aestheti ...

– St. Louis, Missouri *

– Chantilly, Virginia *

Wexner Center for the Arts The Wexner Center for the Arts is the Ohio State University's "multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art". The Wexner Center opened in November 1989, named in honor of the father of Limite ...

– Ohio State University – Columbus, Ohio *

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

– New York City *

William J. Clinton Presidential Library The William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum is the Presidential library system, presidential library of Bill Clinton, the List of presidents of the United States, 42nd president of the United States (1993–2001). It is located in L ...

– Little Rock, Arkansas

References

{{reflist

External links

FavoriteArchitecture.org
(Flash-based interactive photo exhibit of the listed buildings)
AIA 150
NPR.org (text-based list)

''The Wall Street Journal'', February 7, 2007 (illustrated sortable list)

on AIA Archiblog Lists of buildings and structures in the United States Opinion polling in the United States

List of "America's Favorites"

Criticisms

Structures ranked below the top 150

See also

References

External links