Most beloved building in US is Empire State Bldg: poll

[wyliepoon]

Architectural Record

Link to article

AIA, Harris Interactive Poll: Empire State Building Tops the List of Beloved U.S. Buildings

February 7, 2007
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America's favorite building in the U.S. is the Empire State Building, while Frank Lloyd Wright was the nation's most prolific architect of popular structures, this according to a Harris Interactive poll released today in honor of the American Institute of Architect's 150th anniversary (see complete list below). To compile its list of the most popular buildings in the U.S., Harris Interactive polled more than 1,800 adults based on a preselected list of 247 buildings compiled by an AIA panel. The AIA commissioned the survey to generate public awareness about architecture.

“(The poll) confirms that architecture resonates with people,†AIA President RK Stewart, FAIA, said in a statement that accompanied the poll’s release this morning near the U.S. Capitol building, which itself ranked No. 6 on the list. “These buildings hold a place in their hearts and minds.†The release of the poll was timed to coincide with the AIA’s annual Grassroots Leadership and Legislative Conference. Nearly 800 architects are visiting Washington, D.C., this week to participate in networking events and meet with members of Congress about sustainability and other issues important to the profession.

At the tip of Americans’ minds, so to speak, is Shreve Lamb & Harmon’s Empire State Building, the second tallest building in the country—the tallest skyscraper, Skidmore Owings & Merrill’s Sears Tower, placed 43rd on the list. American’s second favorite structure is the White House, followed by the National Cathedral and the Jefferson Memorial, both in Washington; the Golden Gate Bridge; the U.S. Capitol; and the Lincoln Memorial. Nearly half of the 150 buildings selected are located in Washington, D.C., New York City, or Chicago.

With eight buildings on the list, Frank Lloyd Wright’s work appears most often. Henry Hobson Richardson’s buildings are cited six times and Richard Meier’s were cited five times. Three projects designed by women were included, including two in the top 10: Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the Golden Gate Bridge designed by Gertrude Morrow along with her husband, Irving. Hearst Castle, designed by Julia Morgan is on the list as well. Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello is the oldest building, begun around 1769 and completed in 1809, and the newest is the New York Times’ new headquarters by Renzo Piano. It is still under construction and will be completed later this year.

(for complete ranking click link above)

 

[ganjavih]

She's a beauty, that's for sure.

 

[tudararms]

Any mention of Charles Bulfinch and the federal style, I wonder? One of my personal favourites.

 

[prometheus the supremo]

been there, loved it.

 

[spmarshall]

Been to a fair number of those places on the list.

But I ask,

Where's Fallingwater? SC Johnson? Why is the Bellagio Casino on the list?

 

[andreapalladio]

The masses love the dancing fountains. They stand there in the heat to see them.

 

[spmarshall]

I've seen the dancing fountains too, and while they're neat, dancing fountains great architecture does not make.

Trust the unwashed American masses to come up with a list like this.

 

[adma]

It's a preselected list of 247, remember.

Is the Salk Institute on the list? A quick once-over didn't turn that one up...

 

[tudararms]

"Trust the unwashed American masses to come up with a list like this."

Oh Brother! In fact there is a nice mix of high and low brow in this list of 'beloved' buildings.

 

[bizorky]

Regardless of what came before, the Empire State Building says "skyscraper."

 

[adma]

Blair Kamin bleats

A list with serious design flaws
Fame trumps quality in building picks, says architecture critic Blair Kamin

By Blair Kamin
Published February 8, 2007


A new poll of Americans' 150 favorite buildings is ridiculously superficial, riddled with questionable choices, but still worth a good hard look.

The poll, released Wednesday by the American Institute of Architects and Harris Interactive, is studded with surprises sure to make architects and architecture critics cringe. The Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas (No. 22) beats Frank Lloyd Wright's breathtaking Fallingwater house in southwestern Pennsylvania (No. 29). Ouch! The twin towers of the World Trade Center, gone for more than five years, are No. 19. Huh? I thought this was a survey of favorite existing buildings, not favorite destroyed buildings.

Looking over the top 10, which is led by the graceful but powerful Empire State Building and includes such revered national landmarks as the White House and the Golden Gate Bridge, it's hard not to conclude that this was the architectural equivalent of the political name-recognition game, not to mention a fabulous publicity stunt for the institute, a Washington-based trade group celebrating its 150th anniversary.

The survey respondents, who chose from 248 structures nominated by institute members and were shown only a photograph of each structure, had a clear preference for structures that are A) big; B) national symbols often displayed on postcards; C) open to the public and therefore able to build a constituency.

Was there quality here? Yes. But familiarity trumped quality. The list has a disproportionate number of hotels and stadiums, including Wrigley Field (No. 31), which, surprisingly, is Chicago's top-rated building.

Any architectural survey that doesn't list such masterpieces as Thomas Jefferson's classical University of Virginia campus or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's lordly Seagram Building in New York City is immediately suspect. Indeed, Mies--the most influential architect of the 20th Century--had not a single building on the list.

On the other hand, in a democracy people should have their say. The public hasn't warmed to Mies' steel-and-glass modernism. It apparently agrees with what Philadelphia postmodernist Robert Venturi once said: "Less is a bore."

In that vein, modernists who regard white columns as holdovers of European imperialism need to come to grips with the fact that four in the top 10--the White House, the Jefferson Memorial, the U.S. Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial--are classical edifices in Washington.

But traditionalists tempted to crow that no steel-and-glass structures made the top 10 should hold their tongues: Maya Lin's minimalist Vietnam Veterans Memorial is No. 10. Eero Saarinen's sleek Gateway Arch in St. Louis is No. 14.

And Richard Meier, whose white-on-white, neo-modernist buildings include the Getty Center complex in Los Angeles, has more buildings on the list--five--than any other living architect. (The more-celebrated Frank Gehry gets three mentions, including his Disney Concert Hall in L.A.)

Of late architects, Frank Lloyd Wright has the most on the list with eight.

Chicago, which has the third-highest number of buildings (16) after New York (32) and Washington, D.C., (17), also reflects the conflicts between populism and professional judgment, traditionalism and modernism.

Wrigley Field, designed by the comparatively little-known Zachary Taylor Davis, is a joyous place, but is it greater than anything Mies has ever done?

Only if you think the Cubs are a sure bet to win the World Series this year.

Wrigley Field, the Cubs and Tribune Tower are owned by Tribune Co., as is this paper.

Tribune Tower, once despised by modernists as a neo-Gothic stage set, was next at No. 38, with Sears Tower at No. 42. Disappointingly, the X-braced John Hancock Center--winner of the AIA's own 25-year award for enduring design quality--did not make the list. But the Harold Washington Library Center, savaged by many critics, including me, as leaden and backward looking, ranks No. 85.

Does the library deserve another look? Or was the survey's method, which portrayed buildings as two-dimensional images rather than three-dimensional structures experienced in space and time, deeply flawed?

Probably the latter.

Nevertheless, the results are worth debating: In contrast to the profession, which is dominated by polemics, the public seems to be taking a far more pragmatic stance.

It appears to want choices in its architecture, not one dominant style. It likes classicism, but it also likes modernism, though it clearly favors expressionistic modernism, like Saarinen's Gateway Arch or Santiago Calatrava's birdlike Milwaukee Art Museum addition (No. 59), over Mies' sober steel and glass.

The public is even open to supposedly "tasteless" places like the Bellagio, whose luxe fantasy world was inspired by the idyllic Italian village of Bellagio and nearby Lake Como.

Perhaps, as Venturi once said, architects have something to learn from Las Vegas.
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bkamin@tribune.com

 

[Archivistower]

It would be interesting to see a Canadian version of this.

 

[ganjavih]

^ Yes, it would be interesting. My guess is that it wouldn't be any more sohpisticated, perhaps even less so, than the American list. I'd caution against mocking Americans for coming up with this list.

 

[adma]

One trouble w/Canada is that the natural landscape overwhelms the built one in people's perceptions...

 

[Archivistower]

It's true, people here are tend to overlook urban settings for idealized concepts of countryside settings. Can you even imagine the Canadian List by the time it got to, say, 56th? You have Nova Scotians voting for their local Timmies, Montrealers picking any building that was on the island, and Sudburyites choosing the Ostifichuk's shed two doors over because it has a fake window in it.