Does This Mean They’re Gonna Start Charging for Admission?

DOES THIS MEAN THEY’RE GONNA START CHARGING FOR ADMISSION? Writer and filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer gives architecture the U.S. News & World Report treatment, asking a bunch of “experts” to name the world’s most important buildings, monuments, or bridges: “Even though the 52 respondents were greatly varied—ranging from Frank Gehry to Hank Dittmar, the head of Prince Charles’s very conservative architectural foundation—V.F. could not have imagined what a crapshoot such a poll would turn out to be. For the five greatest works constructed since 1980, the Guggenheim Bilbao received 28 votes. The next favorite, the Menil Collection, received only 10. Zumthor’s baths [in Vals, Switzerland] received 9 votes. Foster’s HSBC Building received 7. Four buildings were tied for fifth place, with 6 votes: Koolhaas’s Seattle Central Library, Toyo Ito’s Mediatheque building, Tadao Ando’s Church of the Light, and the late James Stirling’s Neue Staatsgalerie. Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial received 5 votes. Three buildings followed with 4 votes: Rogers’s Lloyd’s Building, Foster’s Millau Viaduct, and Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum, in Berlin. The rest of the votes were scattered over 120 buildings, most of them cited only once. Two voters indicated that there was virtually nothing new worth voting for.” [Vanity Fair]

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