Among the structures most frequently mentioned in these lists are the most varied in scale and function.
One of the record holders was Norman Foster's Hearst Tower in New York, which has earned critical acclaim both for its elegant formal solution and for its ecologically sound project. The National Assembly for Wales by Richard Rogers in Cardiff was mentioned more than once - magnificent from an aesthetic and - again - environmental point of view. Among the European buildings, the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart by the Dutch workshop UNStudio and the Science Center Fano Zaha Hadid in Wolfsburg were also included in the Top 10. They also remembered the outstanding buildings in terms of design - in particular, the "Alpine House" by Wilkinson Air at Kew Botanical Gardens near London: an innovative greenhouse for alpine plants.
Among the overseas "novelties", the most acclaimed by the press were the Guthrie Theater by French architect Jean Nouvel in Minneapolis and the Glass Pavilion of the Toledo Museum of Art by the Japanese firm SANAA, both examples of "architectural imports".
Among the events in the architectural field, the Venice Biennale occupies the main place. But they assess it ambiguously: journalists approve of the thoughtful program of the main exposition of Richard Burdett, and they perceive national exhibitions rather negatively, they are condemned for striving for originality at the expense of content.
Almost all the authors of the "final" articles have touched upon the problem of heritage preservation. They also remembered the destruction of three Chicago buildings by Louis Sullivan from the fire, and the activity around the legacy of Le Corbusier. We are talking about plans to implement the non-embodied projects of the great architect for Chandigarh, about the completion of the construction of the Church of Saint-Pierre in French Firmini according to his plan, and about the intention of Renzo Piano to build a monastery complex next to the chapel in Ronshan.
On the contrary, the scientific restorations of the buildings of Kahn and Aalto in the USA and the Bauhaus complex in Dessau are assessed positively.
The article was prepared on the basis of materials from the newspapers "The Guardian", "Chicago Tribune", "Los Angeles Times", "Business Week" and others.
