- Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath: scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, and writer. The illegitimate son of a notary, Messer Piero, and a peasant girl, Caterina, Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense, "da Vinci" simply meaning "of Vinci": his full birth name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", meaning "Leonardo, … - Le Corbusier
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, who chose to be known as Le Corbusier, was a Swiss and later French, (Swiss-born) architect and writer, who is famous for his contributions to what now is called Modern Architecture. He was a pioneer in theoretical studies of modern design and was dedicated to providing better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities. His career spanned five decades, with his iconic buildings constructed throughout central Europe, … - Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American visionary, designer, architect, poet, author, and inventor. Throughout his life, Fuller was concerned with the question "Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?" Considering himself an average individual without special monetary means or academic degree, he chose to devote his life to this question, … - Vitruvius
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (born ca. 80/70 BC?; died ca. 25 BC) was a Roman writer, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century BC. - William Morris
William Morris was an English artist, writer, socialist and activist. He was one of the principal founders of the British arts and crafts movement, best known as a designer of wallpaper and patterned fabrics, a writer of poetry and fiction and a pioneer of the socialist movement in Britain. His family was wealthy, and he went to school at Marlborough College, but left in 1851 after a student rebellion there. - Albert Speer
Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, commonly known as Albert Speer (March 19, 1905 - September 1, 1981), was an architect, author and high-ranking Nazi German government official, sometimes called "the first architect of the Third Reich". His two bestselling autobiographical works, "Inside the Third Reich" and "Spandau: the Secret Diaries" detailed his often close personal relationship with German dictator Adolf Hitler, … - Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman (born August 11, 1932 in Newark, New Jersey) is one of the foremost practitioners of deconstructivism in American architecture. Eisenman's fragmented forms are identified with an eclectic group of architects that have been, at times unwillingly, labelled deconstructivists. Although Eisenman shuns the label, he has had a history of controversy aimed at keeping him in the public (academic) eye. - Bernard Tschumi
Bernard Tschumi (born January 25 1944 Lausanne, Switzerland) is an architect, writer, and educator. Born of French and Swiss parentage, he works and lives in New York and Paris. He studied in Paris and at ETH in Zurich, where he received his degree in architecture in 1969. Tschumi has taught at Portsmouth Polytechnic in Portsmouth, UK, the Architectural Association in London, the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York, Princeton University, … - Robert Venturi
Robert Charles Venturi (June 25, 1925 -) is an award winning American architect. Based in Philadelphia, he worked under Eero Saarinen and Louis Kahn before forming his own firm with John Rauch. As a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, Venturi met his future wife, the architect and planner Denise Scott Brown, who joined the firm in 1967. After Rauch's resignation in 1989, the firm took its current form and was named Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc.. - Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio, was an Italian architect, widely considered the most influential person in the history of Western architecture. He was born Andrea di Pietro della Gondola in Padua, then part of the Republic of Venice. Apprenticed as a stonecutter in Padua when he was 13, he broke his contract after only 18 months and fled to the nearby town of Vicenza. Here he became an assistant in the leading workshop of stonecutters and masons. - Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski (born in 1943, in Edinburgh, Scotland), is a Canadian architect, professor and writer. Rybczynski was born in Edinburgh of Polish parentage and raised in Surrey, England before moving at a young age to Canada. He received Bachelor of Architecture (1960) and Master of Architecture (1972) degrees from McGill University in Montreal. Rybczynski has written more than 200 articles and papers on the subject of housing, architecture, and technology, … - Sarah Susanka
Sarah Susanka (b. circa 1957) is an England-born American architect and author. Susanka is a proponent of the "Not So Big" philosophy of residential architecture, which aims to "build better, not bigger". She expands that philosophy into how we live our lives, focusing on "quality, not quantity". She is a breast cancer survivor. Prior to her highly successful writing career Sarah was a founding partner of the residential architecture firm of Mulfinger, Susanka, Mahady. - Aldo Rossi
Aldo Rossi, (May 3, 1931- September 4, 1997 Milan, Italy) was an Italian architect who accomplished the unusual feat of achieving international recognition in three distinct areas: theory, drawing, and architecture. His earliest works of the 1960s were mostly theoretical and displayed a simultaneous influence of 1920s Italian modernism (see Giuseppe Terragni), classicist influences of 19th century architect Adolf Loos, and the reflections of the painter Giorgio De Chirico. - Adolf Loos
Adolf Loos (December 10, 1870 in Brno, Moravia-August 23, 1933 in Kalksburg near Vienna, Austria) was an early-20th century Viennese architect. Loos was a Czechoslovak citizen. - Paul Goldberger
Paul Goldberger (born in 1950 in Passaic, New Jersey) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic. He is well known for his "Sky Line" column in "The New Yorker". Shortly after starting as a writer at "The New York Times" in 1972, he was assigned to write the obituary of architect Louis Kahn, who died suddenly of a heart attack in a bathroom in New York's Pennsylvania Station. The next year, he was named the paper's architecture critic. - Denise Scott Brown
Denise Scott Brown, (born October 3, 1931) is an architect, urban designer, planner and principal of the Philadelphia firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. - Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner, born in Donji Kraljevec, Croatia, was an Austrian philosopher, literary scholar, educator, artist, playwright, social thinker, and esotericist. He was the founder of Anthroposophy, Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophical medicine, and the new artistic form of Eurythmy. He characterized anthroposophy as follows: Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual component. - Nicholas Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte (born December 1, 1943) is a Greek-American architect and computer scientist best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also known as the founder of The One Laptop per Child association (OLPC). - Graham Henry Greene
Graham Greene / Graham Greene , who was in the staff of The Times from 1926 to 1940, and served in the Foreign Office during WWII, is the author of many important novels, several of which were made into movies. Critics often refer to a turning point in his writing when he converted to Catholicism, and often wonder as to why he continues to elude the Nobel Committee. His first work, Babbling April , appeared in 1925. - Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis was one of the most important Greek composers of the 20th century, a major contributor to musical modernism, and an architect - Charles Jencks
Charles Jencks (b. 1939) is an American architect, landscape architect and architectural theorist. His books on the history and criticism of Modernism and Postmodernism were widely read in architectural circles and beyond. Born in Baltimore, he first studied English Literature at Harvard University, later gaining an MA in architecture from the Graduate School of Design in 1965. He also has a PhD in Architectural History from University College, London. - John Vanbrugh
Sir John Vanbrugh (pronounced "Van'-bru") (January 24 1664?-March 26 1726) was an English architect and dramatist, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, "The Relapse" (1696) and "The Provoked Wife" (1697), which have become enduring stage favourites but originally occasioned much controversy. Vanbrugh was in many senses a radical throughout his life. - Vincent Scully
Vincent Joseph Scully, Jr. (b.1920) is a Sterling Professor Emeritus of the History of Art in Architecture at Yale University, and the author of several books on the subject. Architect Philip Johnson once described Scully as the “the most influential architectural teacher ever.” Born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut, Scully attended Hillhouse High School. At the age of 16, he entered Yale University. He earned his BA degree from Yale in 1940, and his Ph.D in 1949. - Max Frisch
Max Frisch (May 15, 1911 - April 4, 1991), was a Swiss architect, playwright and novelist, one of the most representative writers of German literature after World War II. In his creative works Frisch paid particular attention to issues relating to problems of human identity, individuality, responsibility, morality and political commitment. His use of irony is a significant feature of his post-war publications. Frisch was a member of the Gruppe Olten. - Gertrude Jekyll
Gertrude Jekyll (November 29, 1843-December 8, 1932), (pronounced JEE-kul, to rhyme with 'treacle') was an influential British garden designer, writer, and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the UK, Europe and the USA and contributed over 1,000 articles to "Country Life", "The Garden" and other magazines. Gertrude Jekyll was born at 2 Grafton Street, Mayfair, London, the fifth of the seven children of Captain Edward JH Jekyll, … - Mark Wigley
Mark Antony Wigley is a New Zealand-born architect, author, and (since 2004) Dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, New York, USA. Wigley received both his Bachelor of Architecture (1979) and Ph.D. (1987) from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Mike Austin was his doctoral supervisor. Wigley left Auckland in 1986 and taught at Princeton University, from 1987 to 1999, … - Poul Henningsen
Poul Henningsen, Danish author, architect and critic, was one of the leading figures of the cultural life of Denmark between the World Wars. In Denmark, he is often referred to as "PH". Poul Henningsen was the illegitimate son of author Agnes Henningsen and satirist Carl Ewald. He spent a happy childhood in a tolerant and modern home which was often visited by the leading literates. Between 1911 and 1917 he was educated as an architect, … - John Neal
John Neal, was most notably an author and art/literary critic. He was also a man of diverse talents and objectives, many of which were pioneering in his day. His writing style was seminal in the new American style, whereby he refused to emulate British authors by writing strictly in a clean tone, instead writing more as he spoke and allowing his characters to speak gruffly, if the story called for it. However, his style was also undisciplined and often rambling, … - James Ingo Freed
James Ingo Freed (June 23, 1930-December 15, 2005) was an American architect born in Essen, Germany during the Weimar Republic. His family, which was Jewish, fled to the United States when he was 9 to escape the regime of Nazi Germany. In 1953 Freed received an architectural degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He then worked in Chicago and New York, including work with Mies van der Rohe. - Robin Boyd
Robin Boyd (1917 - 1971) was an influential Australian architect, writer, teacher and social commentator. He, along with Harry Seidler, stands as one of the foremost proponents for the International Modern Movement in Australian architecture. Boyd was born into the prominent Boyd artistic dynasty in Australia, with many relatives being painters, sculptors, architects or other arts professionals. He was the younger son of the painter Penleigh Boyd, and his own son, … - Juhani Pallasmaa
Juhani Uolevi Pallasmaa is a Finnish architect and former professor of Architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology. Pallasmaa is a former Director of the Museum of Finnish Architecture (1978-1983). He runs his own architect's office - Arkkitehtitoimisto Juhani Pallasmaa KY - in Helsinki. He is also Ruth & Norman Moore Visiting Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, USA. - Leo von Klenze
Leo von Klenze was a German neoclassicist architect, painter and writer. Court architect of Bavarian King Ludwig I, Leo von Klenze was one of the most prominent representatives of Greek revival style. Von Klenze studied architecture in Berlin and Paris. Between 1808 and 1813 he was a court architect of Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia. - Emily Post
Emily Post (October 27, 1873 - September 25, 1960) was a United States author who promoted what she opinionated to be "proper etiquette". She wrote books surrounding the topic of etiquette. Post was born as Emily Price in Baltimore, Maryland, and was born into privilege as the only daughter of famous architect Bruce Price and his wife Josephine Lee Price. She was educated at home and attended Miss Graham's finishing school in New York, … - John Hejduk
John Hejduk (b. New York, N.Y. 1929; d. New York, N.Y. 3 July 2000), was an architect, artist and educator who spent much of his life in New York City. Hejduk is noted for his use of attractive and often difficult-to-construct objects and shapes; also for a profound interest in the fundamental issues of shape, organization, representation, and reciprocity. Hejduk studied at the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture, the University of Cincinnati, … - Dennis Sharp
Dennis Sharp (1933-) is a British architect, professor, curator, historian, author and editor. - Paolo Portoghesi
Paolo Portoghesi (born 2 November 1931, Rome) is an Italian architect, theorist, historian and professor of architecture at the University La Sapienza in Rome. He is a former President of the architectural section of the Venice Biennale (1979-92), Editor-in-chief of the journal "Controspazio" (1969-83), and dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Milan (1968-78). - Banister Fletcher
Sir Banister Flight Fletcher (February 15, 1866, London-August 17, 1953, London) was an English architect and architectural historian, as was his father, also named Banister Fletcher. With his father, he co-authored the first edition of "A History of Architecture" [A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method. London: Athlone Press, University of London, 1896- [issued serially], first single-volume edition, … - Helmut Bakaitis
Helmut Bakaitis (born September 26, 1944 in Lauban, Silesia, Germany (now Luban, Poland)) is an actor and screenwriter. He was educated at Fort Street High School, Sydney, Australia. He is best known for his role in the "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions" as the character The Architect. Helmut currently holds the position of Head of Directing at Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) (2005). - Colin Rowe
Colin Rowe (born Yorkshire, England 1920 - died November 5, 1999, Arlington County, Virginia, USA) was a British-born architectural historian, critic, theoretician, and teacher. Between 1950 and his death he published a number of widely influential papers that influenced modern architecture by uncovering a conceptual relationship between modernity and tradition, specifically Classicism in all its manifestations, and Modern Movement "white architecture". - Francesco di Giorgio
Francesco di Giorgio Martini was an Italian painter of the Sienese School, a sculptor, an architect and theorist, and an engineer of almost seventy military fortifications for the Duke of Urbino. Born in Siena, as a painter he apprenticed with Vecchietta. In panels painted for "cassoni" he departed from the traditional representations of joyful processions in frieze-like formulas to express visions of ideal urban spaces in perspective.
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