Famous architects: from Brunelleschi to Zaha Hadid

Studying famous architects serves one precise purpose: understanding that every building is a person's answer to a concrete problem, not an object fallen from the sky. Here you will find the key figures in the history of architecture covered by the magazine, in chronological order — from Renaissance architects to the masters of the Modern Movement, all the way to today's Pritzker winners. Each entry links to its dedicated article.

If you would rather start from languages than from people, the architectural styles page tells the same story by movement; the History of architecture section organises it by period.

1st c. BC – 15th c.

Antiquity and the Middle Ages

We know few names of ancient architects, and almost always through writers. One of them, however, left us a book: Vitruvius. In the Middle Ages builders are often anonymous — for the Gothic cathedrals, Chartres first among them, we do not know who signed the design.

Vitruvius 1st c. BC Firmitas, utilitas, venustas

15th – 16th c.

Renaissance architects

The Renaissance is when the architect becomes a recognised intellectual, author of treatises and signed designs. Almost all the protagonists are Italian, working between Florence, Rome, Venice and the Veneto.

Filippo Brunelleschi 1377–1446 Brunelleschi was not a genius. He was something worse. Leon Battista Alberti 1404–1472 The architect who never held a hammer Donato Bramante 1444–1514 The impossible project Michelangelo Buonarroti 1475–1564 When sculpture builds Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio) 1483–1520 The third genius of St. Peter's Jacopo Sansovino 1486–1570 The square as architecture Andrea Palladio 1508–1580 The most copied, the least read Giorgio Vasari 1511–1574 A corridor in five months, and the history of art

17th – 18th c.

Baroque architects

Rome is the centre, Bernini and Borromini the two opposite poles; from there the Baroque spreads to Turin, Venice, Vienna, London and the France of Louis XIV.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini 1598–1680 Same Rome, two universes Francesco Borromini 1599–1667 Borromini and the impossible space Baldassarre Longhena 1598–1682 A church as a votive offering Guarino Guarini 1624–1683 The mathematician who built vertigo Christopher Wren 1632–1723 An astronomer rebuilds London Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach 1656–1723 Viennese Imperial Baroque Filippo Juvarra 1678–1736 Juvarra and Turin Baroque

mid-18th – 19th c.

Neoclassicism and the 19th century

From Boullée and Ledoux's utopias to the Eiffel Tower: the century of stylistic revivals is also the century of iron, the World's Fairs and great urban plans.

Étienne-Louis Boullée and Claude-Nicolas Ledoux 1728–1799 · 1736–1806 Architecture as an idea John Nash 1752–1835 London in stucco and an Oriental Brighton Karl Friedrich Schinkel 1781–1841 Classicism as a building system Henri Labrouste 1801–1875 The iron library Gottfried Semper 1803–1879 The theatre that burned twice Georges-Eugène Haussmann 1809–1891 · prefect and urban planner The Man Who Demolished 60% of Paris to Rebuild It Eugène Viollet-le-Duc 1814–1879 Restoring a building as it never was Gustave Eiffel 1832–1923 · engineer The engineer who built a symbol

1880 – 1930

Between the 19th and 20th centuries

The generation that closes the book on historical styles: the Chicago skyscraper, the Vienna Secession, Catalan Modernisme, the polemic against ornament, the first organic architecture.

Otto Wagner 1841–1918 The bolt as ornament Antoni Gaudí 1852–1926 Nature as architecture Louis Sullivan 1856–1924 Form follows function Frank Lloyd Wright 1867–1959 The house as landscape Adolf Loos 1870–1933 Ornament and crime Jože Plečnik 1872–1957 The architect of the city

1919 – 1970

Masters of the Modern Movement

The names studied in every course on modern architecture: the founders of Modernism, Italian Rationalism and the post-war protagonists, from Europe to Brazil and Japan.

Walter Gropius 1883–1969 The school that invented modern design Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 1886–1969 "less is more" isn't just a phrase Le Corbusier 1887–1965 The five rules that changed everything Pier Luigi Nervi 1891–1979 Structure is form Gio Ponti 1891–1979 Light architecture Giovanni Michelucci 1891–1990 The church on the motorway Hans Scharoun 1893–1972 The Berlin Philharmonic Richard Buckminster Fuller 1895–1983 The geodesic dome and the planet Alvar Aalto 1898–1976 Modernism that breathes Louis Kahn 1901–1974 Light as material Giuseppe Terragni 1904–1943 Italian Rationalism Oscar Niemeyer 1907–2012 The curve and concrete Charles and Ray Eames 1907–1978 · 1912–1988 Design as research Eero Saarinen 1910–1961 The architect who had no style Kenzo Tange 1913–2005 Japanese Modernism Lina Bo Bardi 1914–1992 Architecture as a popular celebration Jørn Utzon 1918–2008 The Sydney shells Paul Rudolph 1918–1997 The corduroy concrete BBPR Milanese practice, founded 1932 Milan and post-Rationalism

1950 – 2000

Late 20th century

Brutalism, the Tendenza, Postmodernism, Deconstructivism: the generation that questioned Modernism, often starting from history and the city.

Carlo Scarpa 1906–1978 Detail as design Denys Lasdun 1914–2001 The concrete cliff on the Thames Sverre Fehn 1924–2009 The Nordic landscape as architecture Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown 1925–2018 · b. 1931 Less is a bore Charles Moore 1925–1993 An Italian-style piazza, fake on purpose Paulo Mendes da Rocha 1928–2021 Humane Brutalism Frank Gehry b. 1929 Titanium that dances Aldo Rossi 1931–1997 The analogous city Peter Eisenman b. 1932 2,711 blocks without meaning Álvaro Siza b. 1933 White as a method Michael Graves 1934–2015 A city hall painted peach Rafael Moneo b. 1937 Memory as material

1970 – today

Contemporary architects

Most of them have received the Pritzker Prize. They designed the buildings that people visit, publish and study in design studios today.

Norman Foster b. 1935 Transparent steel Renzo Piano b. 1937 Lightness as a program Toyo Ito b. 1941 Lightness as a program Tadao Ando b. 1941 Concrete as meditation Peter Zumthor b. 1943 Atmosphere as design Rem Koolhaas b. 1944 The great empty space Bernard Tschumi b. 1944 The park without nature Jean Nouvel b. 1945 Light as material Daniel Libeskind b. 1946 Building the void Steven Holl b. 1947 The phenomenology of space Zaha Hadid 1950–2016 Form as movement Herzog & de Meuron Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, b. 1950 Material as message Eduardo Souto de Moura b. 1952 Stone and landscape David Chipperfield b. 1953 Respect for history Kengo Kuma b. 1954 Disappearing into the environment SANAA Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa The architecture that steps out of the way Shigeru Ban b. 1957 Paper as structure Mario Cucinella b. 1960 A house printed from the earth it stands on Wang Shu b. 1963 The bricks of demolition Bjarke Ingels b. 1974 Practical utopia Snøhetta Norwegian practice, founded 1989 The opera you climb

Frequently asked questions

Who are the most famous architects in history?

Names that appear in every textbook include Vitruvius for Antiquity; Brunelleschi, Alberti, Bramante, Michelangelo and Palladio for the Renaissance; Bernini and Borromini for the Baroque; Gaudí, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Gropius and Alvar Aalto for the 20th century; Renzo Piano, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando and Peter Zumthor among contemporaries.

Who are the main Renaissance architects?

Filippo Brunelleschi, who opened the period in Florence with the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore; Leon Battista Alberti, who wrote its theory; Donato Bramante, who brought it to Rome; Michelangelo, Raphael and Vasari in the 16th century; Andrea Palladio and Jacopo Sansovino in the Veneto.

Which contemporary Italian architects should you know?

Renzo Piano, Pritzker Prize 1998, is the best known worldwide. Aldo Rossi, Pritzker 1990, shaped late 20th-century theory; Carlo Scarpa remains a reference for detail and restoration; among younger generations Mario Cucinella works on sustainability and 3D printing in raw earth.

Why is Le Corbusier so important?

Because he gave the Modern Movement a clear programme — the five points of a new architecture: pilotis, roof garden, free plan, ribbon window, free façade — put it into practice in buildings such as the Villa Savoye and the Unité d'Habitation, and then questioned it himself with the chapel at Ronchamp.