Just this very evening I was at a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper. Our youth group is raising money to make a pilgrimage to the National Catheral, and a slide show was set up showing different pictures of the building. I loved one of the gargoyles, it was a Darth Vader head!
I’d also love to see that, with the glorious dome. I’m one of the few people though that think the silhouette of the building was improved after it became a mosque. Those minarets lift it up. Without them the outline of the building is rather humped and hulking.
I also love my own church, Grace Cathedral. http://www.gracecathedraltopeka.org/ Not huge, but lovely, and the windows are glorious. Yes I know it doesn’t take a pretty building to make a good church, but you just gotta love a window of Adam naming the animals and scratching his head over what to call the anteater. Or the St. Nicholas door window, with a teeny little Santa Claus in one corner. Or the Resurrection window, that has several figures people who lived before Christ, and includes a caveman munching on a bone.
But my favorite building is a small house here in town that was home to my grandmother for nearly sixty years. The best memories of my life are wrapped up in that house. Playing in the basement with my cousins. Watching Dr. Who with Grandma. Seeing Grandpa give one of my cousins the belt. The garden in the back yard. The plants. Burying family pets next to the fenceline. Grandpa showing me how to make a snapdragon snap. Excuse me, I have something in my eye.
Probably my favorite building in my favorite city is Kyoto Station, the main transportation hub in Kyoto, Japan. It’s a super-modern building in the middle of a 1200-year-old city-- and it works. One of our tour guides said that it’s become one of the three “wow” sights in Kyoto, along with Kinkakuji (the Golden Pavilion) and Sanjusangendo (a temple from the 1200’s containing 1,001 gilded statues of the Boddhisattva Kannon).
It’s hard to explain, but even though the building is freaking enormous and super-contemporary, it feels welcoming-- it leaves no doubt that it was designed for people to use (for transit, but also work and play) and it invites you to explore all the things that are tucked away within it.
A close second: the cathedral (duomo) of Florence. Can’t give it first place because it’s not nearly as beautiful on the interior as it is on the exterior (whereas the Pantheon is equally attractive inside and out).
Two smaller buildings I really like are the McKinsey & Company building on Charles Street in Toronto, and the Isabel Bader Theatre across the street. Both are Modern in style, but are implemented with rough natural textures and materials–limestone, wood–that make them very appealing.
I suppose it’s not a surprise that I like Fallingwater. More FLW, please. I loved the Marin Civic Center when I was there. I also like the (Arts and Crafts) Gamble House in Pasadena.
How old is that? I’m pretty sure that’s not the Kyoto terminal I used, but it’s been at least 12 years since I was there. I had to make do with a dumpy old terminal.
Another favorite: the law library at the University of Michigan. A stolid old building with a surprisingly light, airy underground modern extension lit by natural light all the way down due to a paved trench around it.
Without hesitation the Palace of Westminster, aka the British Houses of Parliament. I walk past it nearly every day and it still makes me feel in awe (even though I know it’s full of baboons flinging shit at each other…).
The current building opened in 1997, so yeah, you probably saw the old building (from the 1950’s).
In the big panorama I linked to above, you can see a cafe on the first level up, under the big floating flat-topped blobby things. It’s a Cafe du Monde-- yes, the same chain famous in New Orleans. It’s a great place to sit and have beignets and cafe au lait while people-watching!
One of my favourite buildings was a fairly old-looking skyscraper in Chicago which appeared to be clad in a black-marble-effect material, with gold trimmings. Any ideas which one I mean?
Otherwise, St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican is extraordinarily impressive.
It’s just awesome to look at in person. Google maps street views around give a good idea of what it’s like to be there.
The story of how they built it is even more interesting.
I love cool and strange architecture so it’s hard to pick just one! But for personal relevance I’d have to pick the Native American Center For The Living Arts
in Niagara Falls - an art museum for which the entire 80,000 square foot building is shaped like a turtle!
I loved the Marin Civic Center when I was there. I also like the (Arts and Crafts) 
