Some interesting choices here, I’ve been to several of them. After seeing some of the images I think I’d like to visit a few more.
I would have picked the Stata Center for Massachusetts, another MIT building but IMO much funkier. The NH choice is dead on. The lighthouse for Maine is a great choice, but I might have chosen the West Quoddy Head Light.
How is your state represented?
I’m surprised the Old Faithful Inn wasn’t their pick for Wyoming. The Smith Mansion is pretty cool but you can’t get up close to it…I stayed at the Green Creek Inn which is right below it and the area is fenced off with no trespassing signs.
California has no shortage of cool buildings. Preston Castle is pretty high on the list for me.
For Ohio, the Terminal Tower is way cooler than some picnic basket.
Like the Sea Ranch Chapel:
Huh.. That’s a weird list of coolest buildings.
Kentucky’s is Churchill Downs, the horse racing place.
I’m underwhelmed but can’t think of a better option on short notice.
How about the Watts Towers
Agreed. Although I actually like the Computing and Data Sciences at BU quite a bit too:
Missouri’s entry is a parking garage in KC… wtf? I guess the Arch doesn’t count, but even the Old Courthouse in STL is cooler than a parking garage.
I always liked the State Capitol building in Helena, Montana.
I’m really not sure, but two candidates from my county.
Bell Works in Holmdel, the old Bell Labs building. Designed Eero Saarinen. Has the transistor water tower out in front.
Here is an interior view.
By the way, used in Severance.
My other candidate is the Twin Lights in the Atlantic Highlands.
An old lighthouse for NY Harbor and Sandy Hook Bay.
Also the site of Marconi’s tower for Transatlantic comms.
We also have the oldest still in Operation Lighthouse in America, the Sandy Hook Lighthouse, but that looks like almost every other lighthouse.
I’ve been to… more of those than i would have guessed. And i agree with some. Like, the Chrysler building rocks.
I would have picked the Jenga building over the Stata center, and the Stata center over Simmons Hall.
I might have picked the corn cob building over the Baha’i temple in Illinois. But I’m told it’s not very practical, and maybe that matters. (Although the i doubt the Colorado “Cliff Palace” or the picnic basket are super practical by today’s standards.)
For a lot of states, i don’t have a good sense of the competition. But that’s a fun list.
Oh, and I call foul on Nevada’s entry. A charcoal oven is not a “building”.
The refurbished Michigan Central Station in Detroit is the most cool building in town.
In California, two that come to my mind immediately are Geisel (nee Central) Library on the UC San Diego campus and Forestiere Underground Gardens. The latter is not really a building, but rather a dugout home in Fresno. I have no idea how many rooms, but they’re all underground to escape the unbearable valley heat. IMO, the Watts Towers aren’t buildings, because I think of a “building” as a structure you can occupy. The Watts Towers are art. Pretty damn cool art, but not buildings.
I wouldn’t say that “building” and “art” are mutually exclusive, but yeah, a building can be occupied. That’s also why I said that charcoal ovens should be excluded, and I would have raised the same objection to the Watts Towers, except that I wasn’t sure.
Well, do non-US states count? Because the coolest building in my state of North Rhine-Westphalia still is the Cologne Cathedral. I often was there and saw and studied the outside and the inside, and it’a monster of a building. Like a big ass mountain of hewn stone, smack dab in the middle of the city. Amazing.
I like the trick that Cobh, Ireland pulled: They put St. Colman’s Cathedral on the top of a cliff, so it towers over the whole town.
Nah, that’s cheating 
. Cologne is quite flat, and the Cathedral’s spires are the highest points in the city except for a broadcasting tower (which is quite ugly).
ETA: also, with all due respect, you could fit that puny church of Cobh into a side chapel of the Cologne Cathedral.
The Dom is possibly the most imposing and inspiring building I have ever visited. From a distance it reminded me of a sand castle…an enormous sand castle. And it only got better as I drew closer.
This is probably the coolest building near me 
In case you can’t read the sign
They got Nebraska right (that building is half a mile west of my house) and it is gorgeous back lit by the setting prairie sun.
They blew it in Iowa. Their Capitol is gorgeous, especially the domed interior.