A sampling of contemporary architectural gems from around the world.

Great buildings have the power to break convention, defy logic, and inspire visions of the future. Here, we celebrate thirty marvels of modern architecture, from the classic Le Corbusier (Frank Lloyd Wright) to mind-boggling inflated plastic biomes. These gems encompass a wide range of structures, from individual homes, to art museums, to skyscrapers that extend high into the sky. One can only wonder what will result from a greater focus on green building practices in the future.

(above) Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles

Stone Container Building and Cloud Gate, Chicago

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain

Gare do Oriente, Lisbon, Portugal

CCTV Headquarters, Beijing, China

Space Needle, Seattle, Washington

Casa Mila, Barcelona, Spain

Fallingwater House, Mill Run, Pennsylvania

Burj Khalifa, Dubai, UAE

Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar

Reichstag, Berlin, Germany

Esplanade, Singapore

Turning Torso, Malmo, Sweden

Empire State Building, New York, USA

Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia

Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, France

Jewish Museum, Berlin, Germany

Auditorio Ibirapuera, Sao Paolo, Brazil

Eden Project, Cornwall, England

Bruder Klaus Kapelle, Wachendorf, Germany

Yokohama International Port Terminal, Yokohama, Japan

Villa Savoye, Poissy, France

Tancici Dum, Prague, Czech Republic

Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Library of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt

Burj Al Arab, Dubai, UAE

Phaeno Science Center, Wolfsburg, Germany

30 St. Mary Axe, London, England

Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

SEE ALSO:

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40 Gorgeous Photos of Latin America

40 Gorgeous Photos of Asia

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30 Gorgeous Photos of Farming and Agriculture

15 Hilarious Photos of Interspecies Mingling

The post 30 Photos of the World’s Most Uniquely Designed Buildings appeared first on EcoSalon.

Architects have clients and clients set the creative parameters for a project. But when an architect is his own client, all rules and artistic limitations disappear and the result is the ultimate self portrait.

Home is where the heart of an architect can fully and completely be expressed. We take a look into the hearts of six of the most renowned modern architects of our time – the homes built and inhabited by Aalto, Eames, Gehry, Neutra, Niemeyer and Lloyd Wright.

Alvar Aalto – The Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto built his home (above and below) in Helsinki in 1936. It is now a museum and open to the public. If you don’t recognize Aalto by his name or his buildings, you might know his furniture or glassware designs.

Charles and Ray Eames – Case Study #8 (above and below) was built in 1949 and is located in Pacific Palisades, California. In 1948, the Eames’ were commissioned to design and build an inexpensive and efficient home as part of the Case Study Housing program. Case Study #8 is considered one of the first “pre-fab” buildings and is open to public tours through the Eames Foundation.

Frank O. Gehry – Do you know the Guggenheim in Bilbao or the Disney Music Hall in Los Angeles? Yes, Gehry is that guy. In 1978, he built his Santa Monica, California home (above and below) in all its barbed wire, corrugated steel and asymmetrical glory. It caused quite a stir with the neighbors who were not accustomed to Gehry’s avant-garde sensibility.

Richard Neutra – In 1963 a fire destroyed Richard Neutra’s Silverlake, California home (image above) that he designed and built in 1932. The Austrian-born architect’s redesign, the VDL Research House II (image below), is a close interpretation of the first, with its bands of vertical glass windows and alternating horizontal planes of steel and white stucco.

Oscar Niemeyer – The Brazilian architect built his Casa Das Canoas (image above and below) in 1953 in Rio de Janeiro. Niemeyer is known for his revolutionary use of reinforced concrete and the curvaceous, sculptural quality of his buildings. His own home is no exception.

Frank Lloyd Wright – The American architect built his first home in Oak Park, Illinois (image above) in 1889, where he and his family lived while he developed his practice and the “Prairie Style” of architecture. But Lloyd Wright’s favorite residence was his masterpiece, Taliesin West (top image and image below), built in 1937 in Scottsdale, Arizona. It seems to sprout from the desert and is typical of the organic style architecture that the architect promoted in his later years.

Images: Alvar Aalto Foundation, DesignCrave, ArchDaily, Archined, Design You Trust, TheCoolist, Reference Library, Wikipedia, Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

The post 6 Famous Architects and the Homes They Lived In appeared first on EcoSalon.

Need to test drive a prefab unit before trading in your energy hogging habitat for life in the green lane? Now is your chance. Rent a little cutie this summer and see how it goes. Here are a few goodies on the vacay market:

12 Container Houses:

June through August, the highly touted shipping material miracle in Maine is hipper than hip with undisturbed nature views, for $6,000-$10,000 per week. Yes, you too can experience the pure eco joy forged by architect Adam Kalkin of the prefab-forward firm, Architecture and Hygiene. Of course, it demands the kind of disposable cash scored in exploitative industries like banking, insurance, corporate public relations, war making and profiting. Not really the prefab message, but oh well. Nice digs if you can afford them. And you can get them, if you try.

Onward to good deals  for recession victims on uncomfortably tight budgets (i.e. cook your own meals on all trips, cart your own vat of discount vodka and olives, steal extra toilet paper rolls when you check out). Here is a sampling of some of the most fab prefabs you can rent at a variety of rates.

Roll out the green carpet and feast your eyes on a great find:

Rolling Hut Prefab Vacation Cabins can be rented for a painless $100 per night. At a former RV camp in Mozana, Washington, the low rollers offer a provocative perch for taking in the surrounding mountains – a low impact approach to “civilized camping” by Olson Sunberg Kundig Allen Architects. Sign me up after that June Bat Mitzvah in Seattle!

This is my kind of camping:

The upscale cabin experience in the Cascade mountains of Washington can be had in this Mount Baker eco “Method Cabin” and is available for $250 a night or $1500 a week.

Ooh, la lot!

Check out the sweet surroundings visible through that cute port hole. Cube-shaped teeny vacation rentals by Carre d’etoiles can be rented in France and eventually other European destinations, providing the opportunity for hotel operators to grow their operations affordable by branching out into prefab, allowing guests a unique, eco accommodation for 90 euros a night. Great stargazing provides the ecotainment at night.

All the Wright Stuff:

Experience a Frank vision of stylish function for an overnight or two. The Duncan House in Acme, Pa., was designed by frank Lloyd Wright and opened for rental last summer after being relocated to its new digs 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh from Illinois. Prefabricated by Marshall Erdman, a Wisconsin builder, it was bought by an electrical engineer named David Duncan after reading about the project in the mid-fifties.  According to the New York Times, the reassembly required putting back together thousands of parts. Today it sits on a 125-acre tract of woodland owned by young builder, Tom Papinchak and goes for $385 a night with a two night minimum. Make reservations and find seasonal specials here.

Blast from the past

Rent a vintage Airstream at a campground like the Camp Lotus resort in Coloma, California. It’s the real deal, the precursor to the prefab and some of the Silver Trailers can be set up for you, from $175 to $250 a night.

Images: brewbooks, Vrbo, Alternative Consumer, Prefab, New York Times, Silvertrailers

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