We continue our search for the world’s most amazing buildings in part two of our blog. Part one highlighted both modern and ancient masterpieces from Beijing to Prague, and in this blog we look at modern architecture in New Delhi and more classical in the city of Cologne.
The Lotus Temple – New Delhi
A modern building that was erected in 1986, consisting of twenty-seven different structures that are designed to replicate the petals of a lotus flower. This modern day Bahai House of Worship is simply stunning from an artistic point of view.
The central hall is an amazing forty-foot-high with nine entrance doors and nine sides, the space can accommodate over two and a half thousand people. Incredibly the whole surface is made from the same marble that was used to build the Parthenon, and comes from Mount Pentelicus in Greece.
Cologne Cathedral – Cologne
This building is so far apart from our last masterpiece that it is hard to believe that the same ideas and concepts designed and constructed both of them. Cologne Cathedral is classic Gothic and everything that the period stood for.
Work started on this five-aisled basilica in 1248 and did not finish till over two hundred years later in 1473. Although there have been more recent additions, the work has followed the original medieval plan with great diligence.
The cathedral is known as one of the greatest Gothic masterpieces in the world and is not just a place for religious worship as it houses many works of art which include the Shrine of the Three Kings, which is fabled for containing the remains of the Three Kings.
La Pedrera – Barcelona
Barcelona is a city that is a living art gallery, some of the greatest modern artists of their day including Gaudi, have designed buildings in this great Spanish city. Just walking around the streets of Barcelona is like one big open gallery with beautiful and unusual buildings adorning plazas and side streets.
Antoni Gaudi was a brilliant artist and a highly creative architect, especially in the forms of Art Nouveau and is responsible for designing some of the most beautiful buildings in the world. La Pedrera is one of his very best. Looking at the structure it resembles sculpture more than an actual building. The outside is a mass of stone that undulates and is almost cave-like in its form. The facade is also decorated with iron balconies that are forged into incredible shapes that are supposed to resemble the irregularity of the natural world.
One World Trade Center – New York
The One World Trade Center has been built so that it stands as a monument for reflection on those horrific events on 9/11. Construction started in 2006 and it is now the 4th tallest skyscraper in the world, and perhaps it would have been a fitting gesture if no other building was allowed to build that was taller.
Its height of one thousand, seven hundred and seventy-six feet is not random, 1776 was the actual date of the US Declaration of Independence. Designed by David Childs, the 104-story tower emerges from a cube to form eight sleek triangles, and the building now stands proud as a shining beacon of hope for New York.
