Architectural hotspots
Top 10 Architectural hotspots:
Bilbao, Spain
Cloaked in titanium scales and with a tumbling organic form, Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao houses a library, shop, restaurant and 19 galleries. At its heart is a huge atrium, illuminated by a skylight shaped like a metal flower.
A trip to Bilbao can be combined with a jaunt across to Barcelona, on the east coast, to admire the fantastical buildings of Antoni Gaudi.
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Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Dubai is a city of architectural contrasts, of traditional Arabian architecture mixed with ultra-modern skyscrapers. Traditional building materials include red clay, coral and limestone, with the courtyard regarded as the heart of the house and wind towers built to suck cool air down into the living quarters.
Domed mosques dominate the old skyline with their minarets, the towers used for the Moslem call to prayer.
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Prague, Czechoslovakia
Travel to Prague and revel in its superb collection of various architectural styles including Gothic, Baroque, Renaissance and Medieval.
Two of its most famous examples of Gothic architecture include the Charles Bridge and St Vitus Cathedral, which took nearly six centuries to complete and contains the tombs of many Czechoslovakian kings. For one of the earliest examples of Europe's Renaissane period, make a trip to the Summer Palace at the Prague Castle.
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New York, United States
For Beaux Arts spend an afternoon at the New York Public Library with its original Tiffany lamps, or admire Stanford White's masterpieces, such as the Washington Square Arch and the Brooklyn Museum.
For Art Deco, take in William Van Allen's Chrysler Building, erected in 1930, tops them all. Brooklyn Bridge, when opened in 1883, had the world's longest suspension span at 1,596 feet. It's recently been cleaned up and looks wonderful.
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Paris, France
Paris has never been scared to experiment with its architecture, as the construction of the Eiffel Tower shows. The nation's leaders have long been keen to leave their mark on Paris in the form of innovative public buildings - the pipes of the Pompidou Centre, monolithic towers of La Defense and glass pyramid at the Louvre are all thanks to recent presidential "grands projets".
The latest public work of art is the Gare Magenta metro stop, known locally as the Underground Cathedral.
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Barcelona, Spain
Picasso, Gaudi and the Gothic Quarter have all left a big architectural impression on this popular Spanish city.
From the narrow medieval streets east of the rambla where a Gothic cathedral dates from 1298 to the more recent Gaudi designed buildings including La Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell, Barcelona radiates different eras through its architecture.
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Alexandria, Egypt
The recently completed Bibliotheca Alexandrina, built by the Egyptian government and Unesco, is one of the largest libraries in the world. Designed by Norwegian architects Snohetta, it rivals its classical predecessors in terms of architectural grandeur.
The outer wall is thick granite etched with glyphs and the roof is a giant tilted disc of glass, rising from the ground and reflecting the Mediterranean sea.
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Rotterdam, Netherlands
Rotterdam's city centre was almost totally destroyed during WWII so it's a modern city in every sense. One of its architectural highlights are Piet Blom's Cubic Houses built in 1984. The houses, each of which are three storeys high, hang like suspended yellow dice, works of art which miraculously double up as city dwellings. You can have a look at the interior at Show-Cube at Overblaak 70 .
Such innovative architecture extends across the waterfront with the fantastical Erasmus Bridge, which straddles the Maas River and is called the Swan by locals because of its graceful posture.
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Rome, Italy
Early Roman architecture was a blend of Etruscan and Greek - incorporating the arch and the three-dimensional dome. It was influenced by historical happenings - for example the invention of concrete in the first century BC.
As for architectural highlights - it's hard to know where to start. The Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Capitoline Hill, the Forum, the Circus Maximus, the beauty and elegance of the Vatican City, the Museo Nazionale Romano and even the 'wedding cake' the Victor Emmanuel II monument are all must-sees.
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Mexico
Influenced by the Mayan and Teotihuacan civilisations, Mexican architecture is wonderfully diverse. Visit Mexico City for its glass and steel structures. Torre Altus (Altus Tower), completed in 1999, houses apartments, while the Torre Arcus is built in the shape of a huge arch.
Architect Louis Barragan fused the hacienda with contemporary style and landscape gardening.
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