And I’m Shirley Griffith with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we tell about six building designers widely considered some of the top architects at work today. They are Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster and Eduardo Souta de Moura. They have all created important examples of modern architecture. You can see their energizing and imaginative contributions to modern design in buildings around the world.
(MUSIC): STEVE EMBER: We start with a designer who just won a top building design honor. Eduardo Souta de Moura of Portugal was named the winner of the two thousand eleven Pritzker Architecture Prize. The jury praised him for creating works that are of our time, but also respectful of architectural traditions. His projects include single family homes, hotels, museums, schools and sports centers.
One example is the Burgo Tower in Porto, Portugal. It is made up of two buildings side by side. One building is horizontal, stretching from left to right. The other is vertical, rising up to the sky. The buildings’ many windows create a striking surface. Pritzker jurists said Eduardo Souta de Moura’s work is filled with intelligence and seriousness. They said it requires intense study, not a quick look.
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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Frank Gehry grew up in Canada. In his free time as a child, he would make small versions of buildings out of pieces of wood. In nineteen forty-seven, his family moved to the United States. That is where Frank Gehry began his university studies in architecture.
He believes that architecture is art. He has said that, in some ways, he has been more influenced by artists and sculptors than by architects. This may be why his buildings often look like energetic sculptures made from bold geometric forms.
STEVE EMBER: Famous examples of Frank Gehry’s work include the “Dancing House” in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. This playful building, finished in nineteen ninety-six, looks like two dancers.
His most famous building is the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. It was completed in nineteen ninety-seven. Most of the curving building is covered in titanium. It looks like a dancing metal wave sitting on the edge of a river. The curved surfaces of this building and others by Frank Gehry are so complex to build that they require computer programs.
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: More recently, he designed the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is a wavy metallic building with nearly two hundred windows that sit at unexpected angles.