Architecture for the 21st Century - a photo display

The library pays tribute this month to architecture and to the men and women whose creativity shapes our cities and our environment.

Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain (photographed by Peter Knaup)

The San Francisco Public Library with the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco Chapter will present a series of documentary films on each Wednesday in September at 6:00 PM in the Koret Auditorium as part of the sixth annual Architecture and the City Festival.

Architecture for the 21st Century, a photo display at the Art, Music and Recreation Center, cracks open a window on the kind of buildings we may see in the future. It showcases the “most important structures built since 1980” and “the most significant building in the 21st century constructed by 2005” as selected by a panel of 52 of the world’s most distinguished architects, academic, and critics. The results of this survey were published in "Architecture's Modern Marvels" from the September 2010 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. (All images in this entry are from this article).

Rem Koolhaas, The Seattle Central Library (photographed by Robert Polidori)

Advances in construction technology, in digital representation, in the use of new materials have broken down the traditional limits of architecture. Geometric forms can now be joined into startling new configurations, organic shapes can be combined to give a building the illusion of movement. In overcoming the physical restraints of the past, the 21st century seems to usher in new stage in the history of architecture.

Daniel Libeskind, Jewish Museum, Berlin (photographed by Jens Ziehe /© Jüdisches Museum Berlin)