As a designer, it helps to draw inspiration from other disciplines now and again.

The world of
modern and contemporary architecture, for example, has produced some truly jaw-dropping
monuments to human ingenuity and aesthetic sensibility that are certainly worth a good look.

We’ve rounded up a selection of some of the most famous architecture of the past 150 years
(with an emphasis on the contemporary) and organized them according to 10 design principles
they demonstrate, which carry over to virtually all creative work. Here they are:

1. Test technology
The invention of steel in the mid 19th century allowed architecture, which was previously based
in stone masonry, to soar to new heights. Sir Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace, constructed in 1854
entirely from steel and glass, triumphantly celebrated this new potential, and in 1889 the Eiffel
Tower harnessed it to become the tallest structure in the world, at 324 meters.

It has of course now been outdone, most recently by Adrian Smith’s Burj Khalifa in Dubai,
which rises a whopping 828 meters above the ground.

The Crystal Palace, London (Sir Joseph Paxton)

The Eiffel Tower, Paris (Gustave Eiffel)

Burj Khalifa, Dubai (Adrian Smith)

2. Bend the rules

Skyscrapers have traditionally been vertical — until architecture firm OMA, headed by Rem
Koolhaas, got to work on China Central Television’s HQ in Beijing. Their groundbreaking
structure is actually a loop consisting of 6 parts, 3 of which are horizontal. Why not?
 China Central Television Headquarters, Beijing (OMA)

3. Stick to your principles

Modernism is not known for producing the most cheerful of buildings, but rather ones of
intellectual integrity. The Bauhaus school, which operated between 1919 and 1933 in Germany,
espoused strict principles of minimalism and pure functionality, and its practitioners stuck to
these no matter how much resistance they encountered.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building in Manhattan, erected in 1958, is an exemplar of
the so-called International Style. Just 20 blocks uptown, Marcel Breuer’s brutalist cube for the
Whitney Museum of American Art has been proudly irritating its posh Madison Avenue
neighbors for almost 50 years (though the museum will enter a new home with far more
windows next year).

The Seagram Building, New York City (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe)

The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (Marcel

Breuer)

4. Sketch your concepts

There is a misconception that architecture is a purely rational art, based in math and engineering
with just the slightest margin left for aesthetics to enter the equation. While this may sometimes
be true, certain architects demonstrate otherwise, and the proof is in their sketch work.
Zaha Hadid, an Iraqi-British architect, puts special emphasis on form. Her buildings, like the
MAXXI Museum in Rome, often start as abstract sketches (top left corner of the image set
below) or even paintings (middle image in the set below).

Lebbeus Woods, meanwhile, was famous for constructing almost no buildings at all. A
“theoretical architect,” his work consists mostly of amazing drawings, some of which would
have been extremely impractical if not downright impossible to build in real life.

At the end of his career, however, he managed to bring one of his ideas into the physical world.
Called Light Pavilion, it is an “experimental space” that marvelously interrupts a Chengdu office

building. MAXXI Museum, Rome (Zaha Hadid)

Light Pavilion, Chengdu (Lebbeus Woods)

5. Solve problems
Great creatives often think of design in terms of problem solving. This is certainly true of the
innovative Dutch firm UNStudio. In their work for Brussels Airport, they were tasked with
creating a passageway that would a) seamlessly connect three disparate structures, b)
accommodate passenger flows, operational as well as security processes, c) create new room for
commercial spaces, and d) emblematize Brussels’ ambition to become a European transport hub.
Their breathtaking design does all this and more.
 Brussels Airport Connector, Brussels (UNStudio)

6. Get noticed
The word “iconic” gets bandied about a lot these days, but for many architectural achievements it
seems truly apt. Especially in recent years, distinctive-looking buildings have become a way to
identify an entire city or region.

The Sydney Opera House, for example, basically functions as the city’s de-facto logo. Jørn
Utzon, a relatively unknown Danish architect, beat out dozens of celebrity architecture firms
with his breezy design, which was submitted as part of an international competition.

Richard Rogers’ building for Lloyd’s of London, an insurance market founded in 1688, is one of
the most curiously futuristic buildings the firm has ever done — divisive, but certainly
memorable. Sydney Opera House, Sydney (Jørn Utzon)

Lloyd’s, London (Richard Rogers)

7. Switch gears
There’s no rule that says an artist must choose a style and stick with it. Some of the most
inspiring creative thinkers make abrupt shifts, and no one represents such a course better than
Frank Gehry.
While lately he has become known for flamboyant, almost painterly masterstrokes like the
Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, his earlier work was often quite different. Consider his
Danziger Studio: while beloved by fellow architects, it is hardly eye-catching.

Indeed, it was actually designed not to stand out but to blend in to its slightly tacky Los Angeles
neighborhood, and was purposely painted a drab grey with the expectation that L.A.’s smog
would color it that way anyhow.

Danziger Studio, Los Angeles (Frank Gehry)

Guggenheim, Bilbao (Frank Gehry)

8. Mind your environment

This principle is pretty straightforward. Architecture always enters a preexisting environment,
and in turn affects its environment through energy consumption, among other things. Some of
the best architects of the past century have put these concerns in the foreground.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1935 masterpiece, Falling Water, is a rural home built into a hillside
without disturbing its surroundings — including a waterfall that runs under it. Renzo Piano’s
California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, meanwhile, is famed for
its “living roof” — an actual garden that helps to reduce the building’s carbon footprint.
 Falling Water, Pennsylvania (Frank Lloyd Wright)

California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco (Renzo Piano)

9. Repurpose
The last two sections of this blog post likewise have to do with transforming a context you have
inherited or otherwise been given, rather than simply tearing down and starting fresh. New York
City’s Highline park is an inspiring example of repurposing an existing structure.

As of just a few years ago, it was an abandoned rail line overgrown with weeds and shrubbery,
slated for demolition (top image in the set below). But with the help of an architecture firm and a
landscape architecture firm, it has been made over into an immensely popular above-ground park
(bottom image in the set below).

An analogously awesome phenomenon is the re-purposing of industrial shipping containers into

architectural units for homes or apartment buildings.
 The Highline, New York City (Diller Scofidio + Renfro)

Shipping container home, Chile (Sebastián Irarrázaval)

10. Combine new and old

Anyone who has done branding work is probably familiar with the task of creating something
fresh that will still have continuity with, or may even need to coexist with, the system that came
before. In architecture, this challenge can take on quite a literal dimension.

Hearst corporation wanted to build a skyscraper at its midtown Manhattan site, but did not want
to lose the beautiful, historic façade of its former building. Architecture firm Foster + Partners
promised to let them have it both ways: they gutted the old building while preserving the façade,
and essentially just plopped a shiny new tower right into the middle of it.

The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam faced a similar challenge. It wanted to expand its
contemporary collection into a new wing that would look sleek and modern, while still
integrating with the existing building, which was created in the 19th century in an ornate 16th
century style. The architecture firm’s solution has gotten mixed reactions, but one thing is sure: it
was a bold move.
Hearst Tower, New York City (Foster + Partners)

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Benthem Crouwel)