Top 10 Iconic Buildings Around The World
10. Sydney Opera House
Opera House is one of the most famous buildings the world. Standing tall at 185 meters with a width of 120 meters, the building was designed by a Danish Architect Jorn Utzon. Among 232 other entries in an international design competition, his design was selected as the winning design, 1957 awarding him a prize money of g 5000 pounds. Work on it started two years after his win with 10,000 working builders.
The building includes multiple performance venues, which together host well over 1,500 performances annually with more than 1.2 million people attending. Numerous performing artists offer performances, including three resident firms: Opera Australia, Sydney Theatre Company and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. As one of Australia’s most popular tourist attractions, the site is visited annually by more than eight million people, and each year about 350,000 tourists take a guided tour of the house.
9. Eiffel Tower
Designed as the entrance to the 1889 World Fair from 1887 to 1889, it was initially criticized for its architecture by some of France’s leading artists and intellectuals, but it has become France’s global cultural symbol and one of the world’s most recognizable structures. The Eiffel Tower is the world’s most-visited paying monument; in 2015, it was climbed by 6.91 million people.
The tower is 324 meters (1.063 ft) high, around the same height as an 81-story building, and Paris’s highest structure. Its base is square, each side measuring 125 metres. The Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument during its construction to become the world’s tallest man-made structure, a position it retained for 41 years until the New York City Chrysler Building was completed in 1930.
8. Empire State Building
It was conceived by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and designed between 1930 and 1931. The name derives from “Empire State,” the New York state’s nickname. The building has a roof height of 1,250 feet (380 m), with a total height of 1,454 feet (443.2 m), including antenna. The Empire State Building stood as the tallest building in the world until the World Trade Center was completed in 1970.
Architecture, height, and observation decks from the Art Deco building have made it a popular attraction. The 86th and 102nd floor observatories of the building are visited annually by about 4 million visitors from around the world; an additional indoor observatory on the 80th floor opened in 2019. The Empire State Building is an American cultural icon: it has been used in more than 250 TV shows and films since the 1933 release of the film King Kong. A landmark of New York City, the tower has been named by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.
7. Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris translates as “our Parisian lady” This is a Catholic cathedral that happens to be the Archbishop of Paris’s official seat. The magnificent monument is 130 m long, 48 m wide, and 35 m high. Notre Dame’s construction began in 1163 post which it sustained in many periods of destruction and subsequent restoration. It took on its final form, as we see in 1345 today.
It is one of Paris’ most iconic structures, and arguably one of the world’s most iconic buildings. It is also known for one of the largest organs in the world and its enormous and magnificent church bells.
6. Casa Mila
The architect Antoni Gaudí designed Casa Mila, popularly known as La Pedrera, for a wealthy couple Roser Segimon and Pere Milà in Barcelona, Spain. Construction of the building took six years from 1906 until 1912. The building occupies an area of 1,323 square meters per floor. The building was criticized at the time of its construction for its radical and modernist architecture. The building is home to many structural advancements including self-supporting stone front and columns, and load-free wall and underground garage floors.
5. Cathedral of Brasilia
Brasília Cathedral is the Roman Catholic Cathedral that serves Brasília, Brazil, and serves as the seat of the Brasília Archdiocese. It was designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and designed by Brazilian structural engineer Joaquim Cardozo on May 31, 1970.
This is a Roman Catholic cathedral that is the seat of the Archdiocese of Brasília. Oscar Niemeyer designed this. Building began on September 15, 1958 and completion of the building was on April 21, 1960. After some hiccups and delays, Cardinal D. Eugenio Salles officially opened the Cathedral on 31 May 1970. On 15 July 1990, it was declared a national historical and artistic monument.
4. The Shard
The Shard, also known as the Shard of Glass, Shard London Bridge and formerly London Bridge Tower, is a 95-story supertall skyscraper designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano in Southwark, London, which is part of the development of the Shard Area. Standing 309.6 meters (1.016 ft) high, the Shard is the UK’s tallest building, and Europe’s sixth-highest. It is also the second-highest freestanding building in the UK, after the Emley Moor transmitting station’s concrete tower.
On 1 February 2013 the tower’s private observation deck, The View from The Shard, was opened to the public. The glass-clad pyramidal tower has 72 habitable floors at a height of 244 meters (801 ft), with a viewing platform and open-air observation deck on the 72nd floor.
3. Burj Khalifa
This 829.8 m Dubai skyscraper is the world’s tallest structure and one of the world’s most iconic buildings. Adrian Smith designed the building, and construction began in 2004 and completed in 2009. The tower’s architecture is influenced by the shape of the flower Hymenocallis. In 2010 the building was officially opened as part of the Dubai Downtown initiative. The building’s 163 floors contain hotels, apartments and analytical laboratories.
2. Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal is an ivory-white marble mausoleum in the Indian city of Agra, on the south bank of the Yamuna River. The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (reigned from 1628 to 1658) commissioned it in 1632 to house his favorite wife’s tomb, Mumtaz Mahal; it also houses Shah Jahan’s tomb itself. The tomb is the centerpiece of a 17-hectare (42-acre) complex that comprises a mosque and a guest house, and is set in formal gardens surrounded by a crenelated wall on three sides.
In 1983, the Taj Mahal was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it was “the gem of Muslim art in India and one of the world’s most widely admired masterpieces” Many find it the best example of Mughal architecture, and a representation of the rich past of India. The Taj Mahal draws 7–8 million tourists a year, and in 2007, the New7Wonders of the World initiative (2000–2007) was declared a winner.
1. The Kaaba
One of Islam’s Five Pillars demands that any Muslim who can do so perform the Hajj at least once in his or her lifetime. Different sections of the hajj allow pilgrims to make Tawaf around the Kaaba seven times counter-clockwise, the first three times fast, at the edge of the courtyard, and the last four times slowly, closer to the Kaaba. Tawaf is also done during the Umrah by pilgrims. The most significant time, however, is during the hajj, when millions of pilgrims gather in a 5-day cycle to circle the city.
