THE COOLEST BUILDINGS—MY FAVS PART 1

IN THIS HOTTEST of Northern Hemisphere summers, by “coolest” I mean intellectually satisfying in the sense of “hep.” Three websites provided tidbit gleaning, shared here in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow. These sources are TARADIGM‘s “10 Cool Buildings from Around the World;” The Discoverer Blog’s “The 15 Coolest Buildings from Around the World;” and the latter blog’s “The Coolest Building in Every State.”

My own favs were influenced by edifices I’ve seen, one way or the other. Perhaps you have favorites, whether listed here or otherwise. You’re encouraged to add them here.

Ad Deir, Petra, Jordan.  TARADIGM describes, “The Ad Deir, also commonly spelled ad-Dayr or el-Deir, is an ancient monument carved into a rock formation in modern day Jordan. The structure was probably created around 2000 years ago in the mid first century AD, when the area was a part of the ancient city of Petra.”

Image by Guillaume Baviere via Flickr from TARADIGM.

Wikipedia notes, “The area around Petra has been inhabited from as early as 7000 BC, and was settled by the Nabataeans, a nomadic Arab people, in the 4th century BC. Petra would later become the capital city of the Nabataean Kingdom in the second century BC.”

Haven’t I Seen You Before? I admit I’ve never been to Petra. But, like lots of moviegoers, I find its scenery familiar from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Calum Russell describes “How ‘Indiana Jones’ Unearthed the Mystical Beauty of Petra, Jordan,” in Far Out, September 21, 2022. Indeed, he recounts that the locale also appears in other flicks: Arabian Nights, Passion in the Desert, The Mummy Returns, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and Samsara. Noted.

The Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona, Arizona. The Discoverer includes the chapel in its 15 coolest: “The Catholic church rises out of the red rock face, its stained-glass windows glittering in northern Arizona’s near-constant sunshine. The idea came about in the 1930s when local rancher Marguerite Brunswig Staude, inspired by the Empire State Building, commissioned a project to be built in Hungary. The project ran into difficulties—not least the outbreak of WWII—so it relocated to Arizona. Completed in 1956, the church has become a growing attraction in an area already characterized by gorgeous scenery.”

Image by cpaulfell/Shutterstock from The Discoverer. The chapel appears as the website’s Arizona choice too.

The chapel is nestled into Sedona’s red rock about 5 miles southeast of the town’s Rte 89A center. Wife Dottie and I really liked Sedona from its occasional inclusion in the Arizona Copperstate 1000. 

Image from “Morgan on the Copperstate.”

On another visit, I might have looked for the chapel from the copilot seat of  a “Beechcraft Premier I Business Jet” exiting Sedona’s mesa-perched airport. However, truth is I was all agog at riding shotgun.

The Dancing House, Prague, Czech Republic. This building is on TARADIGM’s list as well as The Discoverer’s 10 coolest. The latter recounts, “The distinctive shape of the Dancing House makes it one of Prague’s most recognizable buildings. The result of a collaboration between Croatian architect Vlado Milunić and acclaimed Canadian-American Frank Gehry, it occupied a prominent gap where an apartment building had been bombed during WWII.” 

TARADIGM notes, “The building is also known as ‘Fred and Ginger’ because it features a silhouette meant to mimic the movements of two famous dancers: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers…. Not only do people from all over the world flock to Prague to see it, but it is now featured on a gold 2,000 Czech koruna coin issued by the Czech National Bank.”

Fred and Ginger…. and Frank Gehry. I have already noted “The Great American Songbook Clicks Its Heels” here at SimanaitisSays. But have I told you about the time my R&T research trip was cancelled because of architect Frank Gehry?

Plans were in place to do an article on MIT and its avant garde Design Lab. The article got scuttled at the last minute when my MIT hosts had to cancel because architect Gehry was making an unexpected visit to the lab.

Simanaitis… Gehry… Decisions, decisions. (And all understandable.)

Tomorrow in Part 2, we venture overseas for innovative urban architecture and return for a firsthand encounter with rich American heritage—and, personally, easy parking. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024