The world's most famous architects share their favorite buildings

(AFP PHOTO/RAFA RIVAS)

Vanity Fair magazine has released extensive lists of the most successful architects working today and what they rate as the top architecture around the world. Here is a selection.

David Chipperfield

Most important buildings, monuments, or bridges completed since 1980:

Menil Collection, Houston, Texas, USA (Renzo Piano)
Thermal Baths at Vals, Switzerland (Peter Zumthor)
Gehry House, Santa Monica, California, USA (Frank Gehry)
Dutch Embassy, Berlin, Germany (Rem Koolhaas/O.M.A.)
Faculty of Architecture, Porto, Portugal (Alvara Siza Vieira)

Most significant work of architecture created so far in the 21st century:

Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium, Beijing, China (Herzog & de Meuron)

Sir Norman Foster

Most important buildings, monuments, or bridges completed since 1980:

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain (Frank Gehry)
Menil Collection, Houston, Texas, USA (Renzo Piano)
Lloyd's Building, London, UK (Richard Rogers)
National Assembly Building, Dhaka, Bangladesh (Louis Kahn)
Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Cesar Pelli)

Most significant work of architecture created so far in the 21st century:

Saint-Pierre, Firminy, France (Le Corbusier)
Large Hadron Collider, Switzerland and France (CERN)

Frank Gehry

Most important buildings, monuments, or bridges completed since 1980:

Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium, Beijing, China (Herzog & de Meuron)
CCTV Building, Beijing, China (Rem Koolhaas/O.M.A.)
Church of Santa Maria, Marco de Canavezes, Portugal (Alvaro Siza Vieira)
Cartier Foundation, Paris, France (Jean Nouvel)
MAXXI Museum, Rome, Italy (Zaha Hadid)

Zaha Hadid

Most important buildings, monuments, or bridges completed since 1980:

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain (Frank Gehry)
HSBC Building, Hong Kong (Norman Foster)
Mediatheque Building, Sendai, Japan (Toyo Ito)
Lloyd's Building, London, UK (Richard Rogers)
BMW Welt, Munich, Germany (COOP Himmelblau)

Most significant work of architecture created so far in the 21st century:
Casa de la Musica, Porto, Portugal (Rem Koolhaas/O.M.A.)

Daniel Libeskind

Most important buildings, monuments, or bridges completed since 1980:

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain (Frank Gehry)
Jewish Museum, Berlin, Germany (Daniel Libeskind)
Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium, Beijing, China (Herzog & de Meuron)
UFA Cinema, Dresden, Germany (COOP Himmelblau)
Turning Torso building, Malmo, Sweden (Santiago Calatrava)

The full list can be found at http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/08/architecture-survey-list-201008. Among the most-mentioned buildings were Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (at number one), Herzog & de Meuron's Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing, Piano's Menil Collection in Houston, Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin, and Hadid's MAXXI center in Rome.