While 'certainly compelling...in reality, it’s a bit of a travesty,” one architect told Newsweek of a UNESCO-listed site.
restoring and repurposing historic structures , with nearly half of America’s 125 million buildings now over 50 years old, according to the American Institute of Architects.
Adaptive reuse has surged, with nearly 25,000 apartments created from converted buildings in 2024 alone—a 50 percent increase year-on-year, according to RentCafe. Against that backdrop, criticism of some of the world’s most celebrated buildings highlights a deeper debate about what makesFrank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater is widely regarded as a masterpiece, built dramatically over a waterfall and now a UNESCO-listed site. But not all architects are convinced.
“Controversial take, but I'm not a fan of Fallingwater…yes, the home is iconic. But Wright chose the wrong location,” architect Dan D’Agostino, founder of Plan Architecture, toldAlthough the homeowners wanted views of the waterfall, Wright instead placed the home on top of it, effectively obscuring it. D’Agostino also critiqued the engineering, with Wright having not used additional steel reinforcement in the terrace despite suggestions from contractors.
“All in all, I find Fallingwater to be a great idea—yet a frustratingly problematic design,” he said. Miles Smith, architect and senior manager at Graphisoft, offered a similarly mixed view. According to Smith, the form of Fallingwater is “certainly compelling” and “it’s cool to see in person,” but “in reality, it’s a bit of a travesty,” he toldThe Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, designed by Frank Gehry, is known for its striking, sculptural form and for helping transform the city.
Yet some see issues with its design. Smith says the building’s “curvilinear and organic massing can frequently come across as untethered, or lacking in foundation. ” However, according to Smith, after Gehry’s recent passing, many architects"softened their tone on his body of work and began acknowledging how influential he was to the field. ”American architect Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan is celebrated for its minimalist transparency, but Smith argues it falls short when compared with similar works.
Smith believes it appears “conceptually pure” at first glance, but was ultimately “upstaged” by German-American architect Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House. Smith said: “The big complaint here is that Johnson was seeking total transparency, but put structural columns directly at the corners,” creating what Smith describes as a visible “box,” unlike at Farnsworth House, where columns were set back to preserve openness.
Chicago’s McCormick Place is the largest convention center in North America and an engineering landmark, but has drawn criticism.
“As a lifelong Chicagoan and architect, there’s only one answer for me—McCormick Place,” Brian Turcza, an architectural design director/senior associate at DyeLot, toldWhile praising the center as an “extraordinary feat of engineering,” Turcza argued it does not “serve the city, engage its environment, or foster human-centered connection within and around its walls,” describing it as disconnected from its surroundings. Turcza said the main hall is “genuinely awe-inspiring,” but also described it as lacking a clear sense of movement or orientation.
He also pointed to environmental impacts, noting that at least 40,000 bird deaths have been recorded from collisions with the building’s glass façade. Although retrofits of the glass have reduced strikes by 95 percent, Turcza believes the building “was never designed with any awareness of the world it occupied. ”The Shard in London, the tallest building in Western Europe, designed by Renzo Piano, is often celebrated for its striking glass form.
But Zaeem Chaudhary, director and chartered architectural technologist at AC Design Solutions, said he has “never warmed” to it.
“Structurally impressive? Absolutely. But as a piece of urban design, it feels like a missed opportunity,” he toldHe argued that while London’s skyline reflects a dialogue between eras, and “the Shard doesn't join that conversation; it simply shouts over it. ” Although its form works in isolation, he said its relationship with the surrounding streets is weak.
“For a building positioned as a vertical city, it's remarkably disconnected from the actual city around it…great architecture should enhance its context. The Shard merely tolerates it,” according to Chaudhary. Do you have an architecture or design-related story to share? Let us know via s.kim@newsweek.com, and your story could be featured by
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