To learn the history of a new destination, travelers should look no further than its most famous buildings. Of course, there are other ways to discover the local culture, which can be reflected in the food, the textiles, and the dialects, but it’s the buildings that often reveal the most about a place. Local landmarks are, in essence, silent witnesses to past eras, kingdoms, and tastes. They can also offer us clues to what the future holds (not to mention make for a great travel gram too).
Consider this lineup to be a travel bucket list of sorts. These must-see buildings are renowned for various reasons—some for their architectural charm, others for their historical significance, and many for a healthy mix of both. A fair amount of them are well-known, of course: Think Europe’s museums, churches, and other notable landmarks whose replicas live on in souvenir shops and countless photos. There are also a decent number of marvels on this list designed by famous architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Oscar Niemeyer. But there may be a few spots you’ve never heard of, buildings off the beaten path, which are worthy of a visit too.
Here, AD rounds up famous buildings from around the world that you’ll be glad you’ve seen when you look back on your travels. It’s been said that travel is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer—and we couldn’t agree more.
1. Hagia Sophia (Istanbul)
The first building to include a fully pendentive dome, Hagia Sophia is a paragon of Byzantine architecture. It was built as a Christian church by emperor Justinian I in 537, but it now serves as a mosque.
2. The Guggenheim (New York City)
Two spiraling structures come together to create the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright’s midcentury masterpiece on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Wright chose the circular shape to introduce his organic style to a metropolitan setting.
3. Taj Mahal (Agra, India)
In 1631, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I commissioned the Taj Mahal to house the tomb of his favorite wife. With its symmetrical design of domes and arches, the white-marble mausoleum is a prime example of Indo-Islamic architecture.
4. Dancing House (Prague)
Inspired by Hollywood duo Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, Dancing House is a deconstructivist collaboration between Vlado Milunić and Frank Gehry. They designed the twisted, glass-stone-and-metal building in the 1990s for Dutch insurance company Nationale-Nederlanden.
5. Château de Chenonceau (Chenonceaux, France)
A mix of late Gothic and early Renaissance architecture, Château de Chenonceau is a 16th-century castle that spans the Cher River. Water flows beneath the bridge part of the structure, which is topped with a gallery.
6. Niterói Contemporary Art Museum (Niterói, Rio de Janeiro)
Oscar Niemeyer is the genius behind the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum, a saucer-shaped modernist building completed in 1996. He described the 52-foot concrete tower as a flower rising from the ground, but many people liken it to a UFO.
7. The Pyramids of Giza (Giza, Egypt)
We can only theorize how exactly the Pyramids of Giza were built, but we do know the complex of ancient Egyptian structures took nearly 100 years and thousands of workers to complete.
8. Acropolis of Athens (Athens)
Built atop a rocky hill, the Acropolis of Athens is an ancient Greek citadel. Its most iconic structure, the Parthenon, is a peripteral octastyle Doric temple, meaning it’s surrounded by columns, with eight on either end.
9. Le Centre Pompidou (Paris)
The Pompidou Centre, which houses a public library, a modern art museum, and a music research center, is a 1977 high-tech, inside-out building by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. Its ventilation, electricity, and water systems are expressed colorfully on the exterior.
10. The Gateway Arch (St. Louis)
Designed by Eero Saarinen in the mid-20th century, the Gateway Arch is a stainless steel monument that honors the pioneers who expanded the United States westward. At 630 feet, it’s the world’s tallest arch.
11. Musée d’Orsay (Paris)
An art museum on the Left Bank of the Seine, Musée d’Orsay occupies a 1900 Beaux Arts railway station. Among the building’s most striking features are a barrel-vaulted ceiling and a glass-and-steel clock.
12. The Gherkin (London)
Officially titled 30 St Mary Axe, the Gherkin is a 2003 commercial skyscraper that resembles a pickled cucumber. Foster and Partners designed the glass building with energy efficiency in mind.
13. Metropolitan Cathedral of Brasília (Brasília)
The Metropolitan Cathedral of Brasília is another Oscar Niemeyer sensation. The 1970 building’s 16 concrete columns meet to create a hyperboloid structure that looks like a crown.
14. Mosque of Córdoba (Córdoba, Spain)
Though it’s now a Catholic cathedral, the Mosque of Córdoba was commissioned as an Islamic place of worship by Abd al-Rahman I in 785. Its hypostyle prayer hall is filled with Moorish two-tiered arches made of brick and stone.
15. Westminster Abbey (London)
A site of royal coronations, weddings, and burials for nearly 1,000 years, Westminster Abbey is an Anglican church whose current Gothic-style building dates back to the 13th century.
16. Dresden Frauenkirche (Dresden, Germany)
Dresden Frauenkirche is a Baroque-style Lutheran church that was destroyed by firebombing in World War II and rebuilt between 1994 and 2005. Previously, its ruins had served as a war memorial for nearly half a century.
17. Château Frontenac (Québec, Canada)
One of Canada’s first grand railway hotels, Château Frontenac opened in 1893 in an asymmetrical Châteauesque-style building with cylindrical and polygonal towers, steeply-pitched roofs, ornate gables, and tall chimneys.
18. The Colosseum (Rome)
When the Colosseum was completed in 80 AD, it was the largest amphitheater ever built. Now, over 1,000 years after it was used for gladiator games, the travertine limestone, tuff, and brick-faced concrete amphitheater is still the largest in the world.
19. One World Trade Center (New York City)
After the Twin Towers were destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, One World Trade Center was constructed in their place. Also known as the Freedom Tower, the faceted skyscraper is the tallest in the United States and western hemisphere.
20. The Lotus Temple (New Delhi)
As its name suggests, the Lotus Temple is a Baháʼí House of Worship shaped like a lotus flower. With its 27 marble-covered petals, the design by Fariborz Sahba represents purity, simplicity, and freshness.
21. St. Basil’s Cathedral (Moscow)
In the 1550s, Ivan the Terrible ordered the construction of St. Basil’s Cathedral to commemorate the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan. The Orthodox church, with its nine onion-shaped domes, received its colorful paint job a century later.
22. Dome of the Rock (Jerusalem)
The oldest surviving piece of Islamic architecture, the Dome of the Rock is a shrine on the Temple Mount that dates back to 692. The octagonal structure is covered in mosaics and topped with a golden dome.
23. Casa Milà (Barcelona)
Casa Milà, Antoni Gaudí’s last private residence, is a 1910 Catalan modernist building recognizable for its undulating stone façade and elaborate wrought iron balconies. It’s also known as La Pedrera, “the stone quarry.”
24. The White House (Washington, DC)
Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, the White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. James Hoban designed the neoclassical building, whose exterior is made of white-painted sandstone.
25. Forbidden City (Beijing)
The Forbidden City is a 1420 imperial palace that housed 24 Ming and Qing dynasty emperors over its 500 years as China’s political center. The complex is oriented north-south, like the rest of Beijing.
26. Sagrada Família (Barcelona)
A blend of dramatic Gothic and curvy Art Nouveau architecture, Sagrada Família is an unfinished Catholic church by Antoni Gaudí, who is buried in its crypt. Construction is projected to be completed in 2026, 144 years after it began.
27. Lincoln Center (New York City)
Home to the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, and more, Lincoln Center is a midcentury performing arts complex on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Architects like Eero Saarinen, Philip Johnson, and Gordon Bunshaft contributed to the project.
28. The Shard (London)
Renzo Piano’s 2012 pyramidal skyscraper, The Shard, is the tallest building in the United Kingdom. The architect was inspired by the nearby railway lines, the masts of tall ships, and the spires of London's churches in Canaletto’s 18th-century paintings.
29. Le Mont-Saint-Michel (Normandy, France)
Le Mont-Saint-Michel is a rocky island surrounded by medieval walls and topped with a 10th-century Benedictine abbey, which is notable for its Romanesque and Gothic style.
30. Bran Castle (Bran, Romania)
While there’s no evidence Bram Stoker was aware of Bran Castle’s existence, the medieval fortress is commonly referred to as Dracula’s Castle. Its towers and turrets are aligned with Gothic aesthetics.
31. Angkor Wat (Siem Reap, Cambodia)
Originally built in 1150 as a Hindu temple in honor of the deity Vishnu, Angkor Wat became a Buddhist temple towards the end of the century. Its sandstone walls are decorated with intricate bas-reliefs and devatas.
32. Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Istanbul)
Sultan Ahmed Mosque is the epitome of Ottoman architecture, with a central dome surrounded by four semidomes, six minarets, and a large courtyard. It gets its nickname, the Blue Mosque, from the blue Iznik tiles on its interior walls.
33. Konark Sun Tower (Konark, India)
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Dedicated to the Hindu solar deity Surya, the Konark Sun Temple is a 13th-century relic of Kalinga architecture that looks like an 100-foot-tall chariot carved from chlorite, laterite, and khondalite stone.
34. Chrysler Building (New York City)
A defining feature of the Manhattan skyline, the Chrysler Building is a 1930 Art Deco skyscraper with a radiant sunburst-patterned crown made of Nirosta stainless steel.
35. Sacré-Coeur (Paris)
Some of the best views of Paris can be seen from the white dome of Sacré-Cœur, a turn-of-the-century Catholic church that sits on the hill of Montmartre, the highest point in the city.
36. Potala Palace (Lhasa, Tibet, China)
From 1649 to 1959, Potala Palace served as the winter residence of the Dalai Lama. The dzong fortress, with its red and white facade, is a symbol of Tibetan Buddhism.
37. Musée du Louvre (Paris)
Visitors flock to the Louvre Museum to see Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo—but the palace they’re housed in is the real masterpiece. It combines Renaissance, Baroque, and neoclassical styles, which are juxtaposed by a 1989 modernist glass pyramid.
38. Sydney Opera House (Sydney)
The natural world inspired Jørn Utzon’s design of the Sydney Opera House, a mid-20th-century modern expressionist performing arts center on the Sydney Harbor. Its overlapping concrete shells make for a distinctive silhouette.
39. Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (Bilbao, Spain)
Frank Gehry was the creative force behind the 1997 Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, a deconstructivist structure on the Nervión River whose curvy form and titanium façade are designed to catch the light.
40. Fallingwater (Mill Run, Pennsylvania)
Using sandstone from nearby quarries, light ocher concrete, and red steel, Frank Lloyd Wright built a three-story residence that is cantilevered over a waterfall in 1937. It’s aptly named Fallingwater.
41. The Pantheon (Rome)
An ancient Roman temple turned Catholic church, the Pantheon pairs a circular, domed cella with a stately portico. Experts don’t know exactly when it was built, but they estimate it was completed around 125 AD.
42. Space Needle (Seattle)
Built for the 1962 World’s Fair, the Space Needle is an observation tower whose top resembles a flying saucer. Its hourglass profile nods to an abstract sculpture by artist David Lemon called The Feminine One.
43. Villa Savoye (Poissy, France)
Le Corbusier used his own Five Points of Architecture to design Villa Savoye with his cousin-collaborator Pierre Jeanneret in the late 1920s. The reinforced concrete country home is a model of international modernist style.
44. House of Parliament and Elizabeth Tower (London)
In the mid-1800s, Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin rebuilt the Houses of Parliament in Gothic Revival style after a fire destroyed the previous palace. The accompanying Elizabeth Tower, also known as Big Ben, is the elaborate pièce de résistance.
45. Burj Khalifa (Dubai, UAE)
At 2,722 feet—or a little over half a mile—the Burj Khalifa has been the world’s tallest building since 2009. Its impressive design includes a Y-shaped floor plan with wings that spiral upwards.
46. Leaning Tower of Pisa (Pisa, Italy)
The soft, unstable ground beneath the medieval Leaning Tower of Pisa caused its foundation to settle askew, resulting in its now-iconic lean. The angle was reduced to four degrees in the 1990s.
47. The Flatiron Building (New York City)
Named for its triangular, clothes-iron-like shape, the Flatiron Building is a 1902 structure that mixes Beaux Arts and Renaissance styles. While it operated as an office building until 2019, it is reportedly being converted into luxury apartments.
48. The Sistine Chapel (Vatican City)
Frescoes by Michaelangelo, Botticelli, and other Renaissance painters adorn the walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which was built between 1473 and 1481, during the reign of its namesake, Pope Sixtus IV.
49. Eiffel Tower (Paris)
The first structure to reach 1,000 feet, the Eiffel Tower is a wrought iron pylon with four lattice girders that come together at the top. It was designed by a team of engineers—not architects—for the 1889 World’s Fair.
