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Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
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Beyond the Icon: How to Read the World's Landmark Buildings

A landmark building is more than a famous shape. It is a work of architecture whose setting, fabric, use and reception have made it unusually important to how people understand a place or a period. That importance can come from structural invention, artistic ambition, political power, sacred meaning, public memory or later influence. It can also be contested. Fame does not make a building representative of every culture, and official designation does not turn a selective group of monuments into a universal canon.

The most useful way to study landmarks is therefore not to rank them. It is to ask how they were made, how they changed and why particular parts survive. The nineteen buildings introduced here span temples, churches, mosques, palaces, a tomb complex, an arena, a parliament and a skyscraper. Together they show that architectural history is written through plans and materials, but also through labour, worship, government, violence, restoration and continuing use.

Contents

  1. All Landmark Guides
  2. What Makes a Landmark?
  3. Nine Reading Questions
  4. Classical Monuments
  5. Domes and Sacred Continuity
  6. Gothic Cathedrals
  7. Renaissance Europe
  8. Tombs, Palaces and Rule
  9. Parliament and Skylines
  10. Nineteen Buildings and Reading Diagram
  11. Recommended Books
  12. Watch Architecture
  13. Makers and Labour
  14. Responsible Comparison
  15. Evidence Tests
  16. Frequently Asked Questions
  17. Discussion
  18. References

Explore All Landmark Guides

Choose a landmark for a building-led study of chronology, structure, makers, use, conservation and architectural meaning.

What makes a building an architectural landmark?

There is no single timeless test. Heritage organisations evaluate qualities such as design, material, setting, workmanship, use, historical association and the credibility with which these values remain visible. [1] [3] [4] Architectural conservation, meanwhile, is concerned with the long-term safeguarding of built fabric rather than making every monument look newly completed. [2] These approaches are useful, but landmark status also grows outside formal systems: through local memory, repeated representation, scholarship, political ceremony and the way a building becomes an orientation point in a city or landscape.

This means that the word landmark should begin an investigation, not finish one. A building may be celebrated while embodying imperial rule or unequal labour. It may be globally recognisable yet poorly understood. It may survive only because later communities repaired, converted or reconstructed it. Conservation principles ask that historical evidence be respected and that new intervention not be confused with original work. [5] The building seen today is often an archive of decisions rather than the untouched product of one designer.

The Parthenon and other pale stone monuments stand on the rocky Acropolis above trees and Athens, with restoration scaffolding visible around the temple.
The Parthenon crowns the Athenian Acropolis among gates, retaining walls, other monuments, rocky slopes and active conservation in Jakub Hałun's June 2024 view from Philopappos Hill. The setting prevents a single temple from standing in for the entire classical precinct or appearing untouched by later history. Jakub Hałun, View of the Acropolis from Philopappos Hill, Athens; CC BY 4.0. JPEG prepared; no crop or retouch.

Nine questions for reading a landmark building

Start with setting. Is the building part of an acropolis, an urban precinct, a sacred landscape, a garden axis or a commercial skyline? Angkor Wat cannot be separated from Angkor’s roads, reservoirs and settlements; Versailles is inseparable from its gardens and long perspectives. [20] [26]

Then establish chronology. Identify the initial campaign, later additions, damage, conversion, restoration and current work. A date attached to a monument may describe its foundation, its principal fabric or its final consecration, and those are not the same thing.

Ask about patrons and makers. Architects matter, but so do rulers, religious institutions, engineers, masons, sculptors, metalworkers, glassmakers, workshop assistants, contractors and communities. The makers whose names survive are rarely everyone who shaped the work.

Read the plan and movement. Where are the thresholds, axes, courts, processional paths and controlled points of entry? A plan organises bodies and institutions. The Colosseum’s circulation served mass spectacle, while the Palace of Westminster’s sequence gives spatial form to parliamentary procedure. [9] [31]

Examine structure. Columns, arches, vaults, domes, walls, frames and foundations are not merely technical supports; their arrangement shapes light, scale and meaning. Compare the Pantheon’s rotunda and dome with Hagia Sophia’s dome carried through a more complex system of supports. [7] [10]

Look closely at materials and craft. Stone type, brick, mortar, timber, metal, glass, mosaic, tile and inlay reveal resources, technologies and networks of skill. At the Taj Mahal, red sandstone, marble and stone inlay organise both contrast and hierarchy across the funerary ensemble. [25]

Consider image and meaning. Sculpture, inscription, colour, ornament and silhouette can communicate theology, dynasty, civic order or commercial identity. Decoration is often part of the architectural argument, not an applied extra.

Trace changing use. The Great Mosque of Córdoba became a cathedral; the Pantheon became a church; the Alhambra became a Christian royal residence after Nasrid rule. [8] [24] [28] Such changes are neither footnotes nor simple stories of replacement. They help explain the fabric that remains.

Finally, investigate conservation and access. Ask what has been repaired or replaced, which evidence guided the work, who manages the site and how living use affects decisions. Authenticity can reside in function, tradition and setting as well as old material. [3] [4]

Classical monuments: civic religion, empire and spectacle

The Parthenon formed part of the fifth-century BCE rebuilding of the Athenian Acropolis. UNESCO’s record places it within a larger programme led politically by Perikles and realised by architects and sculptors including Iktinos, Kallikrates and Pheidias. [6] Its Doric exterior, Ionic elements and integrated sculpture make it central to the history of ancient Greek architecture, but the building also passed through religious conversion, conflict, explosion, removal of sculpture and modern conservation. Studying only an idealised reconstruction would erase much of its history.

The Pantheon in Rome asks different questions. Its columned portico precedes an immense circular interior covered by a coffered concrete dome. The opening at the crown makes changing daylight part of the spatial order. The monument belongs to Rome’s ancient architectural inheritance, yet its continued use as a church helped preserve it. [7] [8] It is both a major work of Roman architecture and a record of post-antique adaptation.

Concentric rings of square coffers curve inward around the brilliant circular oculus at the centre of the Pantheon's concrete dome.
Concentric coffers curve toward the Pantheon's open oculus in T. Le Berre's February 2019 photograph. The intensely bright opening makes daylight part of the dome's geometry, while the cropped upward view leaves the portico, rotunda wall and post-antique church use to the surrounding text. T. Le Berre, Interior oculus of the Rome Pantheon; CC BY-SA 4.0. JPEG prepared; no crop or retouch.

The Colosseum made state spectacle architectural. Its stacked arcades, vast seating structure and network of entrances organised enormous crowds, while service spaces supported the performances below. [7] [9] The engineering cannot be separated from gladiatorial combat, animal killing and public executions. Later quarrying, religious associations, earthquake damage, repair and archaeological conservation changed how the amphitheatre was occupied and understood.

A floodlit Roman amphitheatre curves across a dusk scene, with three levels of arches, a surviving solid attic section, broken masonry and modern visitor barriers.
The Colosseum's stacked arcades curve around a partially lost and repaired amphitheatre in David Iliff's stitched April 2007 dusk panorama. Openings once served the movement and staging of mass spectacle; barriers, visitors and floodlighting record its present archaeological and heritage setting. Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/. DAVID ILIFF, Colosseum in Rome, Italy — April 2007; CC BY-SA 2.5. JPEG prepared; no crop or retouch. Licence URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5.

Domes, conversion and sacred continuity

Hagia Sophia was built in Constantinople in the sixth century, and its vast dome became a defining achievement of Byzantine architecture. [10] Marble revetment, columns, mosaics and light produce an interior whose effect depends on material and structure together. The building served as an Eastern Christian church, an Ottoman mosque, a museum and again a mosque. UNESCO’s concern over its status shows how custodianship, access and interpretation remain politically charged. [11] A responsible account holds Byzantine and Ottoman histories together and recognises present religious use.

A vast pink and pale stone building rises in domes and half-domes between four slender minarets, with trees, visitors and later structures around it.
Hagia Sophia's sixth-century central dome and descending roof masses stand among buttressing and four later Ottoman minarets in Arild Vågen's March 2013 exterior. The accumulated silhouette supports an account that holds Byzantine construction, Ottoman mosque adaptation and present religious use together. Arild Vågen, Hagia Sophia, March 2013; CC BY-SA 3.0. JPEG prepared; no crop or retouch.

The Great Mosque of Córdoba is similarly layered but formally distinct. Repeated Umayyad expansions enlarged a hypostyle prayer hall whose double-tiered arches are both structural and visually rhythmic. After the Christian conquest of Córdoba in 1236, the building became a cathedral, and major Christian fabric—including a Renaissance choir and crossing—was inserted within it. [28] Calling it only a mosque or only a cathedral conceals part of its history; the commonly used Mosque-Cathedral acknowledges a building shaped by successive religious and political orders.

Rows of slender columns support red-and-white striped lower horseshoe arches and upper round arches across a deep interior with visitors and later fittings.
Lower horseshoe arches and upper round arches repeat through the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba in PerryPlanet's September 2011 view. Reused supports, striped masonry, visitors and later fittings make the hall a record of successive building and religious phases rather than an untouched Umayyad interior. PerryPlanet, Mezquita arches cordoba; Public domain. JPEG prepared; no crop or retouch.

Angkor Wat belongs to a still larger setting. It is one temple within Angkor’s extensive Khmer landscape of monuments, reservoirs, canals, roads and inhabited settlements. [26] Its concentric enclosures, galleries, towers and bas-reliefs relate architecture to cosmology and royal power. The site’s history also includes continuing Buddhist significance, archaeological study and international conservation. UNESCO notes both resident communities and the pressures generated by tourism, making social life and hydrology part of conservation rather than external concerns. [26] [27] The building connects naturally to the wider history of Khmer architecture.

A broad stone causeway crowded with visitors runs between carved balustrades and greenery toward Angkor Wat's central towers under a bright blue sky.
Angkor Wat's western causeway leads between balustrades, visitors and low enclosures toward the temple towers in LBM1948's December 2014 photograph. The long approach clarifies movement and royal-sacred sequence, while reservoirs, canals, settlements and continuing Buddhist significance extend far beyond the frame. LBM1948, Angkor Wat, western causeway; CC BY-SA 4.0. JPEG prepared; no crop or retouch.

Gothic cathedrals as long building projects

Notre-Dame de Paris, Chartres Cathedral, Amiens Cathedral and Westminster Abbey make clear that “Gothic cathedral” is not one formula. Notre-Dame developed through campaigns extending from the mid-twelfth century into the fourteenth. Transepts, chapels, flying buttresses, sculpture and glass came from different phases. [12] The nineteenth-century restoration by Jean-Baptiste Lassus and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc added fabric that became part of the cathedral’s recognised image. After the 2019 fire, investigation, stabilisation and reconstruction took place under state heritage oversight. [13] [14] The episode demonstrates why restoration history belongs inside architectural history.

Chartres was partly built before the fire of 1194 and then reconstructed with unusual speed and coherence. Its nave and choir, portals, monumental sculpture and exceptional stained glass form a closely integrated ensemble. [15] Yet even Chartres includes later chapels, a different north-west spire, changes to the choir and a nineteenth-century metal roof structure. Integrity does not mean that nothing ever changed.

The side of a grey stone Gothic cathedral has massive projecting buttress piers, arched flying supports, large windows, a green roof and scaffolding at one end.
Heavy buttress piers, arched flyers, large traceried windows and a high roof organise Chartres Cathedral's north nave elevation in Andreas F. Borchert's August 2007 photograph. Visible scaffolding and varied masonry reinforce the article's point that apparent coherence can include later chapels, repairs and changing fabric. Andreas F. Borchert, Chartres Cathedral Buttresses N 2007 08 31; CC BY-SA 4.0. JPEG prepared; no crop or retouch.

Amiens Cathedral was mainly constructed between 1220 and 1288. Its linked sequence of master builders helped sustain a coherent plan and three-storey elevation, while structure, sculpture and glass contribute to the whole. [16] Its apparent unity is thus the result of organised continuity across generations, not instantaneous authorship.

Westminster Abbey’s present fabric begins with Henry III’s rebuilding from 1245, but Norman spaces survive and the nave was completed much later. Henry VII’s Lady Chapel and Nicholas Hawksmoor’s west towers add Tudor and eighteenth-century layers. [29] The Abbey remains a place of worship, coronation and commemoration, so institutional life continues to shape both meaning and care. [30] These buildings can be explored alongside Gothic architecture and the guide to cathedral floor plans, but their individual histories should not be collapsed into a style summary.

Cathedral, palace and garden in Renaissance Europe

Florence Cathedral grew from a civic and religious institution that coordinated patrons, masters, artists and workshops over centuries. [17] Arnolfo di Cambio’s late medieval project, later enlargement, Giotto’s campanile, Brunelleschi’s fifteenth-century dome and subsequent decoration belong to one urban complex. The dome deserves close study, but it is not the entire cathedral. Readers seeking its designer and construction project can continue to Brunelleschi’s Florence Cathedral dome. [18]

The Alhambra developed above Granada as a Nasrid palatine city, fortress and garden landscape. Courts, halls, water channels, inscriptions and intricate surface decoration formed spaces for rule and residence. [23] [24] After 1492 it became a Christian royal site; repairs by Mudéjar craftspeople and the building of Charles V’s Renaissance palace changed the ensemble. Its importance rests partly in this material juxtaposition, though later romantic representation sometimes detached its beauty from the history of conquest and conversion. The Alhambra belongs within the larger story of Andalusian architecture.

A long reflecting pool and clipped green hedges lead through a delicate white arcade to a massive reddish square tower beneath a clear blue sky.
The Court of the Myrtles aligns a reflecting pool, clipped hedges and delicate portico with the massive Comares Tower in a February 2010 photograph by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas. This single court joins residence, water and defensive presence, while the wider fortified city, later Christian interventions and Generalife remain beyond the view. CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, Court of the Myrtles and Comares Tower, Alhambra; CC BY-SA 3.0. JPEG prepared; no crop or retouch.

Château de Chambord was begun for Francis I in 1519. Its compact geometric plan and celebrated double stair coexist with corner towers and a roofscape that recall French medieval château forms. [21] [22] The result is not simply Italian Renaissance architecture transplanted to France. It is a distinctive synthesis shaped by royal patronage, hunting culture and local building tradition.

St Peter’s Basilica replaced a much older church through a project that extended from the early sixteenth into the seventeenth century. Bramante, Michelangelo, Carlo Maderno, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and many other architects, artists and workshops contributed to its plan, dome, nave, façade, piazza and interior. [19] The building’s archive and continuing craft institutions make collaboration especially visible. Michelangelo’s St Peter’s page owns his particular role; the landmark history must keep the larger sequence in view.

Tomb, palace and the architecture of rule

The Taj Mahal is often reduced to the white marble tomb at its centre. In fact, it is a planned Mughal complex of garden, gates, mosque, guest house, raised platform and subsidiary structures. Brick-and-lime construction, red sandstone, white marble, carving, calligraphy and inlay establish hierarchy across the ensemble. [25] It was commissioned by Shah Jahan in memory of Mumtaz Mahal, but its making depended on a wide network of designers, supervisors, craftspeople and labourers. The monument should be read within Mughal architecture rather than as an isolated symbol of romance.

The white domed Taj Mahal and four minarets stand at the end of a formal garden and water channel packed with visitors beneath an overcast sky.
The white Taj Mahal mausoleum and four minarets terminate a crowded garden axis in Basheerabdul's July 2016 photograph. The famous tomb is only one component of a complex that also includes gates, mosque, guest house, river terrace and service structures; the large crowd records present visitation rather than Mughal ceremony. Basheerabdul, Taj Mahal from the garden approach; CC BY-SA 4.0. JPEG prepared; no crop or retouch.

Versailles likewise exceeds its most photographed room. Louis XIV transformed an earlier royal château through campaigns involving Louis Le Vau, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Charles Le Brun, André Le Nôtre and many specialists. [20] Apartments, chapel, service spaces, gardens, fountains and long axes organised court life and projected monarchy. After the French Revolution the palace lost its original function and became a museum and national heritage property. Its restored interiors therefore involve choices about dispersed objects, later uses and the desired historical moment.

Parliament, continuing construction and the commercial skyline

The Palace of Westminster was rebuilt after the fire of 1834 as a purpose-designed home for Parliament. Charles Barry’s organisation accommodated ceremonial and legislative sequences while incorporating Westminster Hall and other medieval remains. Augustus Pugin’s contribution to the Gothic language and interior detail was fundamental. [31] [32] Stone decay, wartime damage and continuing conservation show that even an apparently unified Victorian monument is a changing working building.

Sagrada Família began in 1882 with a neo-Gothic design by Francisco de Paula del Villar. Antoni Gaudí transformed the project, devoting the later part of his career to it, but only part of his scheme was built before his death. [33] [34] Civil War destruction damaged the workshop archive and models. Later architects and craftspeople reconstructed evidence, interpreted Gaudí’s intentions and applied new technologies as construction continued. [34] [35] UNESCO’s listed component covers the Nativity façade and crypt made under Gaudí, not every later part of the basilica. [33] For Gaudí’s career and other works, see the existing Antoni Gaudí guide.

The Chrysler Building belongs to a different economy of ambition. Designed by William Van Alen and completed around 1930, its steel frame, setbacks and stainless-steel crown turned the tall commercial office building into a corporate image. [36] Automobile motifs tie ornament to Walter Chrysler’s industry. The New York City designation record treats structure, massing and decorative metalwork as evidence of architectural and historical significance, not merely a picturesque skyline profile. [36]

The upper Chrysler Building rises against a deep blue sky with stacked stainless-steel arches, triangular windows, eagle ornaments and a long thin spire.
Stainless-steel arches, triangular windows, eagle projections and a needle spire turn the Chrysler Building's upper storeys into corporate skyline imagery in Tony Hisgett's May 2010 photograph. The tight portrait excludes the base and complete setback envelope, so it illustrates crown and identity rather than the whole tower. Tony Hisgett, Upper floors and crown of the Chrysler Building; CC BY 2.0. JPEG prepared; no crop or retouch.

A chronological guide to the nineteen buildings

A selective timeline groups nineteen landmark buildings in six historical bands and pairs them with nine questions about setting, makers, plan, structure, materials, meaning, use and conservation.
Original chronological reading guide. The positions are approximate and selective, not a ranking, measured survey or complete canon.

Text alternative for the diagram

Six broad bands organise the Parthenon, Pantheon, Colosseum, Hagia Sophia, Great Mosque of Córdoba, Angkor Wat, four Gothic churches, Florence Cathedral, Alhambra, Chambord, St Peter’s, Taj Mahal, Versailles, Palace of Westminster, Sagrada Família and Chrysler Building. A second panel lists nine equal questions: setting, chronology, patrons and makers, plan and movement, structure, materials and craft, image and meaning, changing use, and conservation and access.

Use the Parthenon to study classical civic religion and later reception; the Colosseum for spectacle, circulation and Roman construction; and the Pantheon for concrete dome, geometry and adaptive sacred use. Hagia Sophia opens questions about dome structure and religious conversion, while the Great Mosque of Córdoba reveals expansion, hypostyle space and mosque-cathedral layering.

Angkor Wat connects temple architecture to landscape and water systems. Notre-Dame de Paris, Chartres, Amiens and Westminster Abbey allow close comparisons among Gothic plans, elevations, sculpture, glass and restoration. Florence Cathedral leads from communal patronage to the problem of constructing a vast dome.

The Alhambra joins palace, fortress, garden, inscription and later Christian intervention. Chambord shows a French Renaissance château negotiating inherited forms. St Peter’s demonstrates the effects of changing architects across a century-long commission. The Taj Mahal unites tomb, garden, mosque and craft, while Versailles extends royal architecture into landscape and court ritual.

The Palace of Westminster turns government into plan and Gothic image. Sagrada Família makes continuing construction and documentary interpretation impossible to ignore. The Chrysler Building closes the group with steel-frame commerce and Art Deco metropolitan identity. This sequence is a way into comparative study, not a ladder of achievement.

Watch: How to Read Landmark Architecture

Begin with architectural practice and a compact visual vocabulary, then use the page’s nine questions to compare setting, chronology, makers, movement, structure, materials, meaning, use and conservation.

What Does an Architect Actually Do?

RIBA Architecture · Architecture as coordinated practice

This professional overview complements the hub's emphasis on collaboration, programme, technical coordination and continuing stewardship rather than a one-name account of architectural achievement.

Watch on YouTube

Buildings are made by more people than their histories name

Landmark narratives often survive in the names of rulers and architects. The source record is much less complete for quarry workers, masons, carpenters, plasterers, mosaicists, metalworkers, glassmakers, gardeners and the communities who maintained buildings between celebrated campaigns. At some sites, even principal designers remain uncertain; at others, workshops and institutional archives preserve an unusually detailed division of labour.

Good architectural history does not solve this imbalance by inventing absent biographies. It makes the limits visible, attributes documented work precisely and treats collaborative production as central. It also recognises that later surveyors, archaeologists, worshippers and conservators affect what can be known. A monument survives through repeated acts of care as well as through the prestige of its origin.

How to compare landmarks responsibly

Compare like with like before drawing broad conclusions. Put plans beside plans, structural systems beside structural systems and similar stages of a building’s history beside one another. Ask whether a photograph shows original material, restoration or reconstruction. Distinguish a building’s first function from its present one. Check whether a familiar attribution describes overall authorship, a single campaign or later tradition.

Most importantly, compare relationships rather than isolated shapes. How does a dome meet its supports? How does an approach choreograph entry? How do ornament and material communicate authority? Who could enter, and where? What was changed when a new community or institution took possession? Those questions reveal more than a list of dimensions or a contest over which monument is greatest.

Architectural Landmarks: Five Evidence Tests

Begin with setting and chronology, then connect programme, makers, material systems and later care before allowing fame or visual impact to stand in for architectural history.

EvidenceWhat it can establishWhat else to verify
Setting and approachPrecincts, streets, landscapes and routes reveal how a building is reached and framed.A familiar viewpoint may omit service areas, settlements and contested boundaries.
Chronology and layersFabric and records distinguish original campaigns, additions, conversions and reconstruction.Do not compress centuries of change into one style label or completion date.
People and institutionsArchives identify patrons, designers, engineers, craftspeople, labourers and users.Named authorship can conceal collective work, coercion and unequal access.
Structure and materialPlans, sections and close observation show how loads, enclosure, light and movement interact.Photographs alone may not reveal hidden systems or replaced fabric.
Use and conservationPresent function, stewardship and repair explain why and how a landmark survives.Separate living use, heritage presentation and intervention from an imagined untouched original.

Frequently Asked Questions

It is a building whose fabric, setting, use or reception has become especially important to understanding a place, building type or historical development. Recognition can be local, scholarly, civic, religious, national or international; it is not limited to formal heritage designation.

Many belong to inscribed properties, but inclusion here is not a list of UNESCO sites. Some designations cover a larger city or ensemble, and in the case of Sagrada Família the inscribed component is specifically Gaudí’s Nativity façade and crypt. [33]

Not automatically. Authenticity depends on credible evidence across material, design, use, setting, tradition and other attributes. [3] [4] The important questions are what changed, why it changed, what evidence guided the work and whether new intervention is clearly understood.

Because their functions and communities changed. Hagia Sophia and the Great Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba contain material evidence of more than one religious period. Responsible language acknowledges the complete history and the building’s present use.

Buildings may be old, but modern photographs remain separately copyrighted. The explanatory diagram uses original geometry and text so that it can compare chronology and reading methods without reproducing protected photography, plans or ornament.

No. It is a bounded group chosen for detailed architectural study. Many regions, Indigenous traditions, vernacular buildings and modern movements are not represented. The selection is a starting point for comparing evidence, not a universal ranking.

Discussion

Which landmark best shows why setting, chronology, makers, structure, use and conservation must be read together?

Reader Insights

Context

Is the claim supported by a plan, section, photograph, archive, surviving fabric, institutional record or conservation report?

Systems

Which patrons, designers, engineers, craftspeople, labourers, users, communities and conservators shaped the place?

Evidence

What changes when an iconic view is tested against approach, programme, unequal access, conversion, damage, repair and continuing use?

Join the Conversation

Share a documented observation below, naming the landmark, date or campaign, setting, people, material evidence, present use and later changes.

References

  1. Getty Research Institute, Getty Vocabularies View source
  2. Getty Research Institute, Architectural conservation View source
  3. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Operational Guidelines View source
  4. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Authenticity View source
  5. ICOMOS, International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites View source
  6. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Acropolis Athens View source
  7. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Historic Centre of Rome View source
  8. Italian Ministry of Culture, Pantheon View source
  9. Parco archeologico del Colosseo, official site View source
  10. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Historic Areas of Istanbul View source
  11. UNESCO, Statement on Hagia Sophia View source
  12. Notre-Dame de Paris, Architecture View source
  13. French Ministry of Culture, Notre-Dame de Paris the monument View source
  14. French Ministry of Culture, Notre-Dame restoration works View source
  15. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Chartres Cathedral View source
  16. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Amiens Cathedral View source
  17. Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, The heritage of the Opera View source
  18. Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, Brunelleschi's Dome View source
  19. Fabbrica di San Pietro, St Peter's Basilica View source
  20. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Palace and Park of Versailles View source
  21. Domaine national de Chambord, Architecture View source
  22. Domaine national de Chambord, As history unfolds View source
  23. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Alhambra Generalife and Albayzin View source
  24. Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife, History View source
  25. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Taj Mahal View source
  26. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Angkor View source
  27. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Angkor Managing Success View source
  28. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Historic Centre of Cordoba View source
  29. Westminster Abbey, Architecture View source
  30. Westminster Abbey, History of Westminster Abbey View source
  31. UK Parliament, Architecture of the Palace View source
  32. UK Parliament, A New Gothic Vision View source
  33. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Works of Antoni Gaudi View source
  34. Sagrada Familia, History of the Temple View source
  35. Sagrada Familia, Architecture of the Sagrada Familia View source
  36. New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, Chrysler Building designation report View source