As iconic new buildings shoot up on the world's skylines every year, their architect creators have joined the celebrity pantheon. ASW looks at the some of the starriest builders of our time.

Left: Richard Meier's Getty Center, L.A.
Right: Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao

Richard Meier
Committed to Louis Kahn’s idea of “architecture of occasion,” Richard Meier has provided the world with many buildings worthy of celebration. His Getty Center, which sits majestically on two ridges on a hill in Brentwood, Los Angeles, is a case in point. Its sweeping pavilions, landscaped gardens and external galleries often lure visitors away from the art inside to admire the spectacular views as framed by Meier’s structure.

On view at: Edythe and Eli Broad Art Center at UCLA, Rome’s Ara Pacis, the Burda Museum Collection in Baden-Baden, Germany and the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art.

Also check out: The Richard Meier Model Museum, a permanent exhibition in Long Island City opened to the public by Richard Meier himself. These models offer a glimpse into the creative process behind some of Richard Meier's most important structures. By appointment only on Fridays.
www.richardmeier.com

Frank Gehry
With its undulating titanium fish scale walls, the Guggenheim Bilbao is probably Frank Gehry’s most famed work. While the museum has won him many fans, the same could not be said of Gehry’s former association with the Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn. While he is no longer involved with the project, there is some debate as to whether that was his choice or not. Gehry is also the subject of a November 2007 lawsuit filed by MIT, which alleges that the Stata Center he designed for the school is leaking and cracking. Future highlights include his Guggenheim Abu Dhabi slated for completion in 2014, which at 30,000 square meters will be the biggest Guggenheim museum in the world. And this year Gehry was selected to design the Dwight Eisenhower memorial in Washington D.C.— it will be the first presidential memorial of the 21st century.

On view at: IAC Building in New York’s Chelsea, Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall and the main building of Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany.
www.foga.com

Left: Tadeo Ando's Church of Light, Osaka, Japan
Right: Renzo Piano's Menil Collection Museum, Houston, Texas

Tadao Ando
Tadao Ando’s buildings are breathtaking in their minimalism. Using concrete, glass and steel, the Japanese architect has manipulated light and wind patterns to create stark structures such as the Church of Light in Osaka, a silky concrete box naturally illuminated by a massive cruciform cut into the wall facing the pews. Most of Ando’s structures are located in Japan but he’s currently bring his touch to the Maritime Museum on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi. The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts opened phase I of its expansion last year and have asked Ando to work on phase II as well—an exhibition, visitor and conference space.

On view at: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, Vitra Conference Pavilion, Weil am Rhein, Germany and Church on the Water, Hokkaido, Japan.

Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano’s first blockbuster was the Pompidou Centre, which he designed with Richard Rogers. In Pompidou, the duo brought inner workings of a building – elevators and pipes for example – to its exterior, freeing up central spaces to allow for fluidity and light, a Piano obsession. He went on to put his stamp on the mobile-filled Kansai airport, which sits on its own island in Osaka, Japan, the much-lauded Menil Collection museum in Houston, Texas and the reconstruction of Potsdamer Platz area of Berlin. Projects on his current agenda include the expansion of New York’s Whitney Museum, the extension of Columbia University’s campus into Harlem and the Shard London Bridge Tower, which will be Europe’s tallest building at 1,016 ft when it is completed in 2011.

On view at: Pompidou Centre, Paris, Tjibaou Cultural Center, New Caledonia and the New York Times Building, New York.
www.rpbw.r.ui-pro.com

Also check out: The Morgan-Renzo Piano Building Workshop Project with a Brief History
An ongoing special exhibition of the Morgan renovation and expansion, including a historical survey of the site from the 1850s through today. The expansion project is represented by Piano's drawings, models and photographs. Click here for more information.

Norman Foster
Frequent fliers are likely to have experienced the work of Brit architect Norman Foster since he’s the force behind Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok, one of the world’s busiest airports, as well as London’s Stansted, the city’s budget airline hub. And completed in 2008 was Foster's latest terminal, the dragon-like Beijing International Airport. Other projects in the works include the world’s first private spaceport in New Mexico, the zero-carbon walled Masdar Development in Abu Dhabi and the leisure development, Motor City, in Aragon, Spain. Foster’s – and the world’s – biggest building could be the planned Crystal Island, the 2.5 million square meters ‘city-within-a-building’ planned for Moscow’s Nagatino Peninsula.

On view at: London’s Millennium Bridge, London’s Swiss Re Building, Grand Court of the British Museum, Hearst Building, New York
www.fosterandpartners.com

Left: Rendition of Rem Koolhaas' CCTV Building, Beijing
Right: Herzog and de Meuron's Tate Modern, London, UK

Rem Koolhaas
A scriptwriter and journalist before turning to architecture, Rem Koolhaas is as much an intellectual as an architect. The author of several tomes, Koolhaas created a think-tank arm called AMO to conduct research into areas such as politics, media and technology. His theories have materialized in buildings such as the Seattle Public Library and Prada stores in Los Angeles and New York. His latest icon is the headquarters for China’s state TV firm in Beijing. Having re-imagined the skyscraper, Koolhaas created a square three-dimensional donut, which is sure to be an attention-grabber for years to come.

On view at: Kunsthall Rotterdam, Euralille, Lille, Hermitage Guggenheim at the Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas.
www.oma.eu

Herzog & de Meuron
The Basel-based firm, headed up by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, turned an unused power station into one of the most visited attractions in London: the Tate Modern. The project sealed the duo’s reputation. What followed was a slew of other commissions including the bubble glass-fronted Prada store in Tokyo and Munich’s Allianz Arena, a tire-like football stadium that is lit in different colours depending on the team playing. The firm’s bird’s nest stadium for the Beijing Olympics caused quite a stir last year and this won them the 2009 RIBA Lubetkin Prize.

On view at: Tate Modern, London, de Young Museum, San Francisco and Laban Contemporary Dance Centre in London.

Left: Zaha Hadid's Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Arts, Cincinatti, US
Right: Richard Rogers' Lloyds Building, London, UK

Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid’s early designs – such as the Cardiff Bay Opera House – were never actually built because they were deemed too difficult. She stuck to her ultra-modernist guns and landed the commission for the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati. A rolling ‘Urban Carpet’ beckons visitors into the building, which has two façades – a geometric jigsaw and a streamlined translucent front. The first-ever female Pritzker laureate, Hadid’s other design efforts – such as her ‘floating liquid’ Aqua Table – also promise to be classics. Future Hadid structures include the London 2012 Olympic Aquatics Centre and a performing arts centre in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Cultural District.

On view at: BMW’s Central Building in Leipzig, Germany and Maggie’s Centre in Fife, Scotland (her first U.K. building).
www.zaha-hadid.com

Richard Rogers
The Pompidou Centre, designed with Renzo Piano, set Richard Rogers on the stararchitect path. His subsequent buildings – such as the Lloyds Building in the City of London – share the "inside-out" characteristics of the Parisian landmark. Less lauded is his Millennium Dome, which failed to inspire when it was launched in 2000. In 2007, Rogers was awarded the Pritzker Prize – a long overdue honour in the eyes of his supporters. The Brit is currently working on the expansion of New York’s Jacob K. Javits Center and the city’s East River waterfront revitalization. He also completed Heathrow's Terminal 5, which has been operational since March 2008.

On view at: Pompidou Centre, Madrid Barajas Airport and the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg, France.

www.richardrogers.co.uk

Daniel Libeskind's Denver Art Museum, Denver

Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind’s name was impossible to ignore after he won the competition to redesign the World Trade Center in 2003. Prior to the WTC win, Libeskind’s most famed building was his zigzag Jewish Museum of Berlin. The museum’s physical structure – such as its Holocaust Tower, an unheated, light-starved 24-metre external concrete building – renders the Jewish experience as heartbreakingly as the museum’s exhibits. His angular Denver Art Museum opened in 2007. In 2008, Libeskind added another US museum to his portfolio, the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.

On view at: Jewish Museum of Berlin, Royal Ontario Museum and the Wohl Center, Israel.
www.daniel-libeskind.com

Photo Credits: 1. Getty Center, L.A. by Richard Meier (photo: John Linden)
2. Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao by Frank Ghery (Photo: David M. Heald, © SRGF, New York.)
3. Church of Light, Osaka by Tadao Ando
4. Menil Collection Museum, Houston by Renzo Piano (photo: Paul Hester)
5. CCTV building, Shanghai by Rem Koolhaas (rendition)
6. Tate Modern, London by Herzog & De Meuron (photo: Tate Modern)
7. Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati by Zaha Hadid (photo: Roland Halbe)
8. Lloyds Building, London by Richard Rogers (photo by Richard Bryant/Arcaid)
9. Denver Art Museum, Denver by Daniel Libeskind (Image: Miller Hare)