“Walden 7” – This very unconventional building was designed by Ricardo Bofill. This was his attempt at what a social housing utopia would look like. The building is based off of B.F. Skinner’s science fiction novel, Walden Two, which depicts a utopian community. The building itself is actually made up of 18 different towers, collectively containing 446 rooms. Bofill attempted to tackle housing and spacing issues, with shops, pools and bars all being made part of the housing.

The Dr Pepper Museum is a very interesting building that was built in 1906. It started off as a bottling building and then eventually turned into a museum. Growing up in Waco, we are all very fond of Dr Pepper, so I always loved going to the museum growing up. The building is a three-story building so there is so much room to run around and explore. The building is just so different than your typical building in downtown Waco, which I always loved. They also have the Frosty’s Soda Shop in the new East Wing Building, where you can find me all summer time getting things like a Dr Pepper float. 

The Waco Hippodrome Theatre is a very interesting building that was built in 1914. It’s a place that I’ve been going to since I was little. I always found it to be such an interesting place growing up. I always loved going because you get served dinner while watching a movie, so it was always such a fun experience for me. It is by far one of my most favorite places to go in Waco. The outside of the building just draws your attention, especially at night when it is all lit up. It is a very inviting building that makes anybody walking by want to enter. 

When you first enter the church its truly incredible. It has these big silver doors and it is very welcoming. It is hard to describe the feeling of actually being able to sit through a mass there. I feel like it is very different for everyone that goes there. For me it is just something that I have grown up around and its hard to explain the type of feeling it gives me. If anything it is just home for me.

“La Fabrica” – This incredible building was designed by Ricardo Bofill. This building was actually a remodeling of an unused cement factory, for which Bofill found his inspiration. What I find most fascinating is that most of the original structure is intact, and simply built around or remodeled. This building is now utilized as both the head office of his architecture firm, as well as his home. The building is surrounded and covered by vegetation, which helps it look far more appealing.

While this picture doesn’t contain the beautiful architecture that exists at the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C., I find this one the most symbolic of my memories with this place. Not long after the World Trade Center attacks, my parents took my brother and me to Washington D.C. for Independence Day, and one of the places that we visited was the Arlington National Cemetery. It has several beautiful pieces of architecture, including an amphitheater and the Arlington House, where Robert E. Lee lived before the American Civil War. My dad is a former Marine (and now my brother is a Marine), and with that, I’ve never experienced something as humbling as this place in all the rest of my life. Even as a kid, it made me feel a tremendous sense of gratitude, and reflecting on it afterwards gave me a new perspective of the kinds of things in my life that I, like most people, took for granted.

Daniel Libeskind was the lead architect for the Zlota 44 building located in Warsaw, Poland.  The building is one of the tallest residential buildings in Poland, at 192 meters high, with almost 300 apartments from floors 9 – 52. The building is styled in Deconstructivism, a styled that is known not to have uniform shapes but rather controlled chaos. This can be seen by the rising curved faces on the building and in the sharpness of the edges.  Currently, the building advertises as one of the leading luxury hotels in Poland, with several common area, indoor/outdoor pools, saunas, a wine cellar with over 1000 wines, and beautiful views of the surrounding city.   Libeskind tower seems to dominate the skyline with its beautiful design versus the plain other towers in Warsaw.

One of Americas most famous architects, Frank Lloyd Wright, was well ahead of his time with his works. Many of his buildings would not look out of place now even though they where built up to 80+ years ago.  His use of windows and clear cut levels produce a clean and organized design. I never would have guessed that the building above, the Fallingwater home, was built in 1938.  An example of his work can even be found in Oklahoma with the Price Tower in Bartlesville. Wright was also fairly prolific while he was working, having over 500 structures built with his designs.

St. Fidelis is a lot like the other churches that we learned about in class in the fact that it is shaped like a cross when it was built. However, like most of the old churches it does not let a whole lot of light into the church. The biggest window it has is right at the front and even then it does not let a lot of light through. This church is something that brings back a lot of childhood memories spent going to church every morning with my grandma as a young boy.

St. Fidelis is a Catholic church in Victoria, Kansas that a grew up going to. St. Fidelis is one of the 8 wonders of Kansas and was built by German Mennonites. They built the whole church by hand and is something that is just incredible. My grandparents live their now and its really neat because you can go to the church and see the people from all around the world that come to visit the church. It is truly remarkable.