The people who shape our world.

At 88 he still shapes light and public space with a craftsman's humility, proving great buildings can also be generous civic gifts.

He fused engineering rigor with soaring optimism, and at 91 still leads a global studio pushing architecture toward a cleaner future.

He treats each site as its own story, and few architects make sunlight itself feel like a material to be composed.

A former boxer who taught himself architecture, at 84 he still designs on four continents with monastic clarity and calm.

With Pierre de Meuron he turns ordinary materials into wonder, reinventing what a museum or stadium can feel like.

He proves great design serves people in crisis too, building dignified shelter for refugees from cardboard and care.

He redesigned social housing so families can finish and grow their own homes, sharing his designs openly for anyone to use.

He champions quiet, lasting buildings over spectacle, and reinvests his practice in the public good through his Fundacion RIA.

He returned home to build a school from local clay and hands, showing how architecture can lift an entire village.

He designs homes and campuses that gently invite neighbors to meet, treating community as the heart of good building.

Her motto never demolish gives residents more light and space at lower cost, a quietly radical act of respect.

At 89 he still works alone, hand-drawing homes so attuned to sun and wind that they need almost no machinery to live in.

He builds slowly and rarely, chasing the exact feel of stone, water, and shadow until a space moves you to stillness.

With Ryue Nishizawa she makes architecture feel like air and light, a generous softness rare in a world of hard edges.

He never stopped experimenting, and through his nonprofit institute he pours that restless energy into the next generation.

He dreamed up Habitat 67 at 23 to give every apartment a garden, and at 88 still builds cities that feel human.

She calls architecture a form of portraiture, giving art and the people who view it a calm, dignified place to breathe.

She pairs a warm, livable modernism with leadership of a great school, mentoring the architects who come after her.

His hedonistic sustainability makes green design joyful, turning a waste plant into a public ski hill people love.

He campaigns for buildings that make people feel something, insisting the human emotion of a place is worth fighting for.

He works to erase the harshness of concrete with wood and craft, letting buildings feel soft, local, and alive.

She designs buildings that connect people to each other and to nature, treating architecture as an act of relationship.