As we currently approach the end of a great 2017, it is time to be looking forward into the future. We previously posted an article with the top 20 interior designers for 2018, and now it is time to pay homage to the best architects in the world. Thus, in this article, CovetED will give you a curated list of the top 20 architects for 2018 for you to take notes and enjoy their work in the future to come.

⇒ Related Article: CovetED Presents the top 20 Interior Designers for 2018 ⇐

1- Alvaro Siza Vieira

Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira is a cult favourite among architects. Lately, the 1992 Pritzker Prize laureate is, at the age of 83, working on his first building in the United States.

2- Kengo Kuma

The Japanese architect Kengo Kuma hit the news at the end of last year after winning a competition to design a new National Stadium in Tokyo, which will serve as the centrepiece of the 2020 Olympics.

3-  Rem Koolhaas/OMA

This year, the Dutch architect made the news more often than his office, with his pronouncements on the death of Zaha Hadid, the UK’s Brexit vote and the architecture profession’s communication problems proving himself more popular than OMA‘s architecture.

4- Santiago Calatrava

The author of the new World Trade Center transportation hub had more success elsewhere (rather than the controversial transportation hub), completing a major science museum in Rio de Janeiro, being selected to design a colossal Dubai observation tower and unveiling a design for a Dubai Expo 2020 pavilion.

5- Sou Fujimoto

The Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto is best known for the ephemeral Serpentine Gallery Pavilion he built in 2013. This year he created an even more intangible installation for fashion brand COS that was literally smoke and mirrors – and light.

6- SANAA

The Japanese duo Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA enjoy a cult-like status in the architecture world, despite the fact they are publicity shy and haven’t built as prolifically as some of their famous peers.

7- Renzo Piano

This year Piano’s firm, Renzo Piano Building Workshop developed designs for a 25-storey apartment tower in New York and a 17-storey beachfront condo block in Miami.

8- Peter Zomthorp

Swiss architect Peter Zumthor is a walking riddle: he runs a small firm, rarely gives interviews, doesn’t build much and doesn’t even have a website. And yet, he built a reputation for severe, uncompromising work. Zumthor has cult status, and his low profile and output compared to the prolific starchitects is no doubt a large part of his appeal.

9-  Norman Foster/Foster + Partners

Foster + Partners, headed by Norman Foster, is one of the most prolific architecture offices out there. One of the firm’s latest projects was a super slender luxury residential tower in downtown Manhattan.

10- MVRDV

The firm excels at the unexpected architectural gesture. The most popular this year was the giant temporary scaffolding staircase it built in Rotterdam to mark the 75th anniversary of its home city’s post-war reconstruction.

11- John Pawson

The previous year saw the London-based designer complete one of his most eagerly awaited projects – a holiday home for Living Architecture, the company launched by Alain de Botton to promote contemporary architecture.

12- Herzog & de Meuron

Their formally diverse output showed no signs of letting up this year, with their Jenga-like 56 Leonard residential tower nearing completion in New York and their Ziggurat-shaped extension to Tate Modern opening in London.

13- Frank Gehry

At the end of 2014, the Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based architect described 98 percent of the new buildings are “pure shit” and stuck his middle finger up at a group of journalists. Gehry, at the age of 87, managed to build on this newfound reputation with a handful of controversial new projects. These included a master plan for the revitalisation of the Los Angeles River, which was furiously criticised by a local landscape architect, and a huge development along LA’s famous Sunset Strip.

14- David Chipperfield

His output is as prolific and global as some of his starchitect rivals, yet his studio comes across as more of a boutique operation rather than a corporate one.

15- Bjarke Ingles

This was the year that young Danish architect Bjarke Ingels became a critically acclaimed international superstar. Time Magazine named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people and published a citation by his former boss Rem Koolhaas, who described Ingels as “the embodiment of a fully fledged new typology, which is the perfect response to the current zeitgeist.”

16- Alejandro Aravena / Elemental

Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena was relatively unknown until this year when he achieved the double tap of winning the Pritzker Prize and curating the Venice Architecture Biennale.

17- Snøhetta

It was a busy year for Snøhetta, the Oslo and New York-based firm led by architects Craig Dykers and Kjetil Trædal Thorsen. They completed one of their most important projects to date, a major extension to the Mario Botta-designed San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), which more than tripled its gallery space.

18- Vo Trong Nghia

Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia is fast establishing himself as one of the leading global players. The Ho Chi Minh City-based architect is perhaps best known for his pioneering work with bamboo, but over the last year, Nghia displayed a penchant for plants, unveiling several building proposals set to feature greenery in every space possible.

19- Toyo Ito

Ito, 75, was one of a number of architects that campaigned against Zaha Hadid’s competition-winning design, so when it was scrapped last year, it was no surprise to see him on the shortlist for a replacement architect. Although in the end, he lost out to Kengo Kuma.

20- Tadao Ando

The self-taught architect has been in practice since 1968 but his work – characterised by the use of raw concrete, dramatic play of natural light, forms that follow the landscape and an often complex interplay of interior and exterior spaces – continues to be both prolific and popular.

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Source: Dezeen Hotlist