Contemporary Architecture is More Common Than You Think — Here's How to Spot It (2024)

Contemporary architecture refers to buildings that date from the late 20th century through the present day. Rather than describing a uniform style, contemporary buildings are characterized by features such as unadorned facades, asymmetrical or non-linear forms, and large volumes.

These structures often look radically different from one another and sometimes from anything that has come before, thanks to myriad innovations in building materials and techniques.

Notable contemporary 21st-century "starchitects" including Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Tadao Ando, Shigeru Ban, Santiago Calatrava, and the late Zaha Hadid are known for ambitious large-scale buildings rendered in unconventional, sometimes gravity-defying shapes.

This includes Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA or Nouvel’s Philharmonie de Paris as well as private residences such as the Hadid-designed luxury condominiums at 520 West 28th Street overlooking New York City’s High Line.

But contemporary architecture also finds expression in more modest buildings such as the spheroid-shaped sustainable Ecocapsule tiny house from Slovakia designed for off-grid living anywhere in the world; a mirrored treehouse hotel in a Swedish forest; or residential family houses in suburban America.

Characteristics of Contemporary Architecture

Here are some key elements to help you identify a contemporary building:

• Asymmetry
• Curved lines
• Rounded forms
• Unconventional volumes
• Free-form shapes
• Open floor plans
• Large, abundant windows
• Green roofs, living walls
• Sustainable building practices
• Minimalist interior design
  

History of Contemporary Architecture

Contemporary architecture isn’t defined by a single style but is unified in its imperative to be unconventional and to break with the past using innovation and imagination rather than replicating older styles.

The era of contemporary architecture is generally thought to have begun sometime after the modern period of the roughly first half of the 20th century, and the postmodern period from the 1960s to the '90s.

Therefore, buildings from the late 20th century to the present moment might be referred to as works of contemporary architecture.

Contemporary architects are no longer limited to linear forms as they now have at their disposal an arsenal of innovative materials and building methods. This includes the ability to design computer-generated curves, or employ laser-cutting technology and 3D printing to build more challenging, precise and unprecedented forms.

What might once have seemed impossibly futuristic and purely conceptual is now achievable as a new generation of buildings that seem to defy logic, gravity, and often the boundaries of what is considered conventional good taste crop up around the world.

Sustainability is an important feature of contemporary architecture, with the use of recycled and natural materials and attention to water and temperature control building systems that are ever more seamlessly integrated and considered.

This is vital in light of the climate change emergency that is in part a result of the environmental damage caused by buildings, which in the U.S. accounted for 39 percent of CO2 emissions in 2011.

Interesting Facts About Contemporary Architecture

One of the most confusing things about trying to define contemporary architecture is the fact that it is often labeled as “modern.” A new build can be modern without being contemporary and a contemporary building can be modern in the temporal sense of the word.

And of course, a new build can be modern, contemporary, or simply neither if it’s merely a copy of an earlier period style. The fact that real estate professionals, popular home renovation and house-hunting shows, and many online sources misuse the words doesn’t help.

In 2017, the Royal Mail commissioned a stamp collection featuring 10 of the most well-known public buildings from the previous 20 years, to celebrate the UK’s “renaissance of contemporary architecture.”

The stamps featured photos by architectural photographers Hufton + Crow of buildings such as the London Aquatics Centre, Edinburgh’s Scottish Parliament, and the Tate Modern in London.