User:Armanaziz/Books/AW/Introduction

On May 20, 2006 Globe and Mail Magazine published their list of Seven Architectural Wonders of the world. The author LISA ROCHON made the following comment about the selection:

A list is as incomplete as the unravelling of time. Implicit within the making of one list is the need to make another. To do, to see, to hold, to climb, to cook, to love - we might lose our bearings without something new to conquer. With this in mind, I offer a list of seven architectural wonders that blends the contemporary and modern worlds. Take it for what it is, and as something that may change tomorrow.

Of course, the Seven Wonders of the World - first compiled around 100 BC - was the original architectural list. This most courageous distillation of architectural works surely ignored the most sublime temples, and snubbed entire city-states through the non-inclusion of their monuments. Consider how many feelings were hurt.

What emerged, after centuries of contemplation, was a list that celebrated mass and monumentality, classical form and megalomaniac ambition. Greek poet Antipater of Sidon declared that the Temple of Diana of Ephesus was the ultimate wonder of architecture, while conceding that the Statue of Zeus at Olympia and the Colossus of Rhodes also deserved to make the cut. The Great Pyramid at Giza was included. For Persia, two sites were named: the Tomb of King Mausolus at Halicarnassus and the Walls and Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Later, during the sixth century, Gregory of Tours replaced the Walls of Babylon with the Great Lighthouse of Alexandria, which towered over the island of Pharos in Egypt.

For my list, the dreams of architects such as Etienne-Louis Boullée or Archigram, no matter how seductive their visions on paper, were barred. Architecture, both historic and modern, was considered, but only if the works are still intact and accessible to visitors. Works that have endured for their beauty and clarity, that have annihilated the whims of style, were favoured. There is a concession to grandiose, even stupefying works but, mostly, this is architecture that carries us away the moment we hold it with our eyes.

This Wikibook compiles the seven wikipedia articles on these seven magnificent arcitectural wonders.