Architecture: light, glass and nature

An English architect, born in London in 1800 and died in 1881, Decimus Burton designed the Hyde Park Corner arch, the Athenaeum and terraces in Regent's Park, then, at Kew, the Palm House with the ironfounder Richard Turner and the Temperate House.

A Chinese-American architect (Canton, 1917 – New York, 2019) and 1983 Pritzker Prize laureate, I. M. Pei worked with geometry, glass and light, from the Louvre pyramid to the Miho Museum, the Suzhou Museum and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha.

A gardener turned architect, born in Bedfordshire in 1803 and died in Sydenham in 1865, Joseph Paxton designed the Chatsworth glasshouses and then the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, a modular iron-and-glass building, and laid out Birkenhead Park.

Born in La Chaux-de-Fonds (Switzerland) in 1887 and naturalised French, Le Corbusier is the author of the Plan Voisin, the Modulor and the five points of a new architecture, and of works ranging from the Villa Savoye to the Unité d'Habitation in Marseille and the chapel at Ronchamp; seventeen of his sites have been on UNESCO's World Heritage List since 2016.

A British architect (Hove, 1939 – 2025), founder of the practice Grimshaw, who presided over the Royal Academy of Arts between 2004 and 2011, Nicholas Grimshaw worked with steel and lightweight skins, from the Waterloo International Terminal to the Eden Project biomes; his practice later designed the Ecorium in Seocheon and the Oman Botanic Garden.

A Dublin ironfounder and builder (born around 1798, died 1881), Richard Turner made the Hammersmith Ironworks at Ballsbridge a maker of iron-and-glass glasshouses, from the Palm House at Kew, with Decimus Burton, to those of Belfast and Glasnevin.

A self-taught architect born in Osaka in 1941 and Pritzker Prize laureate in 1995, Tadao Ando works with smooth concrete, light, water and landscape, from the Row House in Sumiyoshi and the Church of the Light to the Naoshima museums, the Langen Foundation and the Bourse de Commerce in Paris.

A Belgian architect (Ghent, 1861 – Brussels, 1947), Victor Horta made light, iron and glass the heart of his Art Nouveau houses, after training with Alphonse Balat, architect of the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken.