Internationally acclaimed architect Richard Meier (b. 1934) is known for innovative structures like the Getty Center, Los Angeles; the High Museum, Atlanta; and the Hartford Theological Seminary, Connecticut. In 1984 he was awarded architecture's most prestigious award, the Pritzker Prize. The Jubilee Church in Rome, dedicated on 26 October 2003, is Meier's third religious commission. One of fifty churches planned for the environs of Rome at the turn of the millennium, this building continues Meier's preoccupation with distilled purity of design and the play of light. Its three graceful sails echo the predominance of rounded forms frequently found in the architecture of Rome.


Richard Meier, Jubilee Church. Photo © Alan Karchmer/Esto.

In 2001 Time named Steven Holl (b. 1947) as "America's Best Architect." His commissions respond to the function of each building and its siting, from the bold Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art to the much-anticipated new wing of Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Among Holl's most acclaimed buildings to date is the Chapel of St. Ignatius on the campus of Seattle University, in Seattle, Washington. Dedicated on 7 April 1997, this jewel of a chapel comprises both intimate and vaulted spaces, textured walls and ceilings, and a complex of indirect natural lighting through colored lenses that sends pools of light across the interior surfaces.

Steven Holl, Chapel of St. Ignatius. Photo © Paul Warchol.