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Architecture is symbiotically linked to the flow of money, and so it was a topsy-turvy decade, beginning in exuberance, and ending with talk that perhaps the days of the great mega-project were over. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, inspired speculation about the future of the skyscraper, but the jitters passed quickly and the race to be the world’s tallest building continued — in such places as Taiwan and Shanghai, and now Dubai. Even so, security fears had a severe and depressing effect on architecture, taking their greatest toll on public and government structures, such as embassies, which became even more fortress-like and forbidding than ever.

Perhaps the greatest and most encouraging architectural trend was the widespread acceptance of new and green building technologies, and the pervasive use of a common environmental standard to judge sustainability.

But if you wanted to describe what the buildings of the past decade looked like, you’d be hard-pressed to settle on any particular description.

A cool, sleek, almost chilly modernism prevailed among some designers, while others pursued exuberant and dazzling forms.

Museums went through a great age of expansion, though as the decade ends, it’s not clear if they may also be in for a new age of overextension hangover.

The “starchitect,” a neologism that seemed to define the decade, also became something of a dirty word, as momentum grew for a new kind of modesty and problem-solving, rather than flamboyance and busted budgets.
The Best

Tate Modern

Two of the best buildings of the decade came from the Swiss architecture firm Herzog and de Meuron. In 2000, they opened the Tate Modern, a vast extension of the venerable London museum, which repurposed a once-grim and dour power plant on the banks of the Thames. The place bustles with all the right kinds of energy.

Beijing National Stadium

Or just call it the Bird’s Nest. Herzog and de Meuron’s steel fantasy defined the over-hyped, media-saturated, authoritarian 2008 Summer Olympics, and redefined the possibilities of the mass sports venue.

Disney Hall

Frank Gehry built a lot of problematic buildings over the past decade, but with this new home for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he got just about everything right. Its exuberance and metallic sheen recalls his chef-d’oeuvre, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, but Disney Hall also captures the energy and spirit of an orchestra looking for new directions in the 21st century.

Seattle Public Library

Locals aren’t entirely sold on this 2004 glass behemoth designed by Rem Koolhaas, and you can’t deny that it is a startling, even terrifying, building. But need to do some research? This is a lovely place to read, to wander the stacks, to look out upon a city where the weather is half the drama. It works.

Alice Tully Hall

The redesign of this 1969 structure by the New York-based firm Diller Scofidio and Renfro should be studied carefully by anyone interested in making Washington’s Kennedy Center a more urban, more dynamic, more fun place. To bring the street in, and the art out, the architects literally cut the Lincoln Center open. Nothing they did harmed the spirit of Pietro Belluschi’s original, and everything touched got better.

The Worst

The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal

Sure, there were a lot of Wal-Marts thrown up in the Aughts, but Daniel Libeskind’s addition to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto surpasses the ugliness of bland functional buildings by being both ugly and useless. And it cost only $250 million.

The Washington Post