This post will include three of the most enjoyable buildings in Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Paris.
1. Casa Mila by Antonio Gaudi, Barcelona, Spain.
With it’s undulating façade and surrealist sculptural roof, Antoni Gaudi’s Casa Milà appears more organic than artificial, as if it was carved straight from the ground. It is known as La Pedera and it was constructed in 1912, the building was inspired by the Modernism movement, Spain’s version of Art Nouveau.
The building is divided into nine levels, and surrounds two interior courtyards. On the roof, there is the famous sculpture terrace. Practically, it houses skylights, emergency stairs, fans, and chimneys.
Structurally, the building is divided between structure and skin. The stone façade has no load-bearing function. Steel beams with the same curvature support the facade’s weight by attaching to the structure. This allowed Gaudi to design the façade without structural constraints, and ultimately enabled his conception of a continuously curved façade.
Gaudi was a genius of structure and form, and the Casa Milà attests to that.
2. Architecture Center Amsterdam by Rene van Zuuk Architeckten, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
ARCAM is a very futuristic-looking building, it was established in 1986 with the aim of bringing architecture to a broader public as well as to highlight architectural issues and developments in Amsterdam.
The different facades all have their own distinctive perspective. For example the folded skin combined with the beveling glass facade results in a spectacular entrance. The peculiar sculptural shape of the pavilion is unobtrusiveness and small. The zinc-coated aluminum strips form a continuous plane curling itself all around the building mass.
3. Center Pompidou by Renzo Piano/Richard Rogers, Paris, France.
Centre Pompidou is Europe’s largest museum for modern art, it was constructed in 1977 A.D. The design concept was exposing all the infrastructure of the building. The skeleton itself engulfs the building from its exterior, showing all of the different mechanical and structure systems not only so that they could be understood but also to maximize the interior space without interruptions. 
One of the “movement” elements that the center is most known for is the escalator (painted red on the bottom) on the western facade, a tube that zigzags up to the top of the building providing visitors with an astonishing view of the city of Paris. The different systems on the exterior of the building are painted different colors to distinguish their different roles. 
The structure and largest ventilation components were painted white, stairs and elevator structures were painted a silver gray, ventilation was painted blue, plumbing and fire control piping painted green, the electrical elements are yellow and orange, and the elevator motor rooms and shafts, or the elements that allow for movement throughout the building, are painted red. This east elevation was difficult to photograph as the street is too narrow compared to the building height, and thats why it was shoot as close ups.
Radwa Omar . blog 