The Most Beautiful Buildings Seen on Screen in the World

47 places in 15 countries · updated 14 October 2026

1. 01 Colosseum

   Colosseo

   Italy · 1.2 km from Rome41.890° N 12.492° E

   

   The eighty-foot drop beneath the Colosseum's sand floor is where the real machinery of the show lived.

   Did you know? Since 2000, Rome has lit the Colosseum in gold whenever a death sentence anywhere in the world is commuted.

   More about Colosseum →

2. 02 Louvre Museum

   Musée du Louvre

   France · 1.3 km from Paris48.861° N 2.336° E

   

   The Louvre is less a building than a stack of eight centuries. Philip II began a fortress here in the late 12th century to guard Paris from the west, and its lower walls can still be seen in the museum's basement. Charles V turned the fortress into a residence.

   Did you know? The museum was renamed Musée Napoléon in 1802, when Vivant Denon became its first director.

   More about Louvre Museum →

3. 03 Taipei 101

   Taiwan · 0.4 km from Taipei25.034° N 121.565° E

   

   The single most photographed part of Taipei 101 isn't visible from the street. Between the 87th and 92nd floors hangs a bright yellow steel sphere weighing 660 tonnes — the largest tuned mass damper ever installed in a building, and one of the few designed to be seen rather than hidden.

   Did you know? In January 2026 Alex Honnold climbed the outside of the tower without ropes in about an hour and a half, in an authorised free solo.

   More about Taipei 101 →

4. 04 Petronas Towers

   Malaysia · 3.2 km from Kuala Lumpur3.158° N 101.712° E

   

   9 metres. The Argentine-American architect César Pelli designed them for the Malaysian state oil company. He deliberately drew on Islamic geometry: each tower's floor plan is an eight-pointed star made of two overlapping squares, with rounded lobes fitted into the angles to gain office space. The steel and glass cladding repeats the pattern as it steps up towards the spires.

   Did you know? Climber Alain Robert was stopped at the 60th floor in 1997 and again ten years later, before scaling Tower Two barehanded in 2009.

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5. 05 Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

   Spain · 2.1 km from Bilbao43.269° N 2.934° W

   

   Frank Gehry's museum on the Nervión is the building that gave architecture a phrase: the "Bilbao effect", the idea that one daring cultural project can turn round a declining industrial city. In 1991 the Basque Government offered to pay for a Guggenheim museum on the run-down riverside port land, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation agreed to run it. King Juan Carlos I opened it on 18 October 1997.

   Did you know? The museum appears in the pre-title sequence of the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough.

   More about Guggenheim Museum Bilbao →

6. 06 La Scala

   Teatro alla Scala

   Italy · 1.2 km from Milan45.468° N 9.189° E

   

   La Scala in Milan is, for many, simply the opera house — the place where a singer's career is made or broken. It opened on 3 August 1778 with Antonio Salieri's Europa riconosciuta, built after fire destroyed the old ducal theatre, and it takes its name from the church of Santa Maria della Scala that was demolished to make room for it.

   Did you know? In its early decades the theatre also served as a casino, with gambling going on in the foyer while operas played in the hall.

   More about La Scala →

7. 07 Eiffel Tower

   Tour Eiffel

   France · 4.3 km from Paris48.858° N 2.294° E

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   The tower's basic shape wasn't originally Gustave Eiffel's idea at all. Two engineers working inside Eiffel's own company, Émile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin, sketched the concept for an enormously tall iron tower in June 1884, intended as the centrepiece for the 1889 World's Fair marking the centenary of the French Revolution. Eiffel reportedly found Koechlin's earliest, bare-bones sketch unconvincing.

   Did you know? According to a popular anecdote, Guy de Maupassant lunched at the tower daily because it was the one place in Paris he could not see it.

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8. 08 Natural History Museum

   United Kingdom · 4 km from London51.496° N 0.176° W

   

   South Kensington's great terracotta building was designed as a cathedral of nature, and it still reads like one. Alfred Waterhouse took over the commission after Captain Francis Fowke, winner of the 1864 design competition, died in 1865, and reworked it in his own round-arched Romanesque manner. Construction ran from 1873 to 1880 and the museum opened on 18 April 1881.

   Did you know? Workmen building the 1938 life-size blue whale model left a trapdoor in its belly for secret cigarette breaks, and sealed coins and a telephone directory inside.

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9. 09 St Pancras railway station

   United Kingdom · 3.2 km from London51.530° N 0.125° W

   

   St Pancras is two buildings that happen to be one: a vast iron train shed and, in front of it, a red-brick Gothic hotel that looks like a cathedral. The Midland Railway built the station after its trains were stuck for months on other companies' lines into London during the 1862 exhibition.

   Did you know? In 1978 British Rail tried to sell the original Dent clock, but it shattered during removal and went to a retiring guard, Roland Hoggard, for £25.

   More about St Pancras railway station →

10. 10 Château de Chambord

    France47.616° N 1.517° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    Francis I commissioned this in 1519, at 25 years old, ostensibly as a hunting lodge — and then let it grow into a 440-room palace ringed by a wall roughly 32 kilometres long, enclosing what remains Europe's largest walled forest. Deer, wild boar, roe deer and Corsican mouflon still roam inside that boundary today, essentially free, exactly as they were meant to five centuries ago.

    Did you know? The château counts 282 fireplaces and 84 staircases, and its roofline bristles with eleven kinds of towers and three types of chimneys.

    More about Château de Chambord →

11. 11 Palace of Versailles

    Château de Versailles

    France · 1.1 km from Versailles48.805° N 2.120° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    Versailles began as a small brick-and-stone hunting lodge that Louis XIII built in 1623 amid marshes southwest of Paris, a building contemporaries mocked as a house of cards. His son turned it into the stage set of absolute monarchy.

    Did you know? Water was too scarce to run every fountain at once, so fountaineers whistled to each other as the king approached and shut each one off after he passed.

    More about Palace of Versailles →

12. 12 Hagia Sophia

    Ayasofya

    Turkey · 1.1 km from Istanbul41.008° N 28.980° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    The building that stands today was put up in barely five years. In January 532 the Nika riots burned down the previous church on the site, and within weeks Emperor Justinian I had started a far more ambitious replacement, designed by two scholars rather than master masons: Anthemius of Tralles, a mathematician, and Isidore of Miletus, a geometer. It was dedicated in 537.

    Did you know? Envoys of the Kievan Rus' prince reported that inside they could not tell whether they were in heaven or on earth, a verdict tied to Rus' conversion to Orthodoxy.

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13. 13 Metropolitan Museum of Art

    United States · 7 km from New York City40.779° N 73.963° W

    

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art occupies almost a quarter of a mile of Fifth Avenue along the eastern edge of Central Park, and inside it holds something close to the whole history of art. 5 million works across 17 curatorial departments, from Palaeolithic flints to contemporary painting.

    More about Metropolitan Museum of Art →

14. 14 Forbidden City

    People's Republic of China · 1.6 km from Beijing39.916° N 116.391° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    For almost five centuries the Forbidden City was the physical centre of the Chinese state. The Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty began it in 1406, after moving the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, and the complex was ready by 1420; from then until 1912 twenty-four emperors, fourteen Ming and ten Qing, lived and ruled here.

    Did you know? The Last Emperor of 1987 was the first feature film the People's Republic of China ever allowed to be shot inside the palace.

    More about Forbidden City →

15. 15 Burj Khalifa

    United Arab Emirates · 2.3 km from Dubai25.197° N 55.274° E

    

    8 metres to the tip of its spire, the Burj Khalifa has been the tallest building on Earth since it opened in January 2010, taking the title from Taipei 101. It rises out of Downtown Dubai beside Sheikh Zayed Road, and it was conceived less as an office tower than as the anchor of an entire new district: the Dubai Mall, an artificial lake, hotels and residential blocks were all planned around it.

    Did you know? During Ramadan, residents above the 150th floor break their fast a few minutes later than those at street level, because they see the sun set later.

    More about Burj Khalifa →

16. 16 Teatro di San Carlo

    Italy · 0.8 km from Naples40.837° N 14.250° E

    

    Naples' royal opera house opened on 4 November 1737, the name day of its patron, the Bourbon king Charles, with Domenico Sarro's Achille in Sciro. Designed by the Sicilian architect Giovanni Antonio Medrano and fitted out by Angelo Carasale, it replaced an older theatre that no longer suited a capital with ambitions, and it was built directly against the Royal Palace.

    Did you know? With no curtains on any of its 184 boxes, the original hall ensured that no member of the audience could escape the king's gaze.

    More about Teatro di San Carlo →

17. 17 The Shard

    United Kingdom · 2.2 km from London51.504° N 0.087° W

    

    6 m over London Bridge station, the tallest building in the United Kingdom and in Western Europe.

    Did you know? The tower appeared on screen before it existed: Children of Men, released in 2006 and set in 2027, added it to London's skyline with a model and CGI.

    More about The Shard →

18. 18 Neuschwanstein Castle

    Schloss Neuschwanstein

    Germany47.557° N 10.749° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    The name suggests a medieval stronghold; the building is closer to a 19th-century stage set with plumbing. Ludwig II commissioned it in 1868, right after the Austro-Prussian War had stripped Bavaria of real independence and left him a king with a crown but shrinking power — and what he built instead of political influence was a retreat modelled on the operas of Richard Wagner, whom he'd idolised since adolescence.

    Did you know? Ludwig II spent only 172 days in the palace he had dreamed of, and it was called New Hohenschwangau until after his death.

    More about Neuschwanstein Castle →

19. 19 Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg

    France48.249° N 7.344° E

    

    Haut-Koenigsbourg stands on a sandstone spur at 757 metres in the Vosges, above the Alsace plain, and on a clear day it can be seen from as far away as Colmar. The rock was first recorded under Charlemagne. By 1147 the Hohenstaufen dukes of Swabia had a castle here, built without permission on land that belonged to the abbey of Saint-Denis, and by the 1190s it was called Königsburg, the "King's Castle".

    Did you know? Hayao Miyazaki's 2004 animated film Howl's Moving Castle drew inspiration from Haut-Koenigsbourg.

    More about Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg →

20. 20 Château de Vincennes

    France · 6.3 km from Paris48.843° N 2.436° E

    

    The Château de Vincennes holds the tallest medieval keep in Europe, and its walls enclose seven centuries of French history on the eastern edge of Paris. Louis VII founded a royal hunting residence in the forest here in 1178, and Saint Louis used it often; he said farewell to his family at Vincennes before leaving on the crusade from which he did not return.

    More about Château de Vincennes →

21. 21 Topkapı Palace

    Turkey · 1 km from Istanbul41.013° N 28.984° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    For almost four centuries the Ottoman Empire was governed from a headland at the very tip of old Istanbul. Mehmed II began Topkapı Palace in 1459, a few years after taking Constantinople, on Seraglio Point, where the Golden Horn opens into the Bosphorus and both meet the Sea of Marmara.

    Did you know? The palace stands on the site of the acropolis of ancient Byzantion, and parts of its outer walls date back to Byzantine times.

    More about Topkapı Palace →

22. 22 Empire State Building

    United States · 3.1 km from New York City40.748° N 73.986° W

    

    The Empire State Building is the skyscraper against which other tall buildings are still measured, and it earned that status in a single burst of work at the start of the Great Depression. It stands on the west side of Fifth Avenue between 33rd and 34th Streets, on the site of the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

    Did you know? On 28 July 1945 a B-25 bomber flying in thick fog struck the north face between the 78th and 80th floors, killing 14 people.

    More about Empire State Building →

23. 23 Hampton Court Palace

    United Kingdom · 18.8 km from London51.403° N 0.337° W

    

    Hampton Court is two palaces in one: a red-brick Tudor palace of turreted gatehouses, twisted chimneys and a great hall, and, grafted onto it, a Baroque palace by Sir Christopher Wren built to answer Versailles. Set beside the Thames about 19 km south-west of central London, it was begun in 1514 by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Henry VIII's chief minister, who meant it to be the finest house in England.

    Did you know? Henry VIII was so impatient for his Great Hall that the masons were made to work through the night by candlelight.

    More about Hampton Court Palace →

24. 24 Milano Centrale

    Stazione di Milano Centrale

    Italy · 1.5 km from Milan45.486° N 9.204° E

    

    Milano Centrale is less a railway station than a monument to arrival. Its main front, facing Piazza Duca d'Aosta, stretches about 200 metres wide and some 50 metres high, a massive stone wall of arches, columns, reliefs and sculpture that reads more like a palace or a temple than a place to catch a train.

    Did you know? Its cornerstone was laid by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1906, years before any design for the building had actually been chosen.

    More about Milano Centrale →

25. 25 Kroměříž Castle

    Czech Republic · 20.3 km from Zlín49.300° N 17.393° E

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    For centuries the small Moravian town of Kroměříž was the summer seat of the bishops — from 1777 archbishops — of Olomouc, and their residence here, together with two very different gardens, was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1998. UNESCO's reasoning is candid: the palace is a fine but typical princely residence; what is rare is the Baroque garden layout that survives around it almost intact.

    More about Kroměříž Castle →

26. 26 Windsor Castle

    United Kingdom · 26.1 km from Reading51.484° N 0.604° W

    

    Windsor Castle has been a royal residence for more than nine centuries, which makes it the longest-occupied palace in Europe and the largest castle in the world that is still lived in. Its plan is the one William the Conqueror laid down in the decade after 1066: a motte-and-bailey castle with its wards gathered around a central mound, on a ridge above the Thames.

    Did you know? Edward III spent £51,000 rebuilding Windsor between 1350 and 1377, the largest sum any medieval English king spent on a single building project.

    More about Windsor Castle →

27. 27 Anne Frank House

    Kingdom of the Netherlands · 3.3 km from Amsterdam52.375° N 4.884° E

    

    From the street, Prinsengracht 263 is an ordinary Amsterdam canal house: built in 1635, refaced in 1740, used over the centuries as a home, a stable-fronted warehouse and a workshop. What makes it one of the most visited museums in the Netherlands is the building behind it.

    More about Anne Frank House →

28. 28 Blenheim Palace

    United Kingdom · 12.6 km from Oxford51.841° N 1.361° W

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    Blenheim Palace, at Woodstock in Oxfordshire, was the nation's reward to John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, for his victory over the French and Bavarians at Blenheim in 1704. The Crown gave him the old royal manor of Woodstock, Parliament voted money, and work began in 1705; the palace was finished in 1722.

    Did you know? Blenheim has appeared more than seventy times in film and television productions.

    More about Blenheim Palace →

29. 29 Estates Theatre

    Stavovské divadlo

    Czech Republic · 0.1 km from Prague50.086° N 14.424° E

    

    Prague's Estates Theatre is the one working playhouse in the world where Mozart himself conducted the first performance of an opera still in the repertoire.

    Did you know? During the 1983–1991 reconstruction the red, white and gold auditorium was redone in white, gold and blue, shortly after Miloš Forman had filmed Amadeus there.

    More about Estates Theatre →

30. 30 British Museum

    United Kingdom · 2 km from London51.519° N 0.127° W

    

    The British Museum, in the Bloomsbury district of London, was founded in 1753 as the first public national museum in the world and opened to visitors in 1759. It grew from the collection of the physician Sir Hans Sloane, who left some 71,000 objects to the nation, and it now holds about eight million objects covering human history from its earliest tools to the present.

    More about British Museum →