Paul Goldberger, the New Yorker's architecture critic, lists his ten favorite buildings of 2008.
In time for the 2008 Olympics, the world saw the fruits of China's decision to put aside nationalism, hire the greatest architects from around the world, and let them do the kind of things they could never afford to do at home. That brought us two of the greatest buildings of the year, Herzog and de Meuron's extraordinary Olympic Stadium, the stunning steel latticework structure widely known as the Bird's Nest; and Norman Foster's Beijing Airport, a project that was not only bigger than any other airport in the world, but more beautiful, more logically laid out, and more quickly built. And the headquarters of CCTV, the Chinese television network, by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren, of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture -- a building which I had thought was going to be a pretentious piece of structural exhibitionism -- turned out to be a compelling and exciting piece of structural exhibitionism.
Big disagree on Eliasson's NYC waterfalls...they were underwhelming.