Architects and their favourite buildings – in pictures

Clare Wright at Glasgow School of Art, where she studied architecture. The building, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 'is complex but the construction detailing is simple. It is robust literally and figuratively,' Wright told Building Design Photograph: Ed Tyler

Edgar Gonzalez in the Communist party headquarters, Paris, created by Oscar Niemeyer between 1967 and 1980. 'It’s an anomaly to find this kind of architecture in the historic centres of European cities,' says Gonzalez Photograph: Ed Tyler

Ted Cullinan in the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, France, designed by Le Corbusier. 'A wondrously calm place' Photograph: Ed Tyler

David West and Christophe Egret at Zollverein coalmine, Essen, regenerated by OMA. West says the mine is now 'a type of post-industrial environment that isn’t sanitised through regeneration, but instead uses landscape and narrative to create a rich new platform for sustainable development' Photograph: Ed Tyler

Gerard Maccreanor in the Piraeus building, Amsterdam, designed by Hans Kollhoff with Christian Rapp. 'Piraeus is not stylistically traditional but it is continually referencing the past' Photograph: Ed Tyler

Jon Buck and Dominic Cullinan at Stirling & Gowan's Engineering Building, Leicester University. Cullinan says it is 'a very visceral building, almost intestinal with its blood colours and oesophagus staircases complete with fluid pipes running up inside them – like an anatomical diagram occupied' Photograph: Ed Tyler

David Kohn in Villa Necchi Campiglio, Milan. Designed for the Necchi industrial family by Piero Portaluppi in the 1930s, this house was reopened to the public in 2008 after restoration. Kohn describes it as 'quite testing as a building' Photograph: Ed Tyler

Takero Shimazaki in Hexenhaus, Bad Karlshafen, Germany (Alison and Peter Smithson). The house built for Axel Bruchhäuser of Tecta furniture: 'When you visit, you realise it’s not about a style but is instead about an approach to how spaces and places can be' Photograph: Ed Tyler

Paul Williams in Castelvecchio Museum, Verona, restored by Carlo Scarpa. Williams says: 'Castelvecchio offers wholeness. It’s not simply a restored building with works of art in it, it’s an ensemble with everything worked out. Many buildings move me, but none quite like this' Photograph: Ed Tyler

Peter St John in Gallaratese Quarter housing block, Milan, by Aldo Rossi. St John is inspired by 'its generosity and a public scale … which brings a grandness to the everyday, a sort of palace occupied by the people' Photograph: Ed Tyler