The first in a long line of government buildings modeled after Greek and Roman temples, the Virginia State Capitol was completed in 1788 in Richmond, Va. Designed by Thomas Jefferson while the statesman was serving as ambassador to France, it is modeled after the Maison Carrée, a Roman temple in Nîmes.

Built by H.H. Richardson in 1877, Boston's Trinity Church established the soon wildly popular Richardsonian Romanesque style. Originally designed with a giant central tower, the building's height was reduced when engineers discovered that the infilled Back Bay couldn't support such a structure.

The first skyscraper that truly looked the part, the Wainwright Building was designed by the École des Beaux-Arts-trained American architect Louis Sullivan. Sullivan would go on to mentor Frank Lloyd Wright, but not before earning the moniker "The Father of Skyscrapers."

Built in 1910 to designs by Albert Kahn, the Highland Park Ford Plant revolutionized American industry. With few interior columns and broad windows, it allowed for Ford's famous assembly line techniques.

The Southdale Center enjoys the dubious distinction of being America's first modern indoor mall, completed in 1956. Its architect, Austrian-born Victor Gruen, believed it would be a utopian vision for the American suburb, one that would liberate the masses from the "terror of the automobile."

On the recommendation of several prominent American architects, the daughter of distillery baron Samuel Bronfman selected Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to design Seagram's New York skyscraper. It was the model on which decades of glass skyscrapers were based.

Referred to as the "first postmodern building," Robert Venturi's Vanna Venturi House—built for his mother in 1964—set the stage for a movement away from the walls of glass and lack of ornamentation that had defined the '50s and '60s. Venturi declared "less is a bore," in response to the Mies van der Rohe edict "less is more," and that mantra is reflected in the positioning of windows, the concealed doorway, and an oversized chimney that actually houses a staircase.

The lone West Coast entry on PBS's illustrious list, Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall incorporates the sweeping metallic surfaces that have become the architect's hallmark. The sail-like forms disguise an inner "box," necessary for optimal acoustics.