Playing around with NGram we had the idea to look for the importance of some worldwide known architects (i.e. the frequency in which their names appear in books. Of course, we have to infer that cases of homonymy do not influence considerably the results). We considered three architects (R. Koolhaas, O. Niemeyer, Z. Hadid and, Wiel Arets) in the period between 1950 and 2009. We searched first in the English-language body of literature, then in Spanish, German and French. Here is what we get:
In English literature Koolhaas, Hadid, Niemeyer have roughly the same importance in absolute terms. Interest in Niemeyer arose around 1958-1972 and 1996-2000, in Koolhaas since the mid 1990's until now, Hadid and Arets similar process. It seems that they already experienced their "peak of popularity". In this respect Koolhaas, instead, topped between 2000 and 2005 after received the Pritzker award. Niemeyer is interesting in French, his re-arising between 1998-2006. In Spanish Rem Koolhaas and Oscar Niemeyer have roughly the same arose while Zaha Hadid go down.
Now, what about a comparison with the godfathers Le Corbusier and Mies? Here their "behavior" in English: Their popularity increased steadily roughly until 2000, then the curve became negative. In Spanish, the pattern is diferent.
