The year 1887 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.

Events

• Construction work begins on
  • Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary, Rosario, Argentina.
  • Provinciaal Hof, Bruges, Flanders, designed by Louis Delacenserie and René Buyck.
  • Ponce de León Hotel, St. Augustine, Florida, designed by Carrère and Hastings.

Buildings and structures

Buildings opened

• March 29 – Peebles Old Parish Church, Scotland, designed by William Young (dedicated).
• April 23 – Metropolitan Cathedral, Iași, Romania, completed by Alexandru Orăscu (dedicated).
• June 20 – Victoria Terminus of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway in Bombay, designed by Frederick William Stevens.^[1]
• December 1 – Raffles Hotel, Singapore.

Buildings completed

• Cardiff Metropolitan Cathedral, designed by Pugin & Pugin.
• New façade of Florence Cathedral, designed by Emilio De Fabris (died 1883).
• Basilica of St. Nicholas, Amsterdam, designed by Adrianus Bleijs.
• St Paul's Church, Aarhus, designed by Vilhelm Theodor Walther.
• Cluj-Napoca Neolog Synagogue, Romania, designed by engineer Izidor Hegner.
• Eldridge Street Synagogue, New York City, designed by Peter and Francis William Herter.
• Sacred Heart Cathedral, Sarajevo, designed by Josip Vancaš.
• Rebuilt Gare Saint-Lazare terminus of Chemins de fer de l'Ouest in Paris, designed by Juste Lisch.
• Clock tower of Rochdale Town Hall in England, designed by Alfred Waterhouse.

Awards

• RIBA Royal Gold Medal – Ewan Christian.

Publications

• MacGibbon and Ross begin publication of The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland, from the twelfth to the eighteenth century.
• G. A. Wayss publishes Das System Monier-Eisengerippe mit Cementumhüllung-in seiner Anwendung auf das gesammte Bauwesen in Berlin, one of the first books on reinforced concrete (using Joseph Monier's system).

Births

• March 21 – Erich Mendelsohn, German-Jewish Expressionist architect (died 1953)^[2]
• May 10 – Herbert James Rowse, English architect noted for work in Liverpool (died 1963)
• May 31 – Philip Tilden, English domestic architect (died 1956)
• June 15 – Oliver Hill, English architect (died 1968)
• August 30 – Eric Francis, British architect and painter (died 1976)
• October 6 – Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret), Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer and pioneer of modern architecture (died 1965)

Deaths

• April 13 – David Stirling, Scottish-born Canadian architect (born 1822)^[3]
• May 8 – Thomas Stevenson, Scottish lighthouse engineer (born 1818)
• May 21 – Sir Horace Jones, English architect (born 1819)
• August 16 – Webster Paulson, English civil engineer (born 1837)