The city's best-known architect is Frits Peutz. His legacy consists of at least 10 landmark buildings in Heerlen. In 1935 Heerlen's most famous landmark building, the Glaspaleis, was built next to the medieval church in the centre of the then modest town. It was commissioned by the merchant Peter Schunck and it was quite an extraordinary step for this conservative businessman to ask the young Heerlen-based architect Peutz to design the new Schunck department store. It is one of the most outstanding examples of early Modernism in The Netherlands but it was only recognized as such at a fairly late stage (after it had been badly maimed). In the 1990s it was added to a prestigious list of the world's "1000 most important buildings of the 20th century" created by the International Union of Architects (only 13 buildings in the Netherlands are on that list). It encouraged the city administrators to buy the dilapidated building and make plans for its renovation. The renovation has now been completed and it now houses several of the city's cultural institutions, including a museum of modern art. The renovated Glaspaleis has become a symbol of the revived Heerlen after the closing of the coalmines.