Hello. I would be interested in hearing the opinions of the people here. What examples do you have of maps would you consider the most beautiful/pretty maps. Maps that are literally works of art. They don't have to function amazingly well. But only to be the most fabulous and gorgeous to the eyes.

I'm interested as I'm a game artist by trade. I wanted to see how far quake 3 maps can be pushed in that realm.

I have browsed the site a little myself but I'm not so acquainted with the quake 3 mapping scene so I'm most likely missing loads.

here is a small selection of maps i feel are visually nice.
1) a hymn to rocket launcher (immortal) - gorgeous, shiny reflections
2) looking for free doom ; 3) japanese castles ; 4) solitude ; 5) estatica ; 6) dantesca ; 7) rustgrad ;
8) server overload ; 9) maps by martinus are usually visually nice (eg. ossa delubrum)
there are probably many i missed, but, these stand out for me :-)
EDIT added links to maps mentioned above in numerical order
1) lvlworld.com/review/id:1196 ; 2) lvlworld.com/review/id:2199
3) lvlworld.com/review/id:44 ; 4) lvlworld.com/review/id:2126
5) lvlworld.com/review/id:1555 ; 6) lvlworld.com/review/id:1171
7) lvlworld.com/review/id:2291 ; 8) lvlworld.com/review/id:2365
9) lvlworld.com/author/Martinus
...cheers...
Edited 21.45 hours after the original posting.

Oh, there are many, many beautiful maps:
I remember being blown away by the beauty of auh3dm1 back in 2000:
lvlworld.com/review/id:614
and lloydmdm2 from 2000:
lvlworld.com/review/id:367
Lonely Planet has mind boggling architecture and is also from 2000:
lvlworld.com/review/id:83
There is Chartres a year later which probably burned some graphix cards to toast:
lvlworld.com/review/id:1624
And these are 'very old' maps.
The development of q3map2 had a lot of influence on more 'recent' maps and the outstanding quality and level of detail you can find in many maps.
From richoi's list: Estatica was one of those maps that displayed the possibilities of q3map2:
lvlworld.com/review/id:1555
Special mention of the map lun3dm5:
lvlworld.com/review/id:2238
It is just jaw dropping. The screenshot alone is insane....
And this for a game that is all about gameplay and the 'flow of a map'...
I need to mention that there are texture artists which contributed such beautiful textures sets. These sets make some 'simple' maps look stunning too. Like EvilLair's textures and textures from Sock.
And then there is the art of making skyboxes.... (and the beauty of good item placement).
= edit
Corrected the link to lun3dm5 with the right one.
Edited 16.77 hours after the original posting.

Top 1: this by Lunaran et al.: lvlworld.com/review/id:2238 (gameplay is amazing too)
Top 2: Rustgrad by Hipshot: lvlworld.com/review/id:2291
(Hipshot has other maps quite beautiful, like Crescent, lvlworld.com/votes/id:2048).
Top 3: this by Kaffeewunder: lvlworld.com/review/id:2165 (gameplay is top notch too)
Some other favourites:
lvlworld.com/review/id:2148 (love the theme)
lvlworld.com/review/id:1941 (gorgeous + amazing gameplay)
lvlworld.com/review/id:1366 (cool but bad gameplay)
If you like Egypt-themed maps, there are many truly gorgeous, like this by Aeon: lvlworld.com/review/id:1621
There are other beautiful maps which are more "experimental". A few mentions:
lvlworld.com/review/id:1617
lvlworld.com/review/id:2357
lvlworld.com/review/id:1310
lvlworld.com/review/id:2084
lvlworld.com/review/id:2390 (lighting makes the difference imo)

I probably be adding more maps while I browse through lvlworld randomly.
Here's one that is easy to miss but worth mentioning:
Lichtwaerts by - chaos-
lvlworld.com/review/id:1352

There heve been really amazing eyecandy maps released ove the last decade but it is fun to look deeper in the archives...
From 2001:
The doom that came to Dunwich
lvlworld.com/review/id:793

Wow, that's a tough order... there are so many maps that look really stunning so trying to assemble a list is a difficult task. Here's some of the more notable ones, in my opinion:

- AEon's DM7 Redux (lvlworld.com/review/id:2225)
- Dead Souls (lvlworld.com/review/id:1686)
- Deep Freeze (lvlworld.com/review/id:1863)
- Endurance (lvlworld.com/review/id:2311)
- Eulogy (lvlworld.com/review/id:1685)
- Fluorescent (lvlworld.com/review/id:2184)
- H2SO4 (lvlworld.com/review/id:808)
- Overwhelming Hostility (lvlworld.com/review/id:614)
- Pyramid of the Magician (lvlworld.com/review/id:1743)
- Revenga! (lvlworld.com/review/id:1953)
- Rustgrad (lvlworld.com/review/id:2291)
- State Prison 36 (lvlworld.com/review/id:1542)
- Swiss Cheese Trickster (lvlworld.com/review/id:1347)
- Tortured (lvlworld.com/review/id:2136)
- Trespass (lvlworld.com/review/id:2323)
- Windsong Keep (lvlworld.com/review/id:2190)
Edited 54 seconds after the original posting.

Some out of my bookmarks:
Orichalciane: lvlworld.com/review/id:2106
High Speed Graffiti: lvlworld.com/review/id:2253
Tech Edge: lvlworld.com/review/id:2075
Rustgrad: lvlworld.com/review/id:2291
Geotechnic: lvlworld.com/review/id:2314
As others have mentioned, You'll Shoot Your Eye Out (lvlworld.com/review/id:2238) is particularly impressive.
Edited 10 seconds after the original posting.

A fun one is Relativity, in the style of the famous painting of the same name by M.C. Escher. It is fun to play, we play it a lot with our family, and looks great too.
www.moddb.com/mods...s/relativitypk3

Howling Wilderness v2 by Jugulator Gothic...