Earlier today I read a post by Michael Feathers Called "10 Papers Every Developer Should Read (At  Least Twice). I knew some of the articles mentioned there and learnt about few interesting ones.I liked it so much,  I thought I'd compile a similar list for software architects - based on stuff I read over the years.

1. The Byzantine Generals Problem (1982) by Leslie Lamport, Robert Shostak and Marshall Pease - The problem with distributed consensus
2. Go To statements considered harmfull (1968) - by Edsger W. Dijkstra - Didn't you always want to know why ? :)
3. A Note on Distributed Computing (1994) - by Samuel C. Kendall, Jim Waldo, Ann Wollrath and Geoff Wyant - Also on Michael's list but it is one of the foundation papers on distributed computing
4. Big Ball of Mud (1999) - Brian Foote and Joseph Yoder - patterns or anti-patterns?
5. No Silver Bullet Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering (1987) - Frederick P. Brooks - On the limitations of Technology and Technological innovations.
6. The Open Closed Principle (1996) - Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) - The first in a series of articles on Object Oriented Principles (you remember the debate on SOLID...)
7. IEEE1471-2000 A recommended practice for architectural description of software intensive systems (2000) various- It is a standard and not a paper but it is the best foundation for describing a software architecture I know.
8. Harvest, Yield, and Scalable Tolerant Systems (1999) Armando Fox, Eric A. Brewer - That's where the CAP theorem was first defined
9. An Introduction to Software Architecture (1993) - David Garlan and Mary Shaw - one of the foundation articles of software architecture field (although based on earlier work by the two)
10. Who Needs an Architect? (2003) Martin Fowler - Do we or don't we?

I could come up with quite a few more articles not to mention books that aren't in this list. However these are definitely some of the most influential papers I read.