Architecture

A close-up of curved, sculptural red-brick columns evoking the expressionist brickwork of the Amsterdam School.

Het Schip: The Amsterdam School Masterpiece Built as Social Housing

Het Schip is a 1919 block of workers' housing in the Spaarndammerbuurt that doubles as a masterpiece of the Amsterdam School —…

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Aerial view of green planted rooftops running across the tops of city buildings.

Copenhagen

CopenHill: Ski, Hike and Watch the Sunset on Top of a Power Plant

CopenHill (Amager Bakke) is a waste-to-energy power plant on Amager with a hiking trail, green park and year-round dry ski slope on…

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A long, dimly lit ancient brick-vaulted underground passage receding into darkness, evoking the buried lower layers beneath the Basilica di San Clemente in Rome.

Rome

Basilica di San Clemente: Three Layers of Rome Under One Church

The Basilica di San Clemente is a church stacked on a church stacked on a Roman street: a glowing 12th-century basilica up…

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Dim vaulted stone arcade receding toward a distant lit archway, evoking a cool underground chamber.

Copenhagen

Cisternerne: Art in a Dripping Underground Reservoir Beneath a Park

Cisternerne is a former underground drinking-water reservoir beneath Søndermarken park in Frederiksberg, now a dripping, pitch-dark contemporary-art space where one artist a…

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Berlin

Böhmisches Dorf Rixdorf: A 1730s Bohemian Village Hidden in Neukölln

Böhmisches Dorf is a Bohemian village founded in 1737 around Richardplatz in Berlin's Neukölln, its cobblestone lanes and cottages surviving almost intact…

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Rome

Quartiere Coppedè: Rome’s Fairy-Tale Art Nouveau Quarter

Quartiere Coppedè is a tiny cluster of around forty fantastical buildings near Rome's Trieste district, designed by Gino Coppedè in the 1910s–20s…

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Copenhagen

Superkilen: Nørrebro’s Wildly Colourful Park Made of 60 Countries

Superkilen is a free, half-kilometre public park in Nørrebro furnished with objects from around 60 countries — a fountain from Morocco, an…

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Dubai

Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood: Old Dubai Behind the Skyscrapers

Al Fahidi (Al Bastakiya) is old Dubai's best-preserved quarter: a maze of shaded lanes and wind-tower merchant houses on the Bur Dubai…

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Barcelona

Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau: The UNESCO Masterpiece That Out-Gaudís the Sagrada Família Queue

The Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau is a UNESCO-listed garden-city of Art Nouveau pavilions by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, built between about…

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Paris

The Salle Ovale at BnF Richelieu: Paris’s Most Beautiful Reading Room, Free to Anyone

The Salle Ovale at the Bibliothèque nationale de France's Richelieu site — a glass-domed, amphitheatre-shaped reading room completed by Jean-Louis Pascal —…

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