In an exhibition he organized at the New Museum in New York City last year, Rem Koolhaas took the preservation movement to task, arguing that it had become an “empire” all too successful at tying the hands of architects and suffocating daring thinking.

An architectural tour of Basel and its environs reveals no fewer than 21 completed buildings by the office of natives Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, with a major addition to the city's convention center and a 213-foot office tower for Novartis slated for 2013 and 2015 completion, respectively.

Completed last spring at the northeast corner of Tiananmen Square, the world's biggest museum stands up to the enormity of Beijing's central public space.

A 17-story, 188,600-square-foot hotel with 285 guest rooms and suites, meeting and banquet rooms, a library with a bar, a screening room, a sun room, and a restaurant.

Preservation has returned to the center of architectural theory and practice, after languishing in the margins for over half a century.

A 1960s postcard shows a Newport Beach, California, building in its early heyday.

A 55,000-square-foot addition to Berkeley's law school, with a library spanning two subterranean levels and, above ground, a single-story pavilion housing a caf', a student lounge, and a classroom.

A three-story, 81,000-square-foot addition to the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.