Built in 1962 to house the Fayetteville, Arkansas, Public Library, the Fulbright Building sits in a leafy residential neighborhood on the edge of the city’s historic district and to this day is surrounded by Victorian houses and Craftsman-style cottages.

Ten miles from the city of Recife on Brazil’s northeast coast, Our Lady of the Conception Chapel, completed by Paulo Mendes da Rocha in 2006—the year he won the Pritzker Prize—shows a reserve that came to the 80-year-old architect late in his career.

In 1849, Richard Wagner fled Germany for Zurich, escaping retribution for his political involvement in the May Uprising against the Saxon government.

Located on the 29th floor of a 1960s Park Avenue office tower, the New York City home of the Cofra Group and its Good Energies venture capital company—an investor in such renewable energy enterprises as Sage Electrochromics—is proof that this Switzerland-based corporation takes its business to heart.

How do you grab the attention of motorists hurtling along on their evening commute in an auto-centric city like Dallas?