Northern California &mash; the region that gave birth to Chez Panisse and the French Laundry — is ground zero for the local-food movement, and SHED, an haute general store in the heart of wine country, lets you know it even before you walk through the door.

A 240-foot-long, sculptural white marble bar in the Stella 34 Trattoria sinuously snakes through the city-block-long new restaurant on the sixth floor of Macy's Herald Square in New York City.

Cow no. 1026 approaches a yellow-bristled electric back scratcher at Cornell University's Teaching Dairy Barn in Ithaca, New York.

“The Rebel Within” is a soft-boiled egg magically cooked within a savory muffin of ham and cheese—basic ingredients presented in a delightful new way.

When the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio shut down in 2001 after 120 years of operation, it left behind a 22-acre, asphalt-covered site in a crime-ridden part of town. 

At 413 feet, Zurich's tallest building is emblematic of a neighborhood's delicate balancing act—once an industrial district, it is being transformed into a business and design hub.

While Rennes, the capital of France's Brittany region, does not make most travel guides' must-see lists, the university town of 200,000 still has its charms: crooked medieval streets lined with half-timbered buildings, stately 18th-century edifices, and cafés that spill out onto picturesque squares.

It's safe to say that the San Francisco Planning Commission never envisioned a bay window like the ones architect Anne Fougeron created for the Flip House.