For nearly 20 years, the Dutch firm MVRDV has created bold, often boldly geometric projects. Its headquarters



for the Norwegian financial group DNB in the fast-developing Bjorvika neighborhood on Oslo's waterfront is no exception.

Zaha Hadid's signature sexy curves are on full display in the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center, a fluid form constructed of glass-reinforced concrete that emerges from the folds of the landscape's natural topography.

Beijing-based BIAD UFo's Phoenix International Media Center is giving Herzog & de Meuron's "Bird's Nest" Olympic stadium a run for its money. The complex features a pair of buildings with offices and TV-broadcasting facilities encased in a dramatic doughnut-shaped shell of swirling steel.

Of all the buildings added to the London skyline in the run-up to the Olympics, the most imposing is unquestionably Renzo Piano's London Bridge Tower, located on the south bank of the Thames, next to the bustling London Bridge transportation hub. At 72 stories and 1,016 feet high, it dwarfs the mostly low buildings around it and will be the tallest building in the European Union.

Founded in 1968, Viennese firm Coop Himmelb(l)au has taken its unique brand of Deconstructivist architecture from Europe to the U.S. and more recently to China. At nearly 1.3 million square feet, its Dalian International Conference Center—which includes exhibition spaces and a performance hall—is one of its biggest projects to date.

As bombastic as any building conceived in the past decade, the Pazhou Hotel, designed by the international firm Aedas, stacks guest-room floors in two staggered piles atop a nearly 200-foot-high atrium that links exhibition and retail spaces. Located in Guangzhou's rapidly expanding Pazhou district, the new building strives to be unique among the bold designs that already occupy the area, including Zaha Hadid's Opera House just across the Pearl River.