When muslims make their pilgrimage to Medina to pray at Islam’s second-holiest mosque, there is now shelter from the extreme sun for the crowds that spill into the surrounding plaza.

A jewel has been set in the emerald-necklace-like Brooklyn Bridge Park: an acrylic glass pavilion by Pritzker Prize–winning French architect Jean Nouvel.

When the National September 11 Memorial opens at Ground Zero on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, it will be joined by another commemorative effort, across the Hudson River, in Jersey City, New Jersey.

“We have a saying in our office,” says Andre Santer, project architect at Berlin-based J. Mayer H. Architects. “Democracy follows form.

Evoking the creations of a brilliant, futuristic insect, architect Michael Hansmeyer’s fantastical extrapolation of classical columns leaves no smooth surface untouched.

Twirl, an installation by Zaha Hadid Architects on display for two weeks during the 50th anniversary of the Milan Furniture Fair in April, was intended to be a contemporary interpretation of the State University of Milan’s 18th-century courtyard.

The aptly named Truffle House sits on Spain’s northwestern Costa da Morte (the Death Coast) in a small fishing village.