Mies van der Rohe's early work in Berlin shouts avant-garde Europe just as the Chrysler Building in New York, which was completed in 1930, is an elegant reminder of the glitzy jazz age of the 1920s and Horace Walpole's 18th-century Thames-side villa evokes the eclectic sophistication of the countrified lifestyle that still stirs nostalgia in many a would-be squire's heart.

ECONOMIST: Architectural styles