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 jazzageof 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.