San Francisco Modern Architecture Landmarks

With its busy cable cars, multicultural neighborhoods and a blue, blue bay, San Francisco inspires passionate loyalty in those who love her. The artistic and business heart of Northern California, "The City" is beloved for the European flair of its turn-of-the-century Victorian houses and apartments, but also for the shiny, brash modern buildings in the financial district.

Transamerica Pyramid

• Like Paris' Eiffel Tower, San Francisco's Transamerica Pyramid was not greeted with open arms when developers released plans for the uniquely pointed skyscraper in 1969. Architect William L. Pereira argued that the pyramid shape was ideal for a skyscraper in San Francisco's busy financial district as it allowed extra sunlight into the adjacent streets, but popular opinion was very much against him. Today the Pyramid is, at 853 feet tall, the best known building in the skyline of The City. The outer walls of the pyramid are covered with crushed quartz, making the building look like it is forever bathed in moonlight.

Transbay Center

• It isn't your ordinary train station. The Transbay Transit Center began as a visionary project to create a “Grand Central Station of the West,” set in a neighborhood as new and modern as the transportation hub. The enormous Transit Center connects San Francisco to outlying areas as well as the rest of the state by housing 11 transit systems including Greyhound, AC Transit, Amtrak, BART, SamTrans, Caltrain, Golden Gate Transit, Muni and the High Speed Rail from Los Angeles/Anaheim. The project, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, broke ground in 2013. In addition to uniting myriad transit lines in a five-story, steel-and-glass building, the project offers a 5.4-acre rooftop park in downtown San Francisco, designed by PWP Landscape Architecture.

555 California Street

• It entered the world in 1969 as the Bank of America Building, a 52-story skyscraper in The City's financial district, intended to house the home office of the prosperous Bank of America in fit accommodations. The modern structure's thousands of bay windows mirror the bay windows in San Francisco's renowned Victorian buildings. The skyscraper is covered in rich carnelian granite, as is the entire area around it: the nearby plaza and the adjoining sidewalks. In 1998, Bank of America moved its headquarters east and the building became known by its address: 555 California Street.

St. Regis

• San Francisco is not short on deliciously decadent hotels, but the St. Regis stands out in its location on Mission near the Yerba Buena Gardens because it represents a fusion of the old with the new. It is a 42-story skyscraper that neatly incorporated a historic San Francisco structure, the Williams Building, into the tower; the work was completed in 2005. The St. Regis Tower offers guest suites in the five-star St. Regis Hotel as well as 90 luxury condominiums, an underground garage and the Museum of the African Diaspora.

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Famous Landmarks in Trinidad and Tobago

The Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago hosts hundreds of thousands of tourists each year. For many, the smaller island of Tobago with its reefs and beaches is the primary destination. Trinidad has its own share of famous landmarks, including religious sites from both the Christian and Hindu traditions, and a major venue for another religion of sorts in the nation: cricket. While Trinidad and Tobago is a relatively prosperous and stable nation, the U.S. State Department cautions visitors to be wary of a high crime rate in Port of Spain and to avoid lingering in scenic areas after dark.

Religious Landmarks

• Trinidad's Temple in the Sea, a Hindu temple on an artificial island off the western coast near Waterloo, draws visitors both because of the wonder of a temple seemingly floating on the sea and its back story. An Indian laborer, Swedass Sadhu, built the original temple after being jailed for building another temple on a sugar company's land. Nature weathered the temple, and the locals restored it in 1994. Other religious landmarks of note include Port of Spain's cross-shaped Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and the Anglican Holy Trinity Cathedral, built to resemble London's Westminster Hall. The Mount Saint Benedict monastery in northern Trinidad also is noteworthy as the oldest monastery in the Caribbean and is home to a guesthouse that serves afternoon tea.

Natural Landmarks

• Several of Trinidad and Tobago's landmarks are ideal for nature-lovers. The Asa Wright Nature Centre in Trinidad's Northern Range covers about 1,500 acres and is a spot to view many of the 450 types of birds and 617 types of butterflies that call the island home. Also in the Northern Mountain Range is Trinidad's largest cave system open to visitors, the Aripo Caves.

  Birdwatchers can be similarly entertained at Bird of Paradise Island, a mile-long isle off northeastern Tobago. While there, you also can visit Crusoe's Cave, a cavern heralded as the shelter to the fictional marooned mariner Robinson Crusoe. Visitors more interested in aquatic life can visit Tobago's Buccoo Reef, which includes the placid Nylon Pool, and the Angel Reef off northwestern Tobago, home to a 12-foot-high brain coral.

Forts, Monuments and Buildings

• Tobago's coast is dotted with the remains of several forts from its colonial days, and Fort King George, built in the 1770s and named for Britain's King George III, is the best preserved. The cliff-side fort houses cannons, a prison, barracks, a museum and art center and presents ocean views. In Port of Spain on Trinidad, noteworthy landmarks include the ornate Magnificent Seven row of buildings in Queen's Park Savannah and the speaker's corner in Woodford Square, a site where locals discuss and debate issues of the day. Trinidad's Orange Field also is the site of an 85-foot statue of the Hindu deity Hanuman Murti, the largest of its type outside of India.

Sports Landmarks

• The people of Trinidad and Tobago love cricket, and as such, the nation boasts the Caribbean's largest cricket ground, the Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain. The grass-turf stadium can accommodate about 25,000 spectators, and visitors can watch matches with the mountain landscape in the background. Of course, you can watch cricket matches on a smaller scale -- or even try your hand at a game yourself -- at one of the many cricket grounds spread across both islands.

  Port of Spain also is home to Hasely Crawford Stadium, named after the nation's first Olympic gold medalist. The stadium, which seats 23,000, hosts matches of the nation's other sports obsession -- soccer (known as football, locally) -- as well as track and field competitions, tennis matches, boxing bouts, car shows and a number of other sporting and leisure events throughout the year.

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Man-Made Landmarks in Europe

Europe has long been a popular vacation destination for North Americans, not least because of its variety. At the time of publication in August 2013, 28 countries made up the European Union, each with its own distinct culture and personality. Europe is home to many landmark sites, so wherever you go and whatever your background, you’ll likely find something in Europe to interest you.

Religious Landmarks

• Covering just 0.17 square miles of central Rome, an area smaller than that of the Washington Mall, the Vatican City wields an influence out of all proportion to its tiny size. Its most prominent feature is the Basilica of St. Peter, the world’s largest religious building and the center of the Roman Catholic Church since the fourth century. At the other end of the scale stand the small, beehive-like monastic structures on the rocky island of Skellig Michael off the southwest coast of Ireland. It is not precisely known when Skellig Michael was founded, but it is thought to date to the sixth century; it was abandoned in the 12th century as a result of climate change, the remains of this very old Christian site are so significant and well-preserved that UNESCO added them to the World Heritage list in 1996.

Ancient Landmarks

• Europe’s ancient inhabitants left their mark writ large in landmarks, some of which have survived into the present day. Twenty-five caves of France’s Vezere Valley preserve rock paintings dating from 17,000 years ago, when Europe was an entirely different landscape. The images of animals recorded in this prehistoric work provide a glimpse into the world of these early humans. The Stonehenge site in southwestern England is even more mysterious, with its huge stone megaliths, some brought from more than 200 miles away, gathered in a circle oriented toward the midsummer and midwinter sun. Although the precise significance remains unknown, the site would undoubtedly have held great meaning for those who built it.

Conflict Landmarks

• Sadly, Europe has been riven by war and conflict throughout its history, leaving numerous landmarks. World War I brought millions of deaths on the Western Front alone, a line that ran from the North Sea coast through France and Flanders to the Swiss border. For most of the war, the lines encircled the small town of Ypres in Belgium, and today military cemeteries and memorials around the town mark the places that saw such fierce fighting. More than 54,000 British soldiers with no known grave are commemorated on the Menin Gate in Ypres; visit at 8 p.m. any evening to hear the town's firefighters pay tribute to the dead. On France's Normandy coastline, you'll find the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, where more than 9,000 American soldiers lie in the first American cemetery established in Europe during World War II. The soldiers here died during D-Day and its aftermath; ask staff if you need help locating a specific grave.

Engineering Landmarks

• Not all European landmarks date from the distant past. The Millau Viaduct in southeastern France spans more than 1.5 miles, with a maximum height of 1,125 feet – taller than the Eiffel Tower. Constructed in just three years, the viaduct opened to traffic in 2004. Further north, the Oresund Bridge links Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, with the Swedish city of Malmo by means of a 10-mile bridge, underwater tunnel and artificial island. The crossing opened in 2000, creating new connections between the two countries and even inspiring a popular TV series, “The Bridge.”

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