Bangkok

AL_A (Amanda Levete)'s luxury mall and hotel (2014) on Ploenchit, a single sculptural form sheathed in roughly 300,000 anodised-aluminium tiles that taper into a flared, scaly skirt. Sinuous parametric design in the retail heart of the city.

Sumet Jumsai's 1997 tower (the Chang Building) on Phaholyothin, whose stacked volumes read unmistakably as a giant elephant — tusks, ears, eyes and all. Among the world's most literal pieces of figurative architecture.

The American silk entrepreneur's 1959 home, assembled from six antique teak houses raised on stilts around a garden by a canal. A beautifully curated essay in traditional Thai domestic architecture, kept as a museum.

Ole Scheeren's 2016 tower, briefly Thailand's tallest, wrapped in a spiralling 'pixelated' ribbon of cut-away terraces that make the glass skin appear to crumble. A glass skywalk and rooftop bar crown it.

Sumet Jumsai's 1986 bank headquarters on Sathorn, shaped like a stylised robot complete with nut-and-bolt eyes and antennae. A witty, much-loved icon of postmodernism and a reaction against high-tech sameness.

Department of Architecture's Thonglor community mall (2016), conceived as a stepped, open-air 'ground' of terraces and shade that invites breeze and lingering rather than sealed air-con boxes. A widely admired model of tropical, social retail design.

The royal complex begun in 1782, a dazzling compound of gilded spires, glass-mosaic chedis and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The definitive showcase of Rattanakosin-era Thai religious and palatial architecture.

The Temple of Dawn on the Thonburi bank, its central Khmer-style prang rising ~70m and encrusted with broken Chinese porcelain that glints across the river. One of Bangkok's most photographed silhouettes, especially at sunset.

A 1899 royal temple by Prince Naris, built in white Carrara marble with a symmetrical, almost Beaux-Arts clarity and stained-glass windows. A refined fusion of traditional Thai form and Western technique — and the back of the 5-baht coin.