Paris had the triumphal Champs Élysées and London the stately, tree-lined Mall. But in mid-19th-century Vienna—seat of the historic Habsburg monarchy—there was only a faded tangle of old-town streets circled by military towers. And for Emperor Franz Joseph I, that wasn’t good enough.

Christchurch’s landmark cathedral gets a cardboard redesign by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, who is the 2014 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate.

It’s 10 p.m. in the chandelier-dappled cocktail bar of Belfast’s boutique Merchant Hotel, a column-fronted landmark built in the 1850s as the headquarters of Ulster Bank. Judging by the ritzy clientele, there’s just as much capital here today.