Bank of China Building, Shanghai

This guide to the Bank of China Building on Shanghai's Bund follows a 1930s standoff between China's national bank, which planned a soaring skyscraper meant to be the tallest in the Far East, and British tycoon Victor Sassoon, who refused to let any building outrise the spire on his own hotel next door. It traces how the British-run Municipal Council backed Sassoon, and how architects Palmer and Turner worked alongside the bank's own Lu Qianshou to answer the insult in stone. Look for the hollow Chinese characters for longevity between the windows.