Stockmann Helsinki City Center

This guide to Stockmann's flagship store in Helsinki opens in 1916, when brothers Valter and Ivar Thome won the competition to design a grand department store for this corner, only to be shot by Red forces near Vihti during Finland's civil war before construction began. It follows runner-up Sigurd Frosterus as he took over the commission and built something almost no one in the contest had imagined: a hollow-centered store lit by a glass roof over eight storeys. Stand beneath that light well and look straight up, then find the clock above the entrance that generations of Helsinki locals still use as their meeting point.