Architecture is the new aphrodisiac, intoxicating travelers as never before. Photographer Christian Richters savors the most recently minted tourist magnets, from Tacoma to Thailand

United States

Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Home to both Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum and Philip Johnson's Amon Carter Museum, the Cultural District long ago established its bona fides as a Lourdes for the art-and-architecture crowd. But with the opening of Tadao Ando's Modern Art Museum, the area now claims a true triumvirate. The Japanese architect's trademark satiny concrete forms an overhanging slab roof supported by striking double-Y-shaped columns. Walls of glass allow natural light to illuminate the galleries, and a surrounding moat cum reflecting pool provides an unexpected light show after dark: Illuminated from within, the glass-and-steel pavilions look like oversized lanterns floating on the water (themodern.org).

Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington

Puget Sound's second city finally has an architectural calling card of its own. The focal point of Arthur Erickson's Museum of Glass/International Center for Contemporary Art is a leaning ninety-foot stainless steel cone that mimics the sawmill wood burners which used to punctuate the local landscape. Inside the conical chimney is a glassmaking studio where visitors can watch seasoned artisans at work. But the splashiest part of the project may be the rooftop reflecting pool, which makes use of the apple in ways Eve never imagined (museumofglass.org).

Austria

Bergisel Ski Jump, Innsbruck

You may think that if you've seen one ski jump you've seen 'em all, but in the athletic tradition of faster, higher, longer, what was once a merely serviceable downhill track used in the '64 and '76 Olympics has become a forward-looking landmark. London-based architect Zaha Hadid fashioned what could have been an ungainly hybrid—the structure incorporates a restaurant, an observation deck, and the jump itself—into a sleek steel, glass, and concrete swoosh whose energy emulates its very purpose. In warm weather, an arena below the jump becomes a performance venue, hosting open-air concerts throughout the summer (43-512-589-259).

Scotland

Falkirk Wheel, Falkirk

The world's only rotating boat lift, the Falkirk Wheel represents a true technical innovation. Up to four boats at a time enter two separate tubelike chambers, one nine stories above the other; each chamber is then sealed off, and in a single, graceful, fifteen-minute maneuver they switch positions, transferring vessels between the Forth & Clyde and Union canals connecting Edinburgh and Glasgow. Along with the London Eye and Cornwall's Eden Project, Falkirk Wheel is one of the success stories of Britain's millennium building spree. But it also signifies a throwback of sorts: Designed by local architects RMJM, the wheel is the flagship of British Waterways' Millennium Link, a $125 million project to restore the water route between Scotland's east and west coasts, a course once navigable only by a series of eleven low-tech locks (www.thefalkirkwheel.co.uk).