Step inside the Zuo Corp. pop-up shop in Warsaw and you’ll feel as if you’ve just been transported to a different space altogether. Designed by Polish architects Super Super and Inside/Outside, this clothing store seems to go on forever, a frighteningly vast warehouse of a retailer that requires you to navigate daunting mazes in order to make your way back out again.

Gaze down the aisles of the showroom and you’ll see rack after rack of jackets, shirts and pants. There’s a fitting room, a storage room, and staff waiting to help you at various intervals. But wander too far and you’ll soon hit a wall – literally. Mirrors line the entire cube, and the edges are illuminated with LED strips that create an endless grid of light.

The effect is all the more disorienting when you consider what the outside of this shop looks like: it’s a tiny cube, consisting of two portable containers, sitting lightly upon a city square.

“Small, inconspicuous object, as it seemed from the outside, was creating an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ effect, to introduce the viewer to another world,” says Super Super.

They shimmer in the sunlight, require no artificial lighting during the day and blur the lines between indoors and out, welcoming the landscape into lobbies and living rooms. These 13 buildings make stunning and often unusual use of large amounts of glass, whether choosing it as a facade material around a more conventional building, capitalizing on its dreamy diaphanous effects or using it to visually expand a space (sometimes at the expense of privacy).

Basque Health Department Headquarters, Spain

(images via: archdaily)

The Basque Health Department Headquarters building in Bilbao was in need of an energy-efficient update, but rather than tearing down the whole building and starting anew, Coll-Barreau Architects gave the existing building a faceted glass facade that not only insulates the building, brightens it up and enables ventilation, but also makes a dramatic street-side statement. The unusual shape of the facade was partially the result of strict city zoning rules.

Kanagawa Institute of Technology Glass Building, Japan

(images via: archdaily)

The lines between indoors and out are blurred in the crystalline Kanagawa Institute of Technology studio and workspace, designed by Junya Ishigami and Associates. With floor-to-ceiling glass, the building is totally transparent, giving students an incredibly bright space in which to work during the day, and turning it into a veritable art installation at night. Inside, supportive columns are arranged to subtly define ‘zones’ of the building without walling them in and cutting them off from the rest of the space and all of that natural light.

Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision

(images via: archicentral)

Conceived as a perfect cube with half of it buried beneath the surface of the earth, the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in Hilversum is a dreamy vision in modern stained glass, gleaming in shades of red, blue and yellow. Housing a museum and offices as well as the national broadcasting archives, the interior design is a conceptual translation of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” with blood-red corridors and an atrium that architects Willem Jan Neutelings and Michiel Reidijk call their “inferno”. The colored glass panels that seem abstract from afar are actually famous images from Dutch television.

Parc du Futuroscope, France

(images via: wikimedia commons)

Vienne, France glitters with a series of brilliant glass buildings that together form Parc du Futuroscope, a theme park based on multimedia, cinematographic futuroscope and audio-visual techniques. The faceted cinema is harsh and jagged, calling to mind crystal shards, while L’Omnimax is a sphere encased within a glass box. A third structure, L’Imax 3D, is covered in mirrored glass tiles.

Selgas Cano Architecture Office, Spain

(images via: archdaily)

Most of us work in uninspiring office spaces that seem to have been designed with blandness and disconnection from nature in mind. We can only dream of gazing up at the treetops like the lucky workers who spend their days in the Madrid offices of Spanish architecture practice Selgas Cano. The tube-shaped office is sunken into the ground and features one long wall of windows, giving occupants the feel of being completely immersed in the woods.

Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe, Illinois

(images via: archdaily)

Now considered a classic example of use of glass in clean modern residential architecture, the Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe is a pavilion with all-glass walls that tie the residents to their peaceful woodland surroundings. The trees surrounding the home, which is located on a secluded 10-acre site just outside of Chicago, provide some semblance of privacy. The home is raised to be as light as possible on the land. Said van der Rohe of his design, “Nature, too, shall live its own life. We must beware not to disrupt it with the color of our houses and interior fittings. Yet we should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together into a higher unity.”

Glass Cube House by Santambrogiomilano

(images via: design buzz)

Could you live in a glass cube such as this, where even the walls and stairs are transparent? Designed more for aesthetics than practicality, the Glass Home by Carlo Santambrogio and Ennio Arosio was built to showcase the pair’s ‘Simplicity’ line of furniture. While it’s difficult to imagine living life quite this – transparently – the building itself, viewed as an art object, is quite beautiful to behold.

Bloch Building, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Missouri

(images via: stevenholl.com)

Steven Holl’s stunning addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City consists of five interconnected frosted glass boxes that occupy the sculpture park of the much more conventional existing museum. At night they become like paper lanterns in the grass, luminous and seemingly ephemeral. The ‘Bloch Building’ brings the museum, built in 1933, firmly into the 21st century, not only with its unusual exterior but with the visually engaging yet appropriately blank white gallery space inside.

La Estancia Glass Chapel, Mexico

(images via: archdaily)

When a young architect from Bunker Arqutectura wanted to get married at La Estancia Gardens in Mexico, the site owner thought that having the architect design a new chapel for the grounds was an utterly romantic idea. Less romantic were the seemingly endless arguments that followed over the design of the structure; the owner wanted it enclosed and air conditioned, the architect envisioned it open to the elements. The owner preferred a traditional look, the architect desired a modern aesthetic. What resulted is a compromise. To prevent an unwanted greenhouse effect, Bunker used U-profiled glass panes that fit together as a single membrane, allowing ventilation.

Feria Valencia Convention and Exhibition Center, Spain

(images via: salva del saz)

Resembling an oblong glass bubble from above, the Feria Valencia Convention and Exhibition Center reflects into a perfect sphere when viewed from the opposite side of the shallow pond that leads up to its entrance. In fact, the stunning glass structure is only the building’s roof. Most of the four-story convention center is underground.

ItHouse by Taalman Koch, California

(images via: inhabitat)

This gorgeous prefab house is located in a serene desert setting outside of Joshua Tree National Park in a planned community called Three Junipers. The itHouse, by Taalman Koch Architects, is primarily constructed of glass panels that fit into aluminum frames. Powered solely by photovoltaic and solar thermal energy, the house is off-grid and has a relatively small footprint at 1600 square feet.

X House by Arquitectura X, Quito, Ecuador

(images via: archdaily)

Designing their home without a site in mind, Adrian Moreno Nunez and Maria Samaniego Ponce focused on a design that would fit pretty much anywhere: “an open ended box, whose spatial limits would be the eastern and western ranges of the Andes.” They chose glass because it provides an unlimited sense of space and, in their year-round temperate climate, would not pose any problems with greenhouse effect or lack of sufficient insulation.

Langen Foundation by Tadao Ando, Germany

(images via: wikimedia commons)

Located in Neuss, Germany at the Raketenstation Hombroich, a former NATO base, the Langen Foundation is a museum storing the collection of Oriental Art and Modern Art. Visitors enter this Tadao Ando-designed complex through a cutout in a curving concrete wall, their eyes immediately drawn to the building’s distinctive glass envelope. This envelope not only provides covered corridors around the concrete core, but also reflects on the shallow man-made pond upon which it is partially set.

Long designed with bland respectability in mind, banking institutions have rarely been places to find dazzling architecture and interior design. But if you think that’s still the case in the 21st century, you haven’t seen these 13 modern banks, built and unbuilt, from Morocco to Norway. Vivid colors, eye-catching details, the latest in green technology and a sense of accessibility make these bank designs fresh and up-to-date.

Sugamo Shinkin Bank, Tokyo, Japan

(images via: dezeen)

Banks aren’t exactly known for being cheerful, colorful places, but Emmanuelle Moureaux’s design for the Sugamo Shinkin in Tokyo turns the old stodgy stereotype on its head. Staggered horizontal layers of color, illuminated at night, brighten up the facade and the color scheme is continued in smaller doses inside. Three elliptical glass skylights, cut in through the second floor to the lobby, let in lots of natural daylight and also provide fresh air.

Raiffeisen Bank, Zurich, Switzerland

(images via: archiscene.net)

You could be forgiven if you walked into the Raiffeisen Bank in Zurich and did a double take, wondering whether you accidentally wandered into a high-end retail store. Minimalist white surfaces, curving forms, mirror ball lighting and perforated images of historical residents from the local area characterize this unusual interior space, designed by NAU cooperative. “Raiffeisen’s flagship branch on Zurich’s Kreuzplatz dissolves traditional barriers between customer and employee, creating a new type of ‘open bank’, a space of encounter,” say the designers.

BMCE Bank, Rabat & Casablanca, Morocco

(images via: plusmood.com)

Foster + Partners reinterpreted elements of traditional Moroccan architecture to give the BMCE Bank flagship branches in Rabat and Casablanca a fresh yet grounded feel. The first buildings by the firm to be completed in Africa, these banks feature bright, open interiors with stainless steel mesh screens in Islamic geometric patterns for security and shade. Each branch also has an ‘earth tube’: an electricity-free cooling system enabled by an empty pipe that encircles the building underground to draw in cool air from the earth. Dramatic skylit domes swooping down from the ceiling to join up with curving benches provide irresistible focal points.

ING House Bank, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

(images via: architypes.net, neeshu.com)

When viewing the ING House bank headquarters in Amsterdam, some people see a shoe shape as the architects intended while others imagine some sort of gigantic insect. But the unusual form of this building has made it a popular tourist stop and a favorite subject for architecture photographers. Meyer en van Schooten Architecten built the contoured anodized aluminum and glass structure on sixteen steel legs. Inside is a hall, an auditorium for 250, a lobby, a restaurant, meeting rooms and 160 parking spaces.

BLC Headquarters, Beirut, Lebanon

(images via: dezeen)

While the mock-ups look incredibly realistic, this redesign of the BLC bank headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon has not actually been built. Architects Atelier Hapsitus submitted this proposal for a design competition and it was one of two finalists. The design remodels the old building and adds a faceted new tower that would connect with the existing one at ground level and cantilever over it at the top. This design preserves the views of the old structure, and also allows it to be removed at a later date.

Yapi Kredi Bank Academy, Istanbul, Turkey

(images via: archdaily)

Turkey’s Yapi Kredi Bank comissioned this banking academy from TEGET Architectural Office, who delivered a pair of copper beams that extend horizontally from the existing complex. The design shakes up the scheme of cube-shaped structures at the bank’s headquarters, bringing in color, asymmetry and texture in the form of oxidized copper panels on the facade. The ‘void’ between the two beams is made primarily of glass with suspended platforms and stairs that are open to street level.

DnB NOR Headquarters, Oslo, Norway

(images via: dezeen)

Design firm MVRDV envisions a pixelated, amorphous headquarters building for DnB NOR in Oslo, puncuated by stepped negative space. Diaphanous and pale, the design seems to shimmer, with glass offering both views of the city from inside and a counterpoint to the stone skin which lends solidity to the structure. Construction is currently underway on the building which contains 2,000 flexible work spaces and a panoramic 140-seat meeting space on the top level.

Middlefart Savings Bank, Fyn, Denmark

(images via: nikiomahe)

Low and angular with 83 prism-like skylights peeking up from its roof, the Middlefart Savings Bank headquarters in Fyn, Denmark reflects the shapes and colors of the ships and sailboats that it looks out upon in the harbor. The roofscape lets in light, defines the geometric design theme of the building and provides a view of the building while also shading the interior from harsh direct sunlight.

Saxo Bank Headquarters, Copenhagen, Denmark

(images via: archdaily)

Danish architecture firm 3XN gave Saxo, a Denmark-based online bank, a stunning headquarters featuring a striped glass facade and a spiraling stairway that serves as the structure’s architectural heart. The end walls of the two blocks that make up the building face toward the canal. The interior is transparent and open with a glass-roofed atrium.

BBVA Headquarters, Madrid, Spain

(images via: dezeen)

Set for construction on the outskirts of Madrid, the BBVA headquarters will resemble a slice of a sphere set among a new block of offices, commercial buildings and residences. Architects Herzog & de Meuron plan to weave irrigated gardens and alleyways between the three-story buildings “like a carpet” to create a cool, moist microclimate, giving each workspace a “green view”. The disc-shaped tower is ‘cut out’ of the horizontal design, leaving behind an open plaza, and will contain offices with views of the city and the Sierra of Madrid.

Bendigo Bank Headquarters, Sydney, Australia

(images via: bvn.com.au)

Bendigo Bank’s headquarters in Sydney, Australia juts out dramatically into the street, peppered with colorful performated aluminum sunscreens that give its facade a quirky and fun feel. The exterior of the building was designed by BVN Architects and Gray Puksand to respond to the individual orientation of each facade, and the colors incorporate both the reds of surrounding brick buildings and the greens of a nearby park. With an underfloor air conditioning system, a blackwater treating system and other environmental considerations, the building has been given a 5 star green rating.

Deutsche Bank Towers, Frankfurt, Germany

(images via: deutsche bank)

The twin towers of Deutsche Bank, which have become an iconic part of the Frankfurt skyline since they were first built in 1983, got a green renovation in recent years, transforming them with a new glass facade that glitters in the sunlight. The changes made to the building enabled the bank to cut down its energy use by half, reduce its water consumption by 70 percent and slash its CO2 emissions by nearly 90 percent.

Bank of Choice, Englewood, Colorado

(images via: army_arch)

Is that a flying saucer? Perhaps the house from Sleeper got up and walked away in the middle of the night. No, it’s the Bank of Choice headquarters in Englewood Colorado, designed by Charles Deaton in 1965. While far older than most of the buildings on this list, this structure still stands out as daringly modern when most banks have retained staid, institutional looks.