Palace of Culture and Science

Warsaw’s massive Palace of Culture and Science skyscraper, dating from the early 1950s, is the tallest building between Frankfurt and Moscow (760 feet with the spire). 

It was a “gift” from Stalin that the people of Warsaw couldn’t refuse. Varsovians call it “Stalin’s Penis.” (There are seven such “Stalin Gothic” erections in Moscow.) If it feels like an Art Deco Chicago skyscraper, that’s because the architect was inspired by his years he spent studying and working in Chicago in the 1930s. Because it was to be “Soviet in substance, Polish in style,” Soviet architects toured Poland to absorb local culture before starting the project. Since the end of communism, the younger generation doesn’t mind the structure so much — and some even admit to liking it for the way it enlivens the new, predictable, glass-and-steel skyline springing up around it.