National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh

You're standing on Chambers Street in the heart of Edinburgh, outside the National Museum of Scotland. Look closely, because you're really seeing two buildings joined together. One is Victorian, with a Venetian Renaissance façade. The other is modern, all crisp geometric shapes, clad in golden sandstone from Moray. Architect Gordon Benson called that stone the oldest exhibit in the building, a nod to Scottish geology. The design also borrows from Scottish brochs and castle walls.