Slideshow: BMW World - by Coop Himmelb(l)au - Munich, Germany

One of the most disappointing buildings I've recently visited, the BMW World, designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au, is a lavish showroom for cars and motorcycles. The architecture was promised to be flashy and groundbreaking yet left me cold and annoyed. The dark glass ruined any idea that the immense roof was floating while the extravagant twists and turns of the form seemed kitschy and extraneous. This building is an ideal symbol of how the excess of the past decade has led architecture astray, taking the art of building and turning it into an amusement park of unwarranted icons.