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7 New York, N.Y. Hotel O.K., it's a hoot, a building that's made to look like a jumble of buildings. This massive Las Vegas hotel with a "Central Park-themed" casino takes as its silhouette the Manhattan skyline and for good measure crams in Grant's Tomb, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Did we mention the Coney Island roller coaster? Tasteless, you say? We say, beyond tasteless. Hey man, you got a problem with that?
8 New York Botanical Garden London's Crystal Palace is gone, but this turn-of-the-century greenhouse in the Bronx is alive and glinting. To restore this sizable jewel box, which showcases an indoor spectacle of plant life, required 17,000 new panes of glass. The firm of Beyer Blinder Belle, which also restored Ellis Island and Grand Central Terminal, gives back to America one more piece of its indispensable but fragile past.
9 The Pillow Book For a film about sexual, romantic and literary obsessions, in which a Japanese woman literally inscribes the book of love across the bodies of men, director Peter Greenaway and his production designers, Wilbert van Dorp and Andree Putman, provide the ultimate in layered looks. Japanese calligraphy cascades down split screens; inserts open within larger images like windows on a computer screen. The visual stringencies of old Japan meet the clutter of the global village. In a word: fascinating.
10 Standup Stapler An idea you grasp right away. The last time the stapler got serious thought was in the 1930s, when objects were streamlined for the machine-age imagination. In the ergonomic '90s, when we design for the body, the Boston stapler still keeps a nice contour. It's as grip-friendly as a handshake, as squeezable as a teddy bear, and better looking than most public sculpture.