Enlightened architecture, Berlin, Germany.

Very near the Brandenburg Gate in Pariser Platz, Berlin, is a nice but unremarkable-looking structure, the Deutsche Genossenschafts-Bank (or DG Bank, for short) designed by Canadian-born architect Frank Gehry

I didn't know it, but I was about to be swept off my feet by a building. Stepping inside, my eyes adjusted to the light revealing a four-story high structure of metal and wood undulating under a web of glass.

Constructed in 1998-2000 at a cost of $200 million, strict limitations about the building's exterior design seems to have inspired Gehry's wildly exuberant interior courtyard.

"People know that they need good art and good music, but they don't necessarily know that they need good buildings," Gehry says. "It takes an enlightened client to build something like this. And those are pretty rare."