Ottawa - National Gallery of Canada

The National Gallery of Canada, designed by Moshe Safdie, is an architectural masterpiece, a highly successful, ultra-modern building that, with its prism-like glass towers, echoes the lines of the nearby Parliament Buildings, and while strongly contrasting with their Neo-Gothicism and the mock medieval Château Laurier nevertheless fits very well into Ottawa's cityscape.

Among the gallery's major works, those by Canadian artists include "Joseph Brant" (1805) by William Berczy, "North Shore, Lake Superior" (1926) by Lawren S. Harris, "Blunden Harbour" (1930) by Emily Carr, "Journey on Foot" (undated) by Pitseolak, and "Reason over Passion" (1968) by Joyce Wieland.

From Europe come Hans Memling's "Virgin and Child with St Antony", Lucas Cranach the Elder's "Venus", and El Greco's "St Francis of Assissi", together with "The Mechanic" (1920) by Fernand Léger; also works by Gustav Klimt, Pablo Picasso, Claes Oldenbourg, George Segal and Andy Warhol.