If you are an architect and you have ever had a problem once your building has been built, then cheer up. We came across two architectural ‘bloopers’ during our trip. The first was the Mile High Center, in Denver, Colorado. The tower was designed in the early 1950s by I.M. Pei, and considered to be Denver’s first modern high-rise. The building is part of a complex with the Wells Fargo Center and as can be seen in the photo, features the Wells Fargo “cash register” profile in the form of a glass atrium at the base. According to our guide, the problem with the curved roofs is that nobody thought about the risk of avalanches in the winter. After one such hefty avalanche occurred (fortunately, no deaths) the problem had to be solved by placing electric heaters in the roofs. The second was Frank Gehry’s beautiful Los Angeles Opera House. As the Wiki entry describes: ‘the Founders Room and Children’s Amphitheater were designed with highly polished mirror-like panels. The reflective qualities of the surface were amplified by the concave sections of the Founders Room walls. Some residents of the neighboring condominiums suffered glare caused by sunlight that was reflected off these surfaces and concentrated in a manner similar to a parabolic mirror. The resulting heat made some rooms of nearby condominiums unbearably warm, caused the air-conditioning costs of these residents to skyrocket and created hot spots on adjacent sidewalks of as much as 140 °F (60 °C). There was also the increased risk of traffic accidents due to blinding sunlight reflected from the polished surfaces. After complaints from neighboring buildings and residents, the owners asked Gehry Partners to come up with a solution. Their response was a computer analysis of the building’s surfaces identifying the offending panels. In 2005 these were dulled by lightly sanding the panels to eliminate unwanted glare.’ It can happen to the best of us.