There are many fine museums in Austin at which one can view fantastic collections and exciting new work. However, The Contemporary—Laguna Gloria provides those things as well the quintessential, indoor-outdoor, quirky Austin experience. Located in a lakeside villa built in 1916, the site now boasts the fantastic Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park and adjacent Mayfield Park, with its free-range peacocks and historic Mayfield-Gutsch cottage and a nature preserve beyond. Bonus: Mount Bonnell, which offers one of the best views in Austin, is three minutes away; turn left on to Mount Bonnell Road as you exit the park.

For many years, The Main Tower at the University of Texas and the state Capitol is the campus it and the Texas Capitol were the two most prominent buildings in the Austin skyline. Designed by Paul Philippe Cret, the well-known, France-born architect who designed the Beaux Arts plan for the university’s central campus, it was completed in 1937 and features locally quarried limestone one the door frames and West Texas marble on the main staircase.

Located on eastern side of the University of Texas campus, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library has often been decried for its monolithic scale, and almost windowless and featureless travertine exterior. Nevertheless, its distinctive and modern design has worn well over the years. Completed in 1971, it designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. Its most dramatic feature (aside from the giant, bowl-like fountain outside, also spare in design), is a Great Hall is featuring four stories of archives behind glass. Sadly, the animatronic-LBJ robot that used to greet visitors from his stage-set “ranch” has been silenced, although he is still present and has had his country garb changed to a more presidential suit.

Opened in 1888 (it replaced a more diminutive structure destroyed by fire in 1881), the Texas Capitol was intended to make a grand statement. Modeled after the U.S. Capitol in a neo-Renaissance style that features the domes, columns, plasterwork, and pediments often associated with classical architecture, it’s just a tad taller than the building that houses our nation’s legislature. The state Capitol’s most unique element is the striking, pinkish granite sourced from Granite Mountain near the site of nearby Marble Falls. It creates a distinctive hue that’s unique among capitol buildings in the country.

Austin’s moonlight towers are popular and storied fixtures on the city’s landscape, beloved by locals and often fascinating to visitors. The towers were purchased from the city of Detroit and installed around Austin in the 1890s. The 165-foot-tall towers, featuring six bright lamps at the top (originally carbon-arc, now mercury vapor), illuminate a 1,500-foot-radius brightly and were part of Austin’s early street-lighting program—often chosen in place of the many regular street lamps that would be required to light a similarly sized area. The lights, listed in the National Register of Historic Places and featured in contemporary pop-culture moments (notably in the movie Dazed and Confused), also have a number of myths surrounding them. Austin is the only city in the United States that continues to maintain and use moonlight towers.

Opened in 1915, the historic Congress Avenue theater has long been a place for Austinites to see top-notch live performances of all kinds, as well as to marvel at its lovely, lovingly restored historic interior. It's also a great place to see films, especially in the summertime, when the amply air-conditioned theater screens a series of classics.

Nestled among the increasing numbers of skyscrapers on the west side of downtown, the federal courthouse benefits greatly from having recently revitalized Republic Square park as its front lawn. Then again, the fact that it’s relatively out in the open like that might have been why it’s one of only two federal buildings called out in a proposed 2020 presidential order titled “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again,” which deems it as having “little aesthetic appeal.” Outlier opinion aside, the contemporary limestone building has received numerous awards and has become a notable Austin landmark. Designed by Atlanta-based architects Mack Scogin Merrill Elam and Austin firm Page and opened in 2012, it seems to have become the city “living room” they intended it to be.

One of the oldest extant wood-frame structures in the city, the French Legation was built for a chargé d'affaires to what was then the Republic of Texas. Things didn't go well for the French here (there was something called a "Pig War" involved), and the house saw several residents through the years, including a plantation owner after whom its location, Robertson Hill, was named. The state eventually bought and restored the structure, and it's now a small museum and a green oasis in a busy city that regularly hosts ambitious outdoor performances, film screenings, and other events.

Generally considered Austin’s first, the Frost Bank Tower broke ground in 2001 and quickly became the subject of controversy (So tall! So shiny! Such a weird design!). Designed by Duda/Paine and HKS Architects, it has a reflective blue-glass exterior and a crown that’s meant to resemble an owl when viewed at certain angles—though wiseacres compared it a nose-hair trimmer. It was for a time the tallest building in Austin (now long surpassed), and it turned out to be more distinctive and, well, iconic that many of the high-rises that followed.

The Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Center for the Performing Arts, just south of Lady Bird Lake, is a performance center and ode to the artful—majestic, even—reuse and revival. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, it opened It opened in 2008 after 10 years of construction (along with funding issues and civic discussions of same). It replaced the mod, domed Lester E. Palmer Auditorium, reusing 95 percent of its building materials, including the distinctive green and brown panels—originally on the roof and now decorate the exterior walls—and the ring-beam exterior structure, which now is a terrace that offers an excellent view of downtown. The center is the performance home of Austin Symphony Orchestra, Austin Lyric Opera, and Ballet Austin as well as many other performances and special events.

A fixture on South Congress for more than 80 years, Austin Motel might have a motor-court design that was standard-issue in the mid-20th century. But since 1938, its distinctive sign has been a beacon and a symbol for the South Congress Avenue strip that’s iconic in its own right. It was recently remodeled in a way that appeals to the contemporary traveler while keeping the basics—including the kidney-shaped pool intact and nodding in completely innovative ways to its colorful past.

The legendary homestead of the legendary Koock family, which included the legendary John Henry Faulk (y’all need to look all that up if you don’t know what we’re talking about) was recently sold and remodeled by (legendary) local firm Clayton & Little Architects, and the restaurant is under new, highly lauded management. It’s also still an incredibly lovely oasis, and it still has its peacocks.