In this New York Times article from Monday, Henry Fountain takes the recent unveiling of the glass boxes on the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower as a jumping off point (pun intended) to discuss how new kinds of glass are finally making the architectural impulse towards completely translucent buildings a possibility. What would a glass building look like, though? Would it just be an extremely voyeuristic cube of pristine, shimmering membranes? Or would it just look like a normal building with glass substituted for more traditional materials? We tried to find out with this listicle of 10 Buildings Made of Glass.

The Louvre Museum Pyramids, Paris

These fancy entrances to Paris’s biggest art museum were designed by I.M. Pei and feature a fairly self-effacing structural support system that creates the impression of pure glass pyramids.

The Glass Atelier, New York

Though still only a proposal, this six-story building designed by architect Joseph Pell Lombardi proposed for New York’s Tribeca neighborhood and dubbed the Glass Atelier would be entirely constructed out of glass bricks that would be about as solid as stone bricks but, you know, sexy and see-through.

The Wizard of Oz’s Emerald City

Granted, it’s fictional and technically made of precious stones, but it sure looks like a glitzy city of green glass from here. It also looks like several cities in China and the United Arab Emirates. How prescient!

The Shard London Bridge or Glass Shard

This building designed by Renzo Piano is currently under construction, though upon completion it will be the tallest in England and by far the glassiest thing on the London skyline. That said, it is being built from fairly traditional office building materials, but the intended effect when it is finished (approx. 2012) will be to evoke, well, a shard of glass.

40 Mercer Street, New York

Dubbed the Glass House because it looks like it’s made entirely of glass, this residential building is a sleek piece of steel and glass engineering, with structural elements reduced to their barest essentials. The result is an elegant building that resembles two glass rectangles stacked atop one another.

100 Eleventh Avenue, New York

Though it doesn’t really give the illusion of being made entirely of glass, it does do its best to blind onlookers with its facade of glass plates, the most on any building anywhere. Currently nearing completion in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, this is another from Jean Nouvel, and it’s been affectionatly dubbed “The Vision Machine” for obvious reasons.

John Hancock Tower, Boston

Another from architect I.M. Pei, this glass building on Boston’s Copley Square often disappears into the sky it’s so reflective, and is actually named for the Hancock Insurance company, not the famous Declaration-signer Hancock. Also, it was recently sold for $600 million in a foreclosure auction.

The Lighthouse, Dubai

What would a crazy building listicle be without a Dubai entry, right? This one comes to us from architects/engineers Atkins, and merits inclusion on this list because, well, it looks like a giant window pane being held in place by pliers.

National Center for the Performing Arts, Beijing

Set in an artificial pond, the Chinese performing arts center rises out of the water like a glass moon coming over the horizon. Affectionately dubbed The Egg, it was designed by French architect Paul Andreu and is made of glass set onto a titanium structure.

Christian Dior Store, Tokyo

Designed by architecture group SANAA, this Christian Dior store in the Omotesando district of Tokyo is essentially a stack of glass cubes sandwiched between cement floors. Put another way, it’s like a giant, glass jewelry box.