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Pondering this year’s Best Tall Building award winners, architecture geeks will find much to love and loath.

The annual awards, presented by the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, recognize projects that have made “extraordinary contributions to the advancement of tall buildings and the urban environment, and that achieve sustainability at the highest and broadest level.”

In others words, skyscrapers must show something more than a little flash and sparkle to win. To their credit, CTBUH judges don’t simply pander to the outrageous towers designed to gain attention, projects that offer plenty of bells and whistles on the outside, but little engineering on the inside.

That said, skyscrapers are meant to be ostentatious and grand, jaw-dropping and brash, inspiring devoted followings with their flair. Some may disagree, but this year’s regional winners deliver the goods:

The original Chelsea Barracks plan

A London court has ruled that Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund acted improperly when it withdrew support for a controversial Chelsea project after complaints from Prince Charles.

The case brought by CPC Group, the company controlled by high-profile luxury developer Christian Candy, has turned into one of the U.K.’s most closely watched soap operas, thanks to the role of His Royal Highness. The court ruled that Prince Charles’ intervention in the Chelsea Barracks redevelopment plan, which was being developed by CPC and Qatari Diar, was “unexpected and unwelcome.”

More than $4.5 million was recently cut from the listing price for the Ennis House, one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic home creations.

Perched in the hills above Los Angeles, the landmark house, built in 1924, uses Wright’s signature textile concrete brick design, creating a house that is part cool art deco and part Mayan temple.

The house was originally listed at $15 million last year, after the foundation controlling the property decided it could no longer afford the preservation effort. But the price was recently cut to $10.495 million, creating what listing agent Christie’s Great Estates calls an “unprecedented value proposition for a buyer with a vision and a passion for historic architecture.”

An “interpretation center” vaguely resembling a hobbit house, built at the convergence of two rivers in South Africa, won the “Building of the Year” award Friday at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona, touted as “the biggest architectural awards program in the world.”