Sunday, February 6, 2011

Unusual Architecture

1. The Crooked House (Sopot, Poland)
The Krzywy Domek is an irregularly-shaped building in Sopot, Poland. Its name translates in to English as the Crooked House. The Krzywy Domek was built in 2004. It is approximately 4,000 square meters in size and is part of the Rezydent shopping center. It was designed by Szotyńscy & Zaleski who were inspired by the fairytale illustrations and drawings of Jan Marcin Szancer and Per Dahlberg. It can be entered from either Monte Cassino or Morska Streets.

2. Lotus Temple (Delhi, India)
The Bahá'í House of Worship in Delhi, India, popularly known as the Lotus Temple due to its flowerlike shape, is a Bahá'í House of Worship and also a prominent attraction in Delhi. It was completed in 1986 and serves as the Mother Temple of the Indian subcontinent. It has won numerous architectural awards and been featured in hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles.

3. Cathedral of Brasilia (Brazil)
The Cathedral of Brasília is the Roman Catholic cathedral serving Brasília, Brazil, and serves as the seat of the Archdiocese of Brasília. It was designed by Oscar Niemeyer, and was completed and dedicated on May 31, 1970. The cathedral is a hyperboloid structure constructed from 16 concrete columns, weighing 90 tons each.

4. Casa Milà (Spain)
Casa Milà, better known as La Pedrera (Catalan for 'The Quarry'), is a building designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí and built during the years 1905–1910, being considered officially completed in 1912. It is located at 92, Passeig de Gràcia (passeig is Catalan for promenade) in the Eixample district of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.

5. Atomium (Brussels, Belgium)
The Atomium is a monument in Brussels, originally built for Expo '58, the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. Designed by André Waterkeyn, it stands 102-metres (335 ft) tall. It has nine steel spheres connected so that the whole forms the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times.

6. Museum of Contemporary Art (Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
The Niterói Contemporary Art Museum (Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói — MAC) is situated in the city of Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is one of the city’s main landmarks. It was completed in 1996.

7. Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao, Spain)
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, built by Ferrovial and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. It is built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao to the Atlantic Coast. The Guggenheim is one of several museums belonging to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The museum features permanent and visiting exhibits of works by Spanish and international artists.

8. Rotating Tower, Dubai, UAE
The Dynamic Tower (also known as Dynamic Architecture Building or the Da Vinci Tower) is a proposed 420-metre (1,378 ft), 80-floor tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, designed by architect David Fisher.

9. Habitat 67 (Montreal, Canada)
Habitat 67 is a housing complex and landmark located on the Marc-Drouin Quay on the Saint Lawrence River at 2600, Pierre Dupuy Avenue in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Its design was created by architect Moshe Safdie based on his master's thesis at McGill University and built as part of Expo 67.

10. Casa DA musica (Porto, Portugal)
Casa da Música is a major concert hall space in Porto, Portugal which houses the cultural institution of the same name with its three orchestras Orquestra Nacional do Porto, Orquestra Barroca and Remix Ensemble. It was designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas with Office for Metropolitan Architecture and Arup-AFA, and was built as part of Porto's project for European Culture Capital in 2001 but was only finished in the first half of 2005 and immediately became an icon in the city. The Building engineers were Arup - London together with Afassociados, Oporto.

11. The National Library (Minsk, Belarus)
The National Library of Belarus founded on 15 September 1922. It is now located in a new 72-metre (236 feet) high building in Minsk, Belarus. The building has 22 floors and was completed in January 2006. The building can seat about 2,000 readers and features a 500-seat conference hall. Its main architectural component has the shape of a rhombicuboctahedron. The library's new building was designed by architects Mihail Vinogradov and Viktor Kramarenko and opened on 16 June 2006.

12. National Centre for the Performing Arts (China)
The National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) and colloquially described as The Egg, is an opera house in Beijing, People's Republic of China. The Centre, an ellipsoid dome of titanium and glass surrounded by an artificial lake, seats 5,452 people in three halls and is almost 12,000 m² in size. It was designed by French architect Paul Andreu. Construction started in December 2001 and the inaugural concert was held in December 2007.

13. Cubic Houses (Kubus woningen) (Rotterdam, Netherlands)
Kubuswoningen, or cube houses, are a set of innovative houses built in Rotterdam and Helmond in The Netherlands, designed by architect Piet Blom in 1984. The houses in Rotterdam are located on Overblaak Street, and beside the Blaak Subway Station. Blom tilted the cube of a conventional house 45 degrees, and rested it upon a hexagon-shaped pylon. There are 38 small cubes and two so called 'super-cubes', all attached to each other.

14. Atlantis (Dubai, UAE)
Atlantis, the Palm is a resort at Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is a joint venture between Kerzner International Limited and Istithmar PSJC and was opened on 24 September 2008. The resort is modelled after the Atlantis, Paradise Island resort in Nassau, Bahamas

15. Waldspirale (Darmstadt, Germany)
The Waldspirale is a residential building complex in Darmstadt, Germany, built in the 1990s. The name translates into English as forest spiral, reflecting both the general plan of the building and the fact that it has a green roof. It was designed by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, planned and implemented by architect Heinz M. Springmann, and constructed by the Bauverein Darmstadt company. The building was completed in 2000.

No comments:

Post a Comment