Apathetic Lemming of the North: Strange and Fantastic Buildings: 80-plus Architectural Photos

Monday, February 23, 2009

Strange and Fantastic Buildings: 80-plus Architectural Photos

"80+ Strange and Fantastic Buildings Architecture"
Dkumar M, InstantShift (undated, probably February, 2009)

"The term Architecture can refer to a process, a profession or documentation. As a process, architecture is the activity of designing and constructing buildings and other physical structures by a person or a computer, primarily to provide shelter. As a profession, architecture is the role of those persons or machines providing architectural services. As documentation, usually based on drawings, architecture defines the structure and/or behavior of a building or any other kind of system that is to be or has been constructed.

"In the late 20th century many new concept was included in the compass of both structure...."

You may have seen some of these before, in posts I've micro-reviewed: like Forest Spiral Building (Darmstadt, Germany) and The Basket Building (Ohio, USA). Others are new to me.

Some, like the ING Headquarters (Amsterdam, Netherlands), seem have either just landed, or be about to take off. Others, like Stone House (Guimarães, Portugal), look like they might have grown on the spot. The Kansas City Public Library (Missouri, USA) plays with scale - it looks like a row of books. Solar Furnace (Odeillo, France) merges function and aesthetics - and looks like something out of one of the better science fiction comics.

The point is that, from the venerable Habitat 67 (Montreal, Canada) to Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles, California, USA) and Experience Music Project (Seattle, Washington, USA) (Think Mickey Mouse on a bender, and Salvidore Dali meets Le Corbusier, respectively), this is an eclectic collection of remarkable architecture, from around the world.

I'm impressed at how many styles are represented, and how the samples are selected from around the world.

Personal favorites (today) are: