Curious Places

Julius Klingebiel Zelle (Göttingen/ Germany)

2017-08-13T20:58:00.004+12:00

The artwork covering the walls of this psychiatric hospital cell is that of Julius Klingebiel (1904-1965). The former German army mechanic was arrested in 1939 for killing his step son and shortly after got diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was hospitalized.

Soon he began decorating the cell where he stayed, at first using a paste made from toothpaste, coal, wood and stone. When the nursing staff noticed the calming effect he got from painting they supplied him with proper paint and a brush which he used to cover all the walls of cell #117. The paintings featured animals, (military) people, ships, heraldic motives, national-socialist topics and roman-catholic imagery.

After his death in 1965 the hospital preserved his cell as it was. Only a handful of people knew about it until the artworks were published in a book as part of a research project in 2013 and the cell is now protected by law as a cultural monument.

Kolarbyn Ecolodge (Skinnskatteberg/ Sweden)

2017-06-29T20:40:00.001+12:00

Kolarbyn Ecolodge is ”Sweden’s most primitive hotel”. There is no electricity, no showers, nothing fancy at all, just twelve well camouflaged little cabins in between all the trees. All covered in mud and grass. Bilberries and mushrooms grow wild on their roofs. As natural as it can be.
Perfect for an adventure off the beaten track. To breathe some fresh air, to enjoy the peacefulness, to take part in free outdoor activities and to experience the local wildlife.

Cabin made from windows (West Virginia)

2017-04-17T13:20:00.000+12:00

While on their very first date, photographer Nick Olson & designer Lilah Horwitz went on a walk in the West Virginia countryside. They watched the sunset and wondered what it would be like to live in a house where the entire facade was made from windows, so the sunset would never be contained within a small space.
And so a year later the two quit their jobs and embarked on a road trip starting in Pennsylvania to collect old windows from garage sales and antique dealers. Back in West Virginia they built the glass cabin in the exact same spot where they imagined it on their fist date.

Bombay Sapphire Distillery Glasshouses (Laverstoke/ U.K.)

2017-02-27T09:47:00.002+13:00

These curvy glasshouses are part of the Bombay Sapphire Distillery in Laverstoke. They house exotic plant species used in their distillation process. One of the glasshouses has a humid tropical environment and the other a dry temperate Mediterranean climate. The connection to the still house allows waste heat from the distillation process to be recycled to maintain the warm climates for the plant species to flourish. The fluid geometry of these new glass buildings was influenced by recent advances in glass technology and by Britain’s rich heritage of botanical glasshouse structures.

Photos by Iwan Baan.

via
http://www.archdaily.com/554750/bombay-sapphire-distillery-heatherwick-studio

Neile Cooper's Stained Glass Cabin (Sparta/ New Jersey)

2017-01-31T20:40:00.001+13:00

Artist Neile Cooper sells hand made stained glass item on etsy and this is her studio cabin for which she crafted stained glass walls and ceilings that catch the light beutifully.
It lies nestled in the pine and maple trees behind her home on a quiet residential street in Sparta, New Jersey.

Neile became a stained glass window maker but when the recession hit and the work dried up Neile instead decided to make jewellery.
“Part of the inspiration for doing this cabin was that I missed doing large scale work," she says. "I wanted a big project that I could really immerse myself in. If no one was going to hire me to make windows, I would just make them for myself.”

Yangzhou Zhongshuge Bookstore (Yangzhou/ China)

2016-11-21T22:30:00.001+13:00

This futuristic bookstore was designed by Li Xiang of XL Muse Architects. With arched walls of books, organic shapes and reflective black mirror finish on the floor, visitors are given a sense of entering another world.

The Kennecott Mines Ghost Town (Kennecott /Alaska)

2016-10-02T09:25:00.001+13:00

The Kennecott Mines is an abandoned copper mining town in the Valdez-Cordova Census Area in Alaska. It is located beside the Kennicott Glacier, northeast of Valdez, inside Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.
From the first discovery of the copper in 1900 it had about 30 years of prosperous business, having the richest known concentration of copper in the world at the time.
By the early 1930s the highest grades of ore were largely depleted and mines started closing one by one. The last train left Kennecott on November 10, 1938, leaving it a ghost town.
By the 1980s the old mines were attracting tourists and in 1980 it was declared a National Historic Landmark.

The Hideout (Selat, Bali/ Indonesia)

2016-09-21T10:03:00.000+12:00

The Hideout lies in the mountains of Gunung Agung volcano and was built and handcrafted in 2015. Nestled by the riverside inbetween rice fields the bamboo house is a unique eco stay for adventurous travellers who want to experience rustic Balinese village life.

Cadillac Ranch (Amarillo/ Texas)

2016-09-13T09:40:00.001+12:00

Cadillac Ranch is a public art installation involving 10 vintage Cadillacs. It was created in 1974 by members of the art group Ant Farm.
Since its beginning the car colours have gone through multiple evolutions. White for a TV commercial, then pink because of a founding member's wife's birthday, and again all 10 cars were painted flat black to mark the passing of Ant Farm artist Doug Michels. In 2012 they were painted rainbow colors to commemorate gay pride day. However most of the time you'll find the cars covered in graffiti.

Floating Islands in a Lake (Lake Titicaca/ Peru & Bolivia)

2016-09-06T12:59:00.001+12:00

The Uros are pre-Incan people who live on self made floating islands in Lake Titicaca on the border of Peru and Bolivia.
The purpose of the island settlements was originally defensive, so if a threat arose they could be moved. Nowadays most of their people live on the mainland but a few hundred still live on and maintain the islands.
Dried totora reeds, which grow in the lake, are used to construct reed boats as well as the islands themselves. The reeds at the bottoms of the islands rot away fairly quickly, so new reeds are added to the top about every three months.

Gerald DeCock's Colourful Hippie Heaven (NY City/ New York)

2016-08-23T11:46:00.001+12:00

Hair stylist and visual artist Gerald DeCock lives in a rooftop apartment of the Chelsea hotel in New York City.
The space is a colourful explosion of art, beaded curtains, eclectic furniture and various embellishments and decorations. The apartment also has a much cared for rooftop garden with views over the city.

Bosco Verticale - Vertical Forest (Milan /Italy)

2016-06-20T21:59:00.001+12:00

Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) is a pair of award- winning residential towers in the Porta Nuova district of Milan. It opened in 2014 and was designed by Boeri Studio.
The towers are home to 900 trees and over 2,000 plants ranging from shrubs to flowers distributed in relation to the façade’s position towards the sun.

Spiral Jetty (Rozel Point/ Utah)

2016-05-30T13:50:00.001+12:00

Spiral Jetty is an earthwork made in 1970 by American sculptor Robert Smithson.
The 15-foot-wide (4.6 m) counterclockwise coil spirals into the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point. It's constructed entirely of mud, salt crystals, and basalt rocks.
The water level of the lake varies with precipitation in the mountains surrounding the area, revealing the jetty in times of drought and submerging it during times of normal precipitation.
Originally black basalt rock against ruddy water, Spiral Jetty is now largely white against pink due to salt encrustation.

Abandoned Water Park Ho Thuy Tien (near Hue/ Vietnam)

2016-05-26T15:35:00.005+12:00

The abandoned water park of Ho Thuy Tien is located in the lake near Thien An Hill about 8 km from the tourist area of central Hue. It has gained a bit of fame on the internet lately and has become a destination for lovers of abandoned things. Recently there's even a local posted at the gate who demands money from anyone wanting to take a look, but apparently there's other ways in too.

Not much is known about the park other than it opened in 2004 as a family water park and cost about 3 Mill USD to build. It closed not too long afterwards and everything left as it was, even live crocodiles (who were recently rescued by PETA).

Sandstone Cave Carvings (Northern desert of New Mexico)

2016-05-17T14:43:00.000+12:00

For 25 years Ra Paulette has been carving out sandstone caves in the high desert of New Mexico. The now 67 year old had no former training in architecture, sculpting or structural engineering whatsoever. He uses shovels, pick axes and scrapers to create these beautiful spaces in efforts of inspiring “spiritual renewal and personal well being”. He prefers to work by himself, his only assistant being his dog.

Backyard Treehouse (Sandpoint/ Idaho)

2016-05-04T10:11:00.002+12:00

Ethan Schlussler always had a childhood dream of building himself a treehouse bedroom. When he was 18 he sketched a few plans but college got in the way and so it was 5 years until he returned to his childhood home.
“A lot of people have dreams; then they get a job and have a family. And then they get to be 40 or 50 and suddenly realize all their dreams just fell by the wayside. I didn’t want that to happen to me,” he recalls. “Twenty years from now, I didn’t want to be like, Why didn’t I ever build a treehouse when I had the chance? I realized I had the time and the energy and the resources. So I just decided right there: OK, I’m gonna do this.”

Instead of bolting the structure to the tree he invented a clamping system — a series of 2-by-4s arranged vertically around the trunk and held in place by a metal cable.
To access the treehouse, a bicycle elevator was put in place to ride up vertically into the sky.

Snail House (Sofia/ Bulgaria)

2016-04-26T10:31:00.002+12:00

In the Bulgarian capital of Sofia theres a rather unusual house in the district of Simeonovo. The 5 storey tall Snail House was designed by local architect Simeon Simeonov and painted all colours of the rainbow. On the snails back there's even a ladybug and a butterfly crawling around. It took around 10 years to complete and was opened to the public in 2009.

Rainbow Panorama Walkway (Arhus/ Denmark)

2016-03-23T18:56:00.000+13:00

In Denmark Olafur Eliasson has created a permanent installation that gives a rainbow-tinted 360 view of the city of Arhus. "Your Rainbow Panorama" is situated on top of the ARoS Museum of Art and measure 150 meters around.

The Initiation Wells of Quinta da Regaleira (Sintra/ Portugal)

2016-03-15T14:30:00.003+13:00

Quinta da Regaleira is an estate inside a World Heritage protected landscapenear near Sintra, Portugal. The castle itself is a popular tourist attraction but there's more to it beneath the ground.
Two wells spiral deep into the earth like inverted towers. The wells were never used, nor intended for water collection, but for secretive initiation rites. The larger one contains a 27-meter spiral staircase with several small landings. The spacing of these landings, combined with the number of steps in the stairs, are linked to Tarot mysticism. The smaller well contains straight stairs that connect a series of ring-shaped floors to one another.
In addition to the wells there's also various caves, grottoes, tunnels and other monuments located around the castle park.

Nyaung Ohak & Shwe Inn Thein (Indein/ Myanmar)

2016-03-07T21:07:00.001+13:00

Inside Myanmar’s jungles, lies the small village of Indein. It is reachable only by boat through the long & narrow Inn Thein creek and only in the rainy season and winter as the water is too shallow during summer.
Behind the village there's hundreds of ancient overgrown pagodas, most of them crumbling into ruin - a few of them restored. They are decorated with ornate stucco carvings of mythical animals, deva (celestial beings) and chinthe (mythical lions). Some have images of the Buddha.
There are two sets of pagodas around Indein — Nyaung Ohak and on top of a hill there's Shwe Inn Thein. Most of the pagodas there were constructed in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Holmenkollen - Penthouse on a Ski Jump (Oslo/Norway)

2016-01-26T12:00:00.000+13:00

The upper-most level of the Holmenkollen ski jump has been turned into a luxury penthouse. The cozy, yet expansive alpine retreat has floor to ceiling windows that give you one of the best views imaginable of Oslo - snow capped mountains and endless forest. Right above is the highest roof terrace in town, ideal for stargazing if you're not scared of heights.

The Enchanted Forest (Revelstoke/ Canada)

2016-01-20T22:50:00.000+13:00

What started off as a retirement project is now known as the The Enchanted Forest theme park. From 1950 to 1971, Doris and Ernest Needham built this fairy tale attraction on 38 acres of forest land. The hand cleared trails feature 350 cement fairy sculptures, a mushroom house, a castle, a life-size recreation of Winnie the Pooh's forest penthouse, a 50-foot-tall treehouse, and other mystical structures.
They are open during summer season from May - October.

Kaos Temple (Polígono de Asipo/ Spain)

2016-01-13T20:32:00.001+13:00

An abandoned and neglected historic church in the spanish municipality of Llanera, Asturias has been converted into a colourful indoor skate park. In December 2015, artist Okuda San Miguel started his colorful mural which now covers the churches vaulted ceilings and walls. Created in collaboration with Red Bull, ‘Kaos Temple’ is a sanctuary for both skateboarders and art lovers alike.

The Pyramids of Meroë (Sudan)

2016-01-05T17:17:00.001+13:00

Along the banks of the Nile River, in eastern Sudan, lies a collection of nearly 200 ancient pyramids in the desert. Built between 2,700 and 2,300 years ago, many of them are tombs of the kings and queens of the ancient Meroitic Kingdom. The pyramids have narrow bases and steep angles on the sides and contain elements from the cultures of Pharaonic Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

Lupe Sina Treesort (Tiavi/ Samoa)

2016-01-02T10:54:00.001+13:00

Located in the hills of Tiavi, the Treesort overlooks the beautiful south coast and the rainforest of Upolu, offering visitors a chance to experience the beauty beyond the beaches.

The treehouses are engineering masterpieces and showcase the unspoiled nature of the islands interior, while conjuring up childhood memories and satisfying the impulses of the adventurous. Enjoy a hike through the jungle, bird watching or relax in the cool breeze of your private treehouse.