Unusual Castles...and One Very Special Village

A Man’s Home: Unusual Castles …and One Very Special Village

Arguably born the day that villagers -- and the people who profited off them -- decided that wood wasn’t strong enough to keep them safe, castles quickly became more than just edifices dedicated to security. Instead of repelling borders, real or imaginary, castles became THE status symbol of status symbols. Monuments to bravado, they were stone and mortal proclamations to the age-old idea that "mine is bigger than yours."

Pierrefonds - picture-postcard example of a castle

If you want an picture-postcard example of a castle, you don’t have to go anywhere but the Château de Pierrefonds in France. Although it may have started out as a structure designed to keep some folks out and others safely in, it was later partially sugar frosted by none other than Napoleon the 3rd, who was shooting for a true nobility status symbol: a iced cake that no one but the very rich and very privileged could eat.


(image credit: Frédéric Lavaux)

Pierrefonds is still a beautiful place, even if its fortifications were overly gilded –- or maybe because of it. It’s no wonder it's used to this day when central casting gets a call for a classic castle.


(photos by Ralph Gant and Benoit Stordeur, see more)


When fairy tale jumps from a landscape and hits you between the eyes

If you want a real Disney, fairy-tale, and totally insane castle, you have to visit the residence of one totally insane German king, namely Ludwig II of Bavaria. Look up gaudy in the dictionary and there’s a picture of his castle: Neuschwanstein ("The New Swan Rock").




Neuschwanstein Castle, gracing ten million over-saturated postcards and jigsaw puzzles, (image credits unknown)

Glitzed and filigreed, Neuschwanstein is like Ludwig’s twisted brain turned inside out and realized in stone and brick. It is also sublime and splendid, over-the-top and strangely fragile - all at the same time. We are going to devote a special article to it, truly a place not of this world.


photos by Avi Abrams

Monstrous chandelier? Check. Room made to look like a cavern? It’s there. Entire rooms dedicated to Wagner (with whom Ludwig was obsessed)? Absolutely. It’s all there, larger and more ornate than any life … unless, of course, you were the King of Bavaria.


photos by Avi Abrams


The Coral Castle - Nobody knows how it was built

One of my favorite castles, though, wasn’t the dream of a king realized in stone and mortar. Spurned at the altar back in his native Latvia, Edward Leedskalnin took his disappointment, and a case of tuberculosis, to Florida in 1923. There, in the land of oranges and sunshine, Leedskalnin began to build his very own castle, one he worked on until his death in 1951 (more info)

Extreme building - extreme achitecture - drunk builder and mad Architects

Drunk Builders and Mad Architects,

We all know that we shouldn't "drink and drive", but these guys definitely should not "drink and build"!



Somebody designed it and approved it:



Witness the architectural richness of one Russian general's "dacha" (cottage):
note his car parked nearby




Something old, something new -


A building in Romania, Bucharest, Revolutiei Plaza

A zipper -



No earthquake is responsible for this (the bridge is brand new) -



This billboard is better avoided in windy weather (note the securing bolts, looks pretty flimsy) -



That's great - almost your own "Ripley's Believe It or Not"-styled cottage:


(original unknown)

You must've seen similarly topsy-turvied "WonderWorks" building in Orlando:


(image credit: Oscar Ferrer)




(images credit: Avi Abrams)

Some mad architecture can only be considered as irony. Here is, for example, an interesting Church Metamorphosis:

This is not a church any more - turned into a water tower:
(seen in Curon Venosta, Northern Italy, near Stelvio Pass)


(left photo by Raymond)

In an opposite way, this water tower masquerades as a church:



This church is pretty much out of options:



In the meantime people witness the arrival of Electric Spaghetti Monster:



Plumbing gets complicated:



Nobody can tell me what this is:
(maybe an altar to the gods of construction? They need all the forgiveness they can get)


Update: it seems to be a brick oven, turned mobile

Police somewhere in Ukraine do not seem to mind squeezing into extremely small booths:



...or being crammed into the even smaller containers (the sign says "Police open from 8am to midnight" - I hope they don't stay for sleep in there)



Another way to solve your bank's financial woes:



Somebody needed logs for his fireplace? -


(image via)



Must be from planet Photoshop... -


(image via)

The Great Lenin Sphynx:



Somebody's been stealing the manhole covers... Well, there is always a fix:



"Double-deckers" are getting more and more popular:





Minimalist drain pipe:



Stairways in the Wilderness:







A hybrid:


(sent in Homer Seywerd)

Something always happens to the balconies... they have a special karma, I think:







Windows and Doors:







Just build OVER your problems, and they'll disappear:





Bad, bad FAIL:



Need more square footage? Hire extreme and fearless contractors:


An old warehouse in Bath, England, with a wooden winch housing sticking out, photo by Javier Carcamo

Need more square footage for pigeons? Just keep adding to the existing structure:



Interior Decor recycling and re-use in Chelyabinsk, Russia -



The Throne Room:




Should there be some kind of the "Architectural Horrors" theme park, with all sorts of crazy construction going on there - at the safe distance from general public? It will have rare periods of quiet -