The vast majority of buildings people interact with on a daily basis are fairly ordinary. Brick or stone houses. Mirrored glass office buildings. Wooden sheds. They do a job and do it well and we don’t expect much more from them. But sometimes architects lose their minds and design something so weird that it’s amazing they could find contractors to build the thing. These are five of the most baffling buildings ever constructed.
The Atomium

Credit: brunocoelho/Shutterstock
The Atomium in Brussels was built to be surreally weird, to which we say, well done, Brussels. It was originally built for the 1958 World’s Fair. The peculiar shape is meant to resemble an iron crystal, though blown up to 165 billion times its original size. Visitors walk through a series of tubes and bulbs, are treated to an extensive exhibit about the history of the building and see a striking 360-degree panorama of Brussels. If you’d like, you can make that panorama the backdrop for a meal of entirely Belgian origins at the restaurant at the top of the crystal.
Ryugyong Hotel

Credit: Torsten Pursche/Shutterstock
North Korea’s a baffling place, which means the prize jewel of its spartan capital, Pyongyang, has to make the list. We’re talking about the huge pyramid that is the Ryugyong Hotel. Everything about the place is a drab grey except for the massive glass, steel and concrete spike in the middle of the city. Ostensibly, it’s a hotel, but by all reports, the building is literally a shell. Nothing’s inside, no one visits, there aren’t any active tenants and the most revealing look people have had of the building is the few pictures of the outside that managed to make their way into circulation. For 32 years, the building has towered over Pyongyang without ever officially opening its doors or even having electricity installed.
Habitat 67

Credit: Pinkcandy/Shutterstock
Habitat 67 in Montreal looks like the kind of thing we built with those big wooden blocks we all had when we were kids. Big rectangles lay on top of each other in what looks like a completely random order and with no consideration for anything you might want to put on the inside. In reality, that’s kind of what happened. The structure is made of 354 different modules stacked on top of each other. It’s primarily used as living spaces and would certainly be an interesting place to come home to.
Casa do Penedo

Credit: StockPhotosArt/Shutterstock
Most of the time, people make their homes out of a bunch of stones stacked on top of each other. That, and you’d generally clear the construction site of large obstructions before you build something. The Casa do Penedo (which roughly translates to “House of Stone” in English) in Moreira do Rei, Portugal, doesn’t follow either of those rules. Instead, it looks like someone took a regular house, melted it down, and poured it into the crack between two huge boulders. Understandably, The Flintstones is cited as a major inspiration for the house.
There was actually a long internet fight about whether or not the Casa do Penedo was even real, with plenty of internet experts crying foul from their computers. To be fair, at the time of the argument, the house had only ever been photographed from two angles and most of the pictures had been edited in some way. Eventually a television special and Daily Mail article were written about the house, proving its existence. But for a little while, it looked like the Casa do Penedo was someone’s Photoshop training exercise, not a legitimate construction project.
The Eden Project

Credit: Anna Jastrzebska/Shutterstock
England isn’t particularly known for its natural biodiversity or wilderness. It’s a pretty country to look at, but you’re not going to find the kind of flora and fauna there that you would in more tropical places. Unless you were going to the Eden Project in Cornwall, which is a series of environmental biomes used mostly for education. There are domes for the rainforest, California, South Africa, the Mediterranean and a huge garden for utility plants. In a few short hours, visitors can travel the warmer climates of the world and be home for Yorkshire pudding before the sun goes down.
now I got my eyes wide open – I love it. There is so much beauty out there. Hand made and natural. Thanks for sharing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for the nice comment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am now following you, hope you are me as well.
LikeLike
Surprised you didn’t add the Big Idaho Potato Hotel in Idaho. Calling it a hotel is a bit of stretch in my opinion based on its small size.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I did not know. Thank you for telling me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You are welcome. One of the advantages of doing some of my theme posts is coming across strange stuff. My post about why I like themed posts which I posted almost 3 hours ago has a list of some of the websites I find stuff. I probably should add direct links as I forgot to do it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I put my theme not from Word Press because I try to match the picture with the content. I hope you notice. I love what you do just not for me, 3>
LikeLiked by 1 person
If I were more tech savvy, I would try the same. I notice that when I re-blog a post, the photo is not always consistent with the photo that is first on the original post. Sometimes, it is not even in the post.
On my themed posts, I am talking about the 1 – 2 themes I post each day as well as the irregular posts where I haven’t assigned a theme to a specific day. For today (Thursday as it’s not yet Friday yet), I try to post a North Carolina Thursdays post. I may also post a few other North Carolina related posts, but I would be hard-pressed to come up consistently with enough North Carolina posts every week to make it last.
My last post for the night in less than an hour will be about Military Antiques and Museum in Petaluma, California. It has a section of the museum dedicated to a Medal of Honor winner.
LikeLike
O, now I understand what you are talking about!! I misunderstood what you were saying about the picture. I meant the picture on the front page, not of posts, LOL I am a little confusing I know, forgive me, please!
LikeLike
You do a much better job then I do. I just keep the picture that comes with the post I share mostly.
LikeLike