In the 12th century, a group of Christians built an ornate wooden church in Luster, Norway, adorned with carvings that fused Norse and Christian symbolism. Nearly 900 years later, the Urnes Stave Church still stands on the shores of the placid Lustrafjord. The Urnes Stave Church is Norway‘s oldest stave church— a wooden church constructed…
County Kerry, Ireland is a windswept coastal region that is home to rolling hills, verdant fields, and mysterious dry stone beehive huts of unknown origin. The rounded beehive huts of Fahan—which are known as clochan—are some of the most well-preserved in all of Ireland. Visitors can explore the domed stone dwellings of the Dingle Peninsula…
In 1932, a fun-loving man named “Crawfish Eddie” Walker converted a small barge resting on a sand flat off the coast of Miami in Florida‘s Key Biscayne into a bait and tackle shop that served fresh seafood by day and functioned as a raucous gambling den that served copious amounts of bootlegged rum by night….
Since 1976, motorists on I-280 passing through the Bay Area town of Hillsborough have been captivated by an unusual house with a rounded design that is perched atop a hill. The Flintstone House—as the eccentric structure is known—has been perceived as a beloved roadside attraction by travelers and a garish eyesore by residents of Hillsborough…
In the 1960s, a visionary Finnish architect named Matti Suuronen designed a series of flying saucer-shaped dwellings known as Futuro Houses that could be broken into 16 pieces and assembled in virtually any environment. Suuronen expected his affordable, portable futuristic houses to be a smash hit. Unfortunately, the general public did not take kindly to…
In the late 1800s, King Leopold II of Belgium decided to build a state-of-the-art greenhouse on the grounds of the Royal Palace of Laeken in Brussels. King Leopold II was a brutish man who left a legacy of violence and appalling human rights abuses in his wake. The only hint of softness that King Leopold…
For centuries, a long, skinny dragon—known as the Ly Dynasty dragon—has served as a symbol of prosperity and good fortune in Vietnamese culture. City officials in the bustling Vietnamese city of Da Nang decided that the best way to honor the Liberation of Da Nang—which was an important turning point in the Vietnam War—was to…
The Netherlands has long been considered a forward-thinking country where imaginative ideas flourish. Many people consider Rotterdam to be the creative capital of the Netherlands. Rotterdam’s Cube Houses are a shining example of the city’s enthusiasm for all things avant-garde. In the late 1970s, city officials in Rotterdam were contemplating how to build a housing…
