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While we see the growing focus on sustainability and climate resilience in architecture, with many cities around the world searching for greener and healthier dwelling alternatives, we also see the opposite.

Out of a reckless bravado, a wish to impress no matter what, a client dictating the rules even if they make little sense, developers going off the leash, a world lacking taste, name your own reason, absurd architecture is not going anywhere. And the more we dive into the part of the internet ruled by architecture aficionados, the more of a treasure box for crazy buildings it turns out to be.

This Twitter page that goes by a laconic title “Bizarre Buildings” is no exception. It’s basically a collection of what it sounds like, weird-looking structures that make you question everything you know about function, common sense and aesthetics. Not to say it’s not fun, we all have a kind of fascination with such buildings!

To find out more about our fascination with bizarre buildings and structures, we reached out to Lisa Yaszek, a Regents Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech where she researches and teaches science fiction as a global language crossing centuries, continents, and cultures. Lisa was happy to share some very interesting insights into the cultural significance of such buildings, and why they never cease to capture our imagination.

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rumade
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is my favourite. Everyone should have a happy building in their neighbourhood shaped like an animal or piece of fruit or something

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“We’re fascinated by strange-looking human-made structures because they remind us that, as humans, we don’t just create buildings to shelter ourselves from bad weather and dangerous animals. Rather, our buildings are also always expressions of our cultural values. When a building looks bizarre to us, it’s because it somehow challenges or defies those values,” Lisa explained.

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The professor of science fiction studies argues that for the past two hundred years, many of us across the world have lived in cultures informed by the rhythms of industrial and mass production. It turns out that there are two specific values associated with these patterns of production that clearly inform most of the structures built in that time, Lisa said.

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“First, industrial-era buildings tend to be uniform, clean-edged, and box-like in terms of their basic structures, ready for mass production; they may have elaborate and asymmetric details, like Victorian-era gingerbread, but those details are simply placed on top of the uniform, box-like structure as nonfunctional decoration.”

She continued: “second, industrial-era buildings tend to be designed with the assumption that infrastructure is more important than and in fact directly opposed to nature: we change the natural world to accommodate our uniform, box-like structures rather than designing unique structures to fit the particulars of different landscapes, and we create buildings that are meant to keep out elements, plants, and animals rather than accommodate them.”

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Lisa explained that when a building looks bizarre to us as modern people, it’s often because it challenges the primacy of those industrial-era values that are so much part of our daily lives that we rarely even think about them.

Interestingly, according to Lisa, for most part we’re not threatened by bizarre buildings; “instead, they inspire our curiosity and wonder: who made these buildings and why? What purpose did or do they serve? What are the people like who used or still use these buildings, and how do these buildings help them live long and prosper? When we look at responses to the images posted the Bizarre Buildings Twitter feed—and in this article!—we can see that these strange structures inspired people from around the world to pool their different cultural knowledges and experiences to answer such questions.”

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Lisa also said that “as someone who has lived my whole life in the United States, it’s exciting to learn, for instance, that the walking house from the Baba Yaga myth was probably inspired by the storehuts on stilts that people build across Northern Europe, and to see fully painted religious temples in contemporary India that give us a better sense of what ancient Greek temples really looked like!”

The professor argues that when we learn the stories behind these unusual structures, we are reminded that people have always built for diverse but often geographically and culturally specific needs that were, to them, just as important as our own are to us.

“It’s also fun to see how contemporary artists and architects around the world play with the idea of the industrially inspired uniform box building—by painting it so it looks asymmetric even if it is really square or manipulating hard brick to look like soft fabric; by multiplying boxes and joining them at surprising angles; by adding smaller 'parasitic' boxes to larger ones, and so on.”

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“Meanwhile, other contemporary designers show how infrastructure can accommodate and respond to the natural world rather than eliminating or changing it, as with buildings that have trees growing inside and houses that are open to the elements. If old bizarre buildings remind us that the people made structures in the past to meet needs and express values different from ours, new ones show us how people continue to create buildings that express a range of values and ideals today as well,” Lisa explained.

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Nathaniel
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Northern Europe has its priorities right looking at the brilliant designs on this page.

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MaddaPanda
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Drawer/ Hotel California. You can check in but never leave (the arrow only points inwards).

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A B C
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"uncomfortable to live in" beeeecaaaaaause...? I'd f*cking LOVE to own one of those hobbit caves!

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Moolia
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2 years ago

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Munchkin
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

well that's where the smurfs live while gargamel is still trying to figure out where they live way over in that mountain over there

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Lisa Owen
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Looks like where the Teletubbies lived , where's the Noo noo? Lol

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Jessica Cifelli
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The silo like building on the left looks remarkably similar to a certain billionaire's rocket

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Poultry Geist
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I have 8 acres in the woods my dad left me ! I wish I had money I would so have mushroom houses everywhere !

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Priscilla Reshell
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Reminds me of when I'm playing sims and I can't figure out how the back should look

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Note: this post originally had 95 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.