An upside down house is one of the latest tourist attractions in the western Austrian village of Terfens. Designed and built by Polish architects Irek Glowacki and Marek Rozhanski, everything in this house is upside down, including the interiors and the car in the garage to the fittings in the bathroom. On a similar note, did you know a famous restaurant named Sakasa, in Matsumoto City, Nagano prefecture, Japan, is also upside down, complete with inverted fixtures and sign boards? Continue reading for more weird, yet real, buildings from around the world.
5. Dancing House – Prague
The Dancing House, also known as the Fred and Ginger building, in Prague, Czech Republic, was designed by the Croatian-Czech architect Vlado Milunic in co-operation with Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry on a vacant riverfront plot. The very non-traditional design was controversial at the time because the house stands out among the Baroque, Gothic and Art Nouveau buildings for which Prague is famous and in the opinion of some it does not accord well with these architectural styles. Gehry originally named the house Fred and Ginger (after the famous dancers Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers – the house resembles a pair of dancers) but this nickname is now rarely used.
4. Krzywy Domek – Poland
Krzywy Domek is an irregularly-shaped building in Sopot, Poland, built in 2004. It’s approximately 4,000 square meters in size and is part of the Rezydent shopping center. This building was designed by Szotynscy & Zaleski who were inspired by the fairytale illustrations and drawings of Jan Marcin Szancer and Per Dahlberg. It can be entered from either Monte Cassino or Morska Streets.
3. Sliding House – Margate, Kent, UK
This home looks like a disaster waiting to happen, but this mind-boggling house has become a treasured feature of a seaside town after artist Alex Chinneck transformed it into a unique art by making it look like the facade has slipped into the front garden. To create this sliding illusion, a part of the upper floor of the four-story property was left exposed as curving bricks, while retaining the windows and a door below.
2. Upside Down House – Shanghai
Shanghai urban planners have officially opened a Polish-designed upside-down house to the public. To create the illusion, fixtures and furniture are nailed to the “floor” above visitors’ heads. Hundreds of visitors queued to pose for photos with upside-down sofas and dining tables. It costs approximately 30 Yuan to visit the 200-square meter house. Since there’s a chance that some people will become dizzy when they’re, house management has set a limit of 20 visitors at one time.
1. Fallen Star – San Diego, CA
Do-Ho Suh’s installation, “Fallen Star,” isn’t just an optical illusion, as it’s the 18th permanent sculpture commissioned by the UCSD’s Stuart Collection. It’s situated seven stories in the air, and the 70,000-pound structure measuring 15 by 18 feet took seven years to complete, modeled after a real home in Providence, Rhode Island.
