Buildings many people didn't even know they were existing

[Compdude787 916]

al-Fahidi-Fort, Dubai, UAE

 

[snip]

Wait, Dubai actually has historic buildings?

[Odainsaker 2,136]

有田 ポーセリン パーク...


(By Yoshihiro on teacup.com)

...Wait, wait, wait...isn't that the world-famous Zwinger in Dresden?!  I don't remember it having those Godzilla-entangling high-voltage lines...
 
That's because this one is the not-so-world-famous Arita Porcelain Park, a Dresden-based theme park and museum in Arita on Kyūshū, Japan.

The rococo copy comes complete with moat to stop those ninja attacks:


(By description-hiro on exblog.jp)

"Oi, Kōzuke-no-suke Kira Yoshinaka, the daimyō who shamed our master, Lord Asano, is hiding in the east wing in the Salon de la Céramique Japonais!  Attack, and take his head!"
 
Well, it is Japan...


(By Aztec(t) on Seesaa.net)
 
Hehe, actually, the "Kuroshitsuji" ("Black Butler") live-action movie released earlier this year with Mizushima Hiro in the title role as Sebastian was filmed here, making this place now a bit more known than before.
 
 
 
Still, they did better than Beijing's abandoned and freakily dystopian Disneyland rip-off:


 
Oh, Brave New World...of the New China!
 
The post-apocalyptic "Wonderland Amusement Park" was reportedly finally demolished last year.



"Awww, I kinda liked it!"

[SteveMSim 275]

I never knew Shogun Baroque architecture existed.

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Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, 75 Livingston Street, Brooklyn, New York:

(By John W. Cahill at CTBUH)

Terra cotta Gothic Revival wedding cake...it's so my type, I love it!  Ukrainian émigré and local Brooklyn architect Abraham J. Simberg unveiled this largest of his commissions in 1929, however, that same year the stock market crashed, bringing the nationwide building orgy of the roaring 1920s to a sudden end.  The Simberg family left New York for Florida and sadly faded into obscurity, never to follow up this landmark masterpiece.

(By David W. Dunlap at The New York Times)

I understand these are residential apartments now, with the panoramic angles and terra cotta terraces defining the choice apartments, many of which are priced in the millions of dollars.

(By Dez Santana at Dez Santana Photography)

Sigh, we just don't them like that anymore.  It has so much in common with the popular terra cotta wedding cake in my own home city.

 

 

Speaking again of San Antonio:

(By Zygmunt Put at Wikipedia) 

Okay, obviously that is the famous Alamo, but what is that historicist building in the background that inadvertantly ends up composed in every tourist's panoramic shot?

 

 

See, it manages to jump in every time from behind, even in old archive photos:

That little pink-brick photo-bomber is the Emily Morgan Hotel, formerly the Medical Arts Building, at 705 East Houston Street.  Originally housing professional independent medical offices, architect Ralph Cameron's 1924 Gothic Revival building is now a charming hotel named after the folk heroine of the Texas Revolution immortalized as "The Yellow Rose of Texas."

 

(By TThealer56 at deviantART)

 

Terra cotta gargoyles...we just don't build them like that anymore!  It is a beautiful hotel directly overlooking the Alamo grounds, but be warned, this building is noted to be extremely haunted.  San Antonio is Texas's ground zero for hauntings, and the Emily Morgan seems to be a favorite spook central.  Perhaps it is the proximity to hallowed ground that self-proclaimed psychics and paranormal investigators say have cast an aura on the building...perhaps it is the Indian burial grounds of former Native American inhabitants converted and worked at the Alamo by Spanish missionaries...perhaps it is the ghosts of patients who didn't survive 1920s quack medicine or were driven to suicide...or, perhaps it is the bizarre spate of news-reported bloody murders that still happen in the hotel.

 

I'm not a believer in the paranormal, but I've watched too much local TV news involving new incidents in the hotel, and I am a believer in avoiding places with a modern history of random murders, be they by ghosts or by drunk River Walk revelers with personal issues and hotel knives.  For the urban planners among us:  the Emily Morgan sits on a triangular site formed as San Antonio's Spanish Law of the Indies grid and crossroads twisted around a meandering river bend, creating a landmark terminating the vista down Houston Street:

Ah, December 1940, the good ol' days...

Interestingly, the original Medical Arts Building has the starkly cut-off, party-wall architecture of a wall-to-wall building suitable for a city like Chicago or New York, but somehow ended up standing alone in forever small-town and low-rise Alamo Plaza, as if the designers hoped for someday something greater and that no one should ever see the building's backside:

It's still no more built-up than that, and much of it is now frozen in place as historically preserved landmarks.  The Alamo is in consideration as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it has been made clear this year that any other tall buildings constructed in this area would negatively impact San Antonio's consideration.  Earlier this spring, a post-modern, Artsy Decoish "Joske's Tower" was proposed for the spot where the camera in the photo above was positioned, and the design adapted profile and height points from the Emily Morgan on the opposite side of Alamo Plaza.  However, UNESCO issued stern warnings, and the city's Historic and Design Review Commission blocked the proposal, leaving the Emily Morgan to remain as the Alamo's only skyscraper sentinel.

[KonstantinII 1,106]

Fangyuan Mansion, Shenyang, Liaoning, China

 

Looks like it came from 2100

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Chongqing Grand Theatre, Chongqing, China

 

 

 

 

One of the better buildings in Chongqing (very rare). It has some decent modern touch. 

[mrsmartman 200]

Very good photos.

 

Hopewell Centre, the tallest in the 70s.

 

Nina Tower with a bridge in mid-air linking the two buildings

 

One Island East at Taikoo Place

[KonstantinII 1,106]

Here are some buildings that I've actually been to.

 

Banner Medical Center Mesa, Arizona

 

Wichita University Medical Center Wichita, Kansas

 

Chico University Campus Chico, California

 

Russian Embassy San Francisco, California

 

Salt Lake City University Hospital Salt Lake City, Utah

[Turjan 1,048]

Waste-to-energy plant Spittelau in Vienna (mostly a district heating plant).

 

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Aldar Headquarters, Abu Dhabi, UAE

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Nabemba Tower, Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo

 

 

[Compdude787 916]

That building looks like it's floating there, and from far away, it looks like an elongated cooling tower. Pretty neat, though.

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

Aldar Headquarters, Abu Dhabi, UAE

 

Really? I thought many people knew about that one. It's known to some as the ugliest building in the world.

 

What I have is kulturhuset (the house of culture) in Stockholm. It looks about thirty years newer than it is. Built in 1974, I'd say it's quite an early glass clad building.

 

 

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Island Tower Sky Club, Island City, Fukuoka, Japan

 

 

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Waste-to-energy plant Spittelau in Vienna (mostly a district heating plant).

 

And this is what happens when an architect is on LSD...

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Dallas City Hall, Dallas TX.

 

Pretty awesome upside-down pyramid form...

 

[Turjan 1,048]

 

Waste-to-energy plant Spittelau in Vienna (mostly a district heating plant).

 

And this is what happens when an architect is on LSD...

 

Heh. The exterior was designed by one of the more famous Viennese artists, Hundertwasser. But he had to work with architects to realize his concepts, as he was no architect himself.

 

More famous is the house that is named after him, which is the first one where he could get his ideas of living out, the Hundertwasser House:

 

 

Or his "Kunsthaus Wien" (Art House Vienna) a few meters down the road:

 

 

His "Waldspirale" in Darmstadt:

 

 

 

A hotel in Bad Blumau:

 

 

A school in Wittenberg:

 

 

The "Green Citadel" in Magdeburg:

 

[Compdude787 916]

Strangest buildings ever. Wow!

[TekindusT 3,809]

 

 

Waste-to-energy plant Spittelau in Vienna (mostly a district heating plant).

 

And this is what happens when an architect is on LSD...

 

Heh. The exterior was designed by one of the more famous Viennese artists, Hundertwasser. But he had to work with architects to realize his concepts, as he was no architect himself.

 

More famous is the house that is named after him, which is the first one where he could get his ideas of living out, the Hundertwasser House:

 

I spot some "homages" to Antoni Gaudí on several buildings. I love to see how this legendary 19th century architect keeps inspiring young architects and designers nowadays.

 

EDIT: The Green Citadel building actually reminded me to the Salvador Dalí Museum, around 100 km north of Barcelona:

 

[Turjan 1,048]

I spot some "homages" to Antoni Gaudí on several buildings. I love to see how this legendary 19th century architect keeps inspiring young architects and designers nowadays.

 

EDIT: The Green Citadel building actually reminded me to the Salvador Dalí Museum, around 100 km north of Barcelona:

 

Yup, Gaudí is definitely one of his major influences. I like the mark that Gaudí left on Barcelona.

By the way, I have been to that Teatre-Museu Dalí in Figueres. Even if im not such a huge Dalí fan, the exhibition in there is simply amazing. It's great how the building and the way his works are integrated into it make them stand out. I have also been to his house in Portlligat.

[TowerDude 2,187]

Nice thread, but most of these buildings are known, aren't they ?

 

One of the very first ever Art-Nouveau buildings, here in Nancy, France, preceding Gaudi and others, it was here and Bruxelles that Art-Nouveau was invented

 

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Not sure if it's a building or just a sculpture, some say it's for CCTV/traffic control. It sits next to the EastLink tollway in Melbourne's east.

It does say HOTEL at the top...but it does seem a bit thin for one.

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Centro Administrativo Do Estado, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

 

[SteveMSim 275]

Dallas City Hall, Dallas TX.

 

Pretty awesome upside-down pyramid form...

 

(snip)

 

Dallas City Hall is a well-known building, at least in north Texas.  It is designed by a world-famous architect, I. M. Pei, and it appears in almost every book and brochure on Dallas.

 

I don not know whether the new Winspear Opera House is well-known outside of Texas, but it has quickly become one of Dallas' most distinctive landmarks.  The Winspear Opera House is designed by noted architect Norman Foster and has won architectural awards since its opening.  The building is one of the latest additions to the Dallas Arts District.

 

Winspear Opera House by Justin Terveen, on Flickr

 

 

 

 

 

[TekindusT 3,809]

Just remembered this one, an inmediately recognizable but yet fairly unknown building in Madrid, Torres Blancas building. There is an awkwardly-scaled BAT of it on Capital SimCity:

 

 

[Compdude787 916]

It should be called Torres Grises Building, since it's more gray than white! Maybe it was a bit more white when it was built in the late-60s along with all its other brutalist friends around the world.   Worst building design style ever!

[airman15 4,113]

AT&T Building in Sacramento. I don't really know what to make of it, though.

[__A 792]

 

Not sure if it's a building or just a sculpture, some say it's for CCTV/traffic control. It sits next to the EastLink tollway in Melbourne's east.

It does say HOTEL at the top...but it does seem a bit thin for one.

 

Here's a link from Google Maps, it looks even thinner from above

[SteveMSim 275]

8-Tallet, Copenhagen, Denmark, a multiple-use building built in the shape of a figure-8.  Building has won architectural awards since its completion in 2010.

 

8-Tallet I by hansn, on Flickr

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K & D Tower, Klaipeda, Lithuania