The last Junior World Hockey Championship was held in Sweden’s third largest city Malmö. Most players probably looked up at this building that twists from top to bottom. The top of the building has a 90-degree twist with respect to the bottom floor.

The twist is made up of nine giant cubes. Each cube is composed of six storeys and is angled in relation to the other cubes.

The Turning Torso is a residential building inaugurated in 2005. At 190 metres, it’s the tallest skyscraper in Sweden, and even in Scandinavia. It is the second tallest residential building in Europe.

[caption id="attachment_732" align="aligncenter" width="580"]Turning Torso Suede ISTOCKPHOTO Inusite iStockphoto[/caption]

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Three 55-storey hotels side by side under an enormous 150 metre long swimming pool containing 1424 cubic metres of water, and reaching 191 metres above ground. The pool is not alone. Restaurants, nightclubs, gardens and hundreds of trees and plants keep it company at the top. This is definitely out of the ordinary.

Located in Singapore, the Marina Bay Sands is a hotel complex with 2,600 rooms in three towers, with a casino, a lotus-shaped museum, and two movie theatres at the bottom, and, at the top, a 340 metre terrace containing the famous pool, which can hold up to 4,000 people.

Take a good look at the picture. The pool hangs over the ground over a distance of 67 metres, which gives the bather the illusion that nothing is holding the water. Many people would probably love to walk along this terrace and splash in this mass of water rather than suffer through the cold and grey of January.

[caption id="attachment_697" align="aligncenter" width="560"]Marina_Bay_Sands_Infinity_Pool_NSAA_WIKIPEDIA_Infolettre201401_inusite Wikimedia Commons, Nsaa[/caption]

When you look at the structure of the complex, you get the impression that you’re seeing the modern version of Stonehenge in England: a circular alignment of large stones, three of which are memorable because of the long stone that extends out at their peak, connecting the three. It’s as if Obélix had stretched out a long flat stone over three druid stones.[……]

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Legions of owners install a backyard waterfall just to hear the sound of murmuring water when they need to relax. Others obtain an artificial waterfall, which is a kind of a trinket made of miniature rocks and running water that is placed on a table. All of these owners would be green with envy to learn that near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a house is built over a real waterfall, in the heart of nature.

Let’s go back in time to the 1930s. Edgar Kaufmann, a prosperous businessman from the region, invites Frank Lloyd Wright to his home. At some point, America’s most famous architect tells the host’s son, who is studying architecture, that his parents deserved a much better home than the one they currently lived in.

At the time, the Kaufmann family owned a manor near a waterfall. When the home needed renovations, they remembered Wright’s comment and asked him to come up with a design. The architect visited the region and, upon returning, put his students to work.

[caption id="attachment_675" align="aligncenter" width="549"]inusite_decembre_2013 Fallingwater de C.Highsmith – Wikipedia[/caption]

When the architect unveiled his design, Edgar Kaufmann was flabbergasted. He was expecting a home to be built below the falls, facing them directly. An innovator at heart, Wright preferred to build the house over the falls. Initially unsure, Kaufman finally approved.

The project’s originality and Wright’s boldness led to numerous conflicts between the architect, the Kaufmann family, the engineers and the construction company, especially when it came to construction of the bridge and foundation. But the Kaufmann house, also called Fallingwater, would go down in history, and became a museum in 1964. It’s considered to be a masterpiece of harmony between man and nature, which Wright called organic architecture. Smithsonian Magazine has placed it among the 28 places to visit before you die.[……]

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A hotel located at the junction of two rivers with a rich history, the Blue Nile and the White Nile, cannot be massive, brutal or ugly. It can only be light, aerial, and futuristic. Qualifiers that the Corinthia Hotel Khartoum, also called Burj al-Fateh, proudly wears.

Plump and round, the 5 star hotel is shaped like a sail inflated by the wind of two rivers. That was supposed to be the architects’ original idea. Are we wrong?  Since we’re on the topic, let’s put forth another hypothesis. The architects were inspired by the famous Burj al Arab sail, the 7 star hotel (classification not officially recognized) inaugurated in December 1999 in Dubai. The Khartoum hotel opened its doors on August 17 2008. The work began in 1994.

[caption id="attachment_619" align="aligncenter" width="470"]OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Nick Hobgood, Wikipedia Commons[/caption]

Using the sail concept not new. The city of Barcelona, Spain also set sail with its Vela Hotel. Donald Trump was also tempted by the onshore wind with his Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama. Other buildings carried by the wind include the Vasco da Gama Tower and the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, Great Britain.[……]

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John Lennon said “Rock and roll will change the world.” He wasn’t wrong. The devil’s music, as everyone loved to call it in the 50s, changed the cultural habits of millions of people around the world. “The first time I heard the Beatles, I knew that the world would never be the same,” said Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of Love in the time of cholera and 100 years of solitude and winner of a Nobel prize for literature.

Rock and roll has left its mark on the world of decoration. Pop Art has brought us the classic rock and roll design: jukebox, black and white tile floor, Coca Cola bottle, Cadillac, lithographs featuring Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, John Lennon, rubbing shoulders with actors of the period like James Dean and Marlon Brando.

Did rock and roll influence architecture? At first glance, no. Unless it’s part of a modern movement by serving as inspiration for an architect looking for a new style. However, some buildings do have a rock and roll look, like the Experience Music Project (EMP). But the design is more 70s psychedelic rock than light frou-frou rock and roll of the 50s.

[caption id="attachment_588" align="aligncenter" width="600"]inusite2_septembre_2013 EMPSFM de Cacophony, Wikipedia[/caption]

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You can’t miss them if you visit Thailand; they’re everywhere, in Bangkok and the countryside. Travelers are surprised to see them in front of so many buildings: homes, hotels and office and government buildings. Why are they there? Because Thai people believe in good and evil spirits.

By constructing a little house that they install close to the main building, Thais purify the land and ensure that the occupants of the new building will live in peace. In other words, they sign a form of spiritual pact with evil spirits to keep them away.

[caption id="attachment_560" align="aligncenter" width="426"]Maison Esprits Thailande ISTOCKPHOTO inusite iStockphoto LP[/caption]

Thais often turn to astrologists to determine the exact location of the spirit house. Or they may turn to a Brahmin, called a “phram” in Thai, a priest who dresses entirely in white.

Most of the time, spirit houses are positioned so that you have to look up to see them. The little houses are built near the main door, facing north or, even better, south. The shadow of the building they protect should never fall on the spirit house.

Spirit houses are mass produced, often in concrete. Their shape should never evoke anything negative. A long house wouldn’t be wise for example, because it calls to mind a coffin. A t-shape is also out, because it looks like a vulture in flight. The little houses often resemble miniature temples. [……]

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It’s often said that the walls have ears. In Sibiu, Romania, the roofs have eyes. The effect is so striking that a paranoid person could panic while strolling the medieval city streets. ‘Why are the roofs watching me?!’ they’d think.

[caption id="attachment_527" align="aligncenter" width="427"]inusite_juin_2013 iStockphoto[/caption]

Look closely at the photo. Do you see that the roof is sleepy? Its eyelids are heavy; they’re going to close any minute now. Too much bad weather perhaps? Centuries of heavy rain, beating sun, freezing and thawing—it’s a lot for a roof to handle. And that’s not counting the weight of hundreds of years of history.[……]

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