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How many people does it take to envision, design and build a typical building? Architects, builders, carpenters, laborers are often just the beginning of a long list of co-creators. Well, these bizarre exceptions were each primarily the work of a single eccentric individual and in many cases took decades (or even lifetimes) to construct. Despite having this essential factor in common the ultimate built outcomes range significantly in style, execution, materiality and purpose.
Hauterives, France: Facteur Cheval was a mild-mannered mailman by day and a wildly inspired pseudo-architect and builder by night. His strange architectural masterpiece, the so-called Perfect Palace (Palais Ideal) took him decades to construct and was finished in the early 1900s. He had no formal design or construction training and learned as he went, day by day, for over 10,000 days with few people aware of his creation until it was completed.
Archangelsk, Russia: Nikolai Sutyagin started this amazing wooden skyscraper as a simple two-story structure, then just kept building. The building now stands 13 stories (144 feet) tall and is under threat of demolition out of safety concerns by authorities. Taking what he learned (and earned) as the owner of a small construction company he built this masterpiece. While in jail for supposedly imprisoning a worker in part of the building his business went to pieces. Now the strange wooden skyscraper is all they have left.
Los Angeles, California: Simon Rodia was an Italian immigrant who moved all around the United States before settling in LA. What started out as a few random art projects became a vast and semi-abstract architectural masterpiece known as the Watts Towers, complete with a gazebo, fountain, bird baths and other assorted structures reaching up to 100 feet in height. These were comprised of shells, scrap metal, pottery shards, rocks, glass and pretty much any other random material he could find. For the main structural elements he employed steel, cement, mortar and wire mesh and assembled all of his creations without the assistance of scaffolding.
Mejorada del Campo, Spain: Justo Gallego Martinez was a Spanish monk who was forced to leave his order after taking ill. His radically individualistic cathedral was built without sanction from the local government, let alone the Catholic Church. At over 100 feet high he has managed this remarkable accomplishment with some assistance from nephews and with revenues from his farmland as well as private donations. He also accepts donated and recycled building materials.
Baraboo, Wisconsin: Tom Avery (aka Dr. Evermore) is responsible for the world’s largest scrap-metal architectural sculpture known as Foreverton. Weighing in at over 300 tons this amazing structure climbs 50 feet in the air and reaches 60 to 120 feet in either direction. Once the owner of a salvage business, Avery began turning his talents to this bizarre architectural pursuit over two decades ago and (supposedly) believes a spaceship contained within will launch him eventually into supernatural world beyond our own and bring him into contact with the Divine. For more unbelievable home-made architecture check out this article from Curious Expeditions and for more insanely built structures check out these 5 kinds of bizarre recycled architecture.
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43 Comments
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:19 am
I had the honor of meeting Dr. Evermore and his fabulous creations back when i lived in wisconsin. Truly astounding up close.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:19 am
I had the honor of meeting Dr. Evermore and his fabulous creations back when i lived in wisconsin. Truly astounding up close.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:24 am
Can you imagine? to dedicate 10,000 or 20 years to a master project like that… you have to have a master passion to keep you on task. Beautiful testimonials. I am very fond of “La Sagrada Familia” in Barcelona. Thanks, very inspiring.
Luz
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:07 am
The city museum in St. Louis Mo is another construction of this type worth looking at.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Ack. Intricacy and complexity does not a beautiful building make. I appreciate the lifelong dedication it takes to create some of these things, but that alone doesn’t warrant the term “genius’ in any way, shape or form.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:41 pm
what about Rubel Farms by Michael Rubel in Glendora, CA? He built a castle and he lived in it.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Hi,
The marriage between Art and the most common things in life, such as a house in this case, proves once more to be a winning option.
Kind regards,
José
March 4th, 2008 at 3:44 am
Really impresive :)
March 4th, 2008 at 10:49 am
they may be aesthetically pleasing to the eye …
but i am sure its not functional or practical …
i may be wrong … hehe …
March 4th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Here’s another one man structure, called Nimis, built in the unrecognized country of Ladonia. It’s amazing that it stands, mostly just some bits of wood nailed together seeimingly haphazard (hazard being the operative).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladonia_(micronation)
March 5th, 2008 at 7:50 am
The mentioned Perfect Palace looks almost exactly like the howls moving castle.
I wonder if this movie was inspired by this unusual structure.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
There is are 2 buildings in PA that are amazing. They are Fonthill house and the Mercer museum. They were built by the same man out of concrete in the early 1900s. They are amazing, full of homemade mosiaces, columns, and multi-colored windows.
March 7th, 2008 at 5:33 am
yea the thing in spain is really good, i went from madrid to there really crazy how one man can do so much with such determination, its a shame he wont be able to fully finish it, but what he has done is truly amazing
March 13th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Realmente son trabajos arquitectónicos inexplicables pero fabulosos, es una manera casi mágina de intervenir los espacios….
May 1st, 2008 at 9:35 am
The perfect palace of the facteur cheval was initially planned as a mausoleum for his burial. For safety reasons, the french government denied him the rigth to be buried here. So after a lifetime of building, he had to start over at the local cemetery on a smaller scale (also depicted). Imagine the feeling…
May 14th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Talk about dedication!!
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