What makes a building weird? A lot of us have accused our own homes of bizarre noises and quirks we’re forced to live with. But that’s all par for the course. A truly weird building, according to Imogen Fortes, was built to amuse, to stop us in our tracks, to force us to reimagine what architecture can be — or all of the above. Her new book Weird Buildings, published by Hoxton Mini Press, celebrates 100 years of offbeat architecture that falls in the category of ‘functional and fantastical’ thanks to its apparent desire to be something else: an Indian fisheries department shaped like a fish, for instance, and a glassy series of waves rippling along a Danish fjord.
‘They ignore the conventional architectural script,’ says Fortes. ‘Many rebel against the rigid logic of right angles, rectangles and the restrained. Instead, they stretch and curve, bulge and tilt. Many feel sculptural and more like living organic organisms than static objects, and are as much about form as function.’
The Wave. Photography © Finbarr Fallon.
Inntel Hotel, The Netherlands. Photography: Pixelbiss, Alamy.
The Twist. Photography © Patrik Bloudek.
Mirrorcube Treehotel, Sweden. Photography: © Hufton+Crow-VIEW.
The Big Duck, New York. Photography: Randy Duchaine, Alamy.
Drina River House, Serbia. Photography: Shutterstock.
Taipei Performing Arts Centre. Photography: © Finbarr Fallon.
The Basket Building, Ohio. Photography: Andre Jenny, Alamy.
Fish Building, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. Photography: Exotica.im/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.
Readers will likely have experienced at least one track-stopping construction. Fortes gives credit to established world class buildings like the Flatiron in New York, the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, the Centre Pompidou — along with Gehrys, Gaudís and Zaha Hadids that millions have had the pleasure of visiting. She gives pages over to some incredible — and incredibly exclusive — British holiday homes by Richard Woods, MVRDV and Charles Holland, who collaborated with Grayson Perry on the baroque fairy cottage House for Essex. But she pays special attention to buildings with alternate functions. In the Nordics, there’s an Icelandic church, a Swedish sauna and a seed vault in northern Norway. And the US shows off what it does best: brake-screeching roadside attractions like Ohio’s Basket Building, the Tea Pot service station in Washington and Idaho’s Dog Bark Park Inn.
‘They encourage us to approach the everyday with curiosity and a willingness to live just a little more playfully,’ says Fortes.
That said, there are several — the mind-bending Crooked House in Sopot, Poland, comes to mind — that you might not relish living in.
Casa del Acantilado. Photography: © Luminar Neo.
Teapot Dome Service Station, Washington. Photography: Mark Kiver, Alamy.
Konieczny’s Ark. Photography © Olo Studio.
Read next: A new hotel in the Algarve’s wild west tells a different story
With this remastered Gaudí courtyard, Barcelona gets a new secret space
The Moore Miami begins a phased opening with its flagship restaurant