The Famous One-Log House

Still in existence. The home page.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Sep 08, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Architecture, Domestic, Enlargements, Miniatures, and Other Matters of Scale, Regionalism, 1940s, Natural Wonders

Portable Asbestos Cottage

Source: A. Leonard Summers, Asbestos and the Asbestos Industry - the world's most wonderful mineral (1931).

Posted By: Alex - Mon Aug 21, 2023 - Comments ()
Category: Architecture, Military, Firefighting, Arson, Wildfires, Infernos and Other Conflagrations

Copacabana Chorus Introduces Alcoa Alumalure

Fortune - Feb 1959

Posted By: Alex - Sun Aug 13, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Architecture, Advertising, 1950s

The man who cut his house in half

The story goes that, in 1976, Eugene Schneider cut his house in half with a chainsaw as a spiteful way of complying with the divorce requirement that he split his assets evenly with his wife.

But as you can see from the photos below, he didn't actually succeed in cutting the house in half, although he did a lot of damage with the chainsaw. It was all eventually repaired, and the house is still standing, in one piece, today. You can view it on Zillow or Google Maps.

Calgary Herald - Mar 30, 1978

Central New Jersey Home News - Aug 6, 1976

New York Daily News - Aug 3, 1976

Charges were filed against Schneider, but somewhat surprisingly (at least, I find it surprising) a jury cleared him of all wrongdoing.

Central New Jersey Home News - Feb 16, 1977

Posted By: Alex - Wed Aug 02, 2023 - Comments ()
Category: Architecture, Divorce, 1970s

Flagpole of Freedom

Plans are afoot to build the world's largest flagpole, flying the world's largest American flag, in the small town of Columbia Falls, Maine, "where the rays of the sun touch America first every day." It would stand 1,461 feet tall, higher than the Empire State Building, and cost over $1 billion.

According to Wikipedia, America currently isn't even in the top 10 in the list of the world's largest flagpoles. It only comes in at #16, with the Acuity Flagpole in Sheboygan, Wisconsin (height: 390ft).

The Flagpole of Freedom, if it actually gets built, would more than double the current world's tallest flagpole. But it remains to be seen if it ever gets built, since many of the residents of Columbia Falls aren't keen on the idea.

More info: Oakland Press

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jul 12, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Architecture, Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough

House of Tomorrow:  1969

Watch the video below the screenshot.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Jul 09, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Architecture, Domestic, Hobbies and DIY, 1960s, Yesterday’s Tomorrows

UPenn Gargoyles

Read about these weird architectural embellishments here, with more pix.

And also here.

In the 1890s and the first couple decades of the twentieth century, Penn engaged Philadelphia architects Cope and Stewardson to design several University buildings. With their design for the Quadrangle, whose first section opened in 1896, Cope and Stewardson emulated several vintage eras of English architecture in a style that became known as Collegiate Gothic. In a delightful homage to Elizabethan architecture, they incorporated several dozen bosses into their design. They worked with sculptors Henry Plasschaert and John Joseph Borie (a Penn architecture alumnus) and stone carvers Edmund Wright, Edward Maene and assistants to turn these uncut stones into sculpted figures. Cope and Stewardson approved elevation views and clay models of each proposed boss, which was then carved over a period of three to four days from a fourteen-inch square piece of Indiana limestone that had been incorporated into the Quadrangle.

Mr. Plasschaert and his carvers kept the mood of these bosses whimsical. Parodic figures are abundant, such as a grotesque animal biting the corner of a block of stone, or an architect dressed in an elf costume carrying a basket of fruit. A variety of mythical creatures and bizarre monsters are on display, as is the occasional reference to academic activity, like the creatures brandishing tragedy and comedy masks atop the Mask and Wig clubhouse, or a monkey clutching a scroll labeled “diploma.”

Posted By: Paul - Wed Jun 07, 2023 - Comments (4)
Category: Architecture, Regionalism, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century

Building houses with diapers

Concrete uses sand, and this is a problem due to a growing shortage of sand. However, Siswanti Zuraida, a researcher at the University of Kitakyushu in Japan, has proposed that cleaned and shredded diapers can be used in concrete as a sand replacement:


More info: New Scientist

Posted By: Alex - Tue May 30, 2023 - Comments ()
Category: Architecture, Babies, Excrement

Phare du Monde

The Wikipedia page.

Source for the illustration, where the text and image may be enlarged.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Mar 04, 2023 - Comments (7)
Category: Architecture, Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough, Expositions, World Fairs, Celebrations, 1930s, Europe

The Paper House

I think that hoarding newspapers used to be very common. I base this assumption on the fact that I know of two Depression-era relatives in my extended family who never threw away newspapers and ended up with stacks of them in their house. And if I had two in my family, I'm guessing many other families also had paper hoarders.

Elis F. Stenman of Pigeon Cove, Massachusetts put his paper hoarding habit to good use by constructing his house, and all the furniture in it, out of the newspapers he refused to throw away. The house still exists and is open to the public.

Of course, now that newspaper deliveries are becoming a thing of the past, paper hoarding must be on the decline.

Images from The Pittsburgh Press - Sep 8, 1938.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 21, 2023 - Comments (4)
Category: Architecture, Newspapers