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Category: Architecture

By The Generalist Posted on May 7, 2021May 6, 2021

The houses have eyes

The houses in the Transylvanian city Sibiu are watching you.

Categories: Architecture, Europe
By The Generalist Posted on March 25, 2021April 28, 2021

Bridges of the Euro

The bridges depicted on the Euro banknotes were fictional… until the Dutch city Spijkenisse built them all.

Categories: Architecture, Economics & business, Europe, Places
By The Generalist Posted on March 9, 2021April 28, 2021

Wind on the tower

In 1978 the structural engineer of the Citigroup Center skyscraper learned of a fatal flaw in the design that could cause the tower to topple in high winds. Over the next three months a team raced to secretly repair it at night.

Categories: 20th century history, Architecture, History, North & Central America, Places, Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on March 5, 2021April 28, 2021

Churches of Antarctica

Antarctica has eight churches: four Catholic, one non-denominational, and three Eastern orthodox.

Categories: Architecture, Places, Politics & law, Religion & belief, The poles
By The Generalist Posted on February 10, 2021April 28, 2021

Spite houses

Some people will go to absurd lengths to get revenge on their neighbours – including building houses purely out of spite.

Categories: 20th century history, Architecture, Economics & business, History, North & Central America, Places
By The Generalist Posted on February 4, 2021May 8, 2021

Solomon’s laser

The shamir is described in the Talmud and Midrash as a tool capable of slicing through solid stone, iron, and diamond – but was it a worm, a laser, or a radioactive rock?

Categories: Architecture, Middle East, Places, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on February 3, 2021April 28, 2021

Coney Island to the moon

One of the earliest amusement park dark rides was a trip from Coney Island to the Moon and back.

Categories: 20th century history, Architecture, Arts, Astronomy, History, North & Central America, Places, Sciences, Theatre
By The Generalist Posted on January 20, 2021April 28, 2021

Parthenon mosque

In 1687 Ottoman-controlled Athens, the Venetians blew up the Parthenon. The Ottomans built a mosque from its ruins.

Categories: Architecture, Early modern history, Europe, History, Military, Places, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on January 8, 2021April 28, 2021

First vanishing point

Masaccio’s Holy Trinity is possibly the earliest surviving work of art to use a single vanishing point. His work and that of Brunelleschi triggered a Renaissance explosion of mathematical perspective in art.

Categories: Architecture, Art, Arts, Europe, History, Mathematics & statistics, Medieval history, Places, Sciences
By The Generalist Posted on January 7, 2021April 28, 2021

Under Beijing

Underneath Beijing is a vast network of tunnels built during the Cold War to shelter three million people during a nuclear attack.

Categories: 20th century history, Architecture, East Asia, History, Military, Places
By The Generalist Posted on December 19, 2020April 28, 2021

Cursed stone city

Al-Khazneh, the temple carved out of a cliff in Petra, is the most famous remnant of the Nabataean Kingdom. But to its south lies Hegra, the cursed stoneland city.

Categories: Ancient history, Architecture, Economics & business, History, Middle East, Places, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on December 3, 2020April 28, 2021

Smallest skyscraper

In 1919, a construction firm led by J. D. McMahon got investors to commit huge amounts of money for a skyscraper in Wichita Falls, Texas. They thought it would be 480 feet high… but they got 480 inches instead.

Categories: 20th century history, Architecture, History, North & Central America, Places
By The Generalist Posted on December 1, 2020April 28, 2021

Reef of heaven

Between 1200 and 1500 CE, the city of Nan Madol was built on a series of artificial islands and a coral reef in what is now eastern Micronesia.

Categories: Architecture, History, Medieval history, Oceania, Places
By The Generalist Posted on November 7, 2020April 28, 2021

The Mason Labyrinth

Italian publisher Franco Maria Ricci, inspired by fabulists Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino, built the largest maze in the world.

Categories: Architecture, Arts, Europe, Literature, Places
Funerary granary
By The Generalist Posted on October 6, 2020April 28, 2021

Ancient dioramas

We all know that Egyptian tombs contained models of servants, boats, and animals to accompany the deceased in the afterlife. But they sometimes also contained model gardens, granaries, bakeries, breweries, stables, and slaughterhouses.

Categories: Ancient history, Architecture, Arts, Fashion & design, History, Middle East, Places, Religion & belief
Arch of Taq Kasra
By The Generalist Posted on September 11, 2020April 28, 2021

Largest brick arch

Tāq Kasrā, one of the last surviving buildings of the ancient Sasanian Empire’s capital city, has the largest unreinforced brick arch in the world.

Categories: Ancient history, Architecture, History, Middle East, Places

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