Unusual Buildings
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Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain
Hailed by Time magazine as "the building of the century," the Guggenheim Museum in Spain was designed by architect Frank Gehry for $100 million. This massive sculpture of limestone, titanium and glass spans 32,500 square meters.
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Svenja-Foto, zefa/Corbis
Debis Building Potsdam Square, Berlin
Architect Renzo Piano reconstructed an entire portion of Potsdam Square after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Daimler Chrysler bought nearly 62,000 square meters at a scandalous price of nearly $915(US) per square meter from the government.
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Rabih Moghrabi, AFP/Getty Images
Burj Al Arab Dubai United Arab Emirates
Sitting out on top of the land-filled Dubai coastline, the world's tallest hotel soars up 321 meters and was designed by Thomas Wills Wright (WS Atkins) to resemble a billowing sail. The project took nearly five years to complete
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Cave Church
Goreme, TurkeyThis 1500-year-old cave church was hand hewn during the Christian Byzantine era and is one of many remaining cave dwellings, including a cave hotel for tourists.
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mapy.pomocnik.com
The Crooked House, Sopot, Poland
Polish architect of the Crooked House, Szotynscy Zaleski, was inspired by the fairytale illustrations of Jan Marcin Szancer and the drawings of the Swedish artist and Sopot resident Per Dahlberg. The most photographed building in Poland, the 4,000 square meter house is located in Rezydent shopping center in Sopot, Poland.
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Guenter Rossenbach, zefa/Corbis
Der Neue Zollhof Dusseldorf, Germany
The work of architect Frank Gehry can be seen all over the world. He adds his classic modernist touch to revitalize the Rhine waterfront area in Dusseldorf, Germany. Pictured is just one building of a larger office complex.
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Louie Psihoyos, Getty Images/Science Faction
Ideal Palace of Ferdinand Cheval
The idea for the Palace came to French postman Ferdinand Cheval in a dream, and he spent 33 years building it and ultimately was buried inside. It has been a monument at Hauterives, France since 1969.
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Tony Craddock, zefa/Corbis
Parc du Futuroscope Poitiers, France
The architecture of Denis Laming serves up a fantastic centerpiece for the Futuroscope theme park in Poitiers, France, which has attracted more than 31 million visitors since it opened in 1987. Pictured above is the Kinemax, which houses the park's IMAX show.
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Jose Fuste Raga/Corbis
Gaudí's Batlló House Barcelona, Spain
The Casa Batlló in Barcelona, Spain proves the value of investing in architecture. In the early 1900s, Josep Batlló commissioned Antoni Gaudí to reconstruct an 1877 house. Gaudí completed his modern masterpiece in 1906 and it remains a major tourist attraction 100 years later.
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Bill Ross, Corbis
Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum Minneapolis
Named for philanthropist and business alumni Frederick Weisman, the Art Museum at the University of Minnesota was designed by Frank Gehry at a total cost of $13,875,000.
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Massimo Borchi, Atlantide Phototravel/Corbis
L'Hemisferic
Valencia, SpainCompleted in 2005 and paid for by the regional government, the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain is becoming the number one tourist attraction in the country. Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava designed the entire arts complex beginning with the L'Hemisferic (the eye of wisdom), shaped like a floating eyeball that even blinks, which openend in 1998.
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Jeff J. Mitchell, Getty Images
Maggie Centre
Kirkcaldy, ScotlandDesigned by award-winning architect Zaha Hadid, this Maggie Centre at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy is Scotland's third cancer care center named after Maggie Keswick-Jencks. Nearby is a Frank Gehry Maggie Centre in Dundee, built for £1.3m.
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Franz Neumayr, AFP/Getty Images
Residential Car-House, Salzburg, Austria
This residential car-house in Salzburg, Austria was designed by architect Markus Voglreiter, who invested about one million euros to create the exceptional and energy efficient beetle-car home in 2004. The house was rented in 2004 for $2500 euros a month.
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De Agostini, Getty Images
Taal Monument
Paarl, South AfricaThe Taal Monument in Paarl, South Africa, just outside of Cape Town, was constructed in 1975 as a political and cultural tribute to the recognition of the Afrikaans language.
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Archivo Iconografico, S.A./Corbis
The Torre Galatea Figueras, Spain
Renowned artist Salvador Dalí bought this structure that was once part of the wall of Figueras, Spain. He reconstructed and named the tower Torre Galatea after his deceased wife and lived there until his death.
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David Rogowski, AOL
Japantown, San Francisco
The five-tiered Peace Pagoda marks the Japan Center shopping district that opened in 1968. Most Peace Pagodas around the world were built under the supervision of Buddhist monk Nichidatsu Fujii.
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