Weird houses

Die Welt Steht Kopf House (Germany) and a summer cottage in the outskirts of Saint-Petersburg (Russia)

There are a few absolute necessities in life, primarily food, water, and shelter. A house will, for the most part, give someone a chance to have all of these three things in one nice, simple package. Houses, particularly these days, are generally ordinary and tend to look very boring. Walls, a roof, a foundation, and a toilet or two are all you really need to be part of a standard housing development. Of course, there are some people who laugh in the face of such conformity, and who build and live in some of the strangest, most unique houses you’ll ever come across. Their architectural design, which is usually environmentally friendly, allows for comfortable living in different climates harnessing energy to make them fuel efficient and futuristic. Unique house siding designs, interior decorations, mixture of materials and locations make these homes great targets for living.

Such architecture is sometimes referred to as novelty or programmatic architecture. It is considered to take origin in the USA in the 1930-s. Later it spread to the rest of the world as travel by automobile increased. An example of the novelty architecture is the Statue of Liberty in New York which is a replica building that is partly a sculpture and partly a monument. Like many subsequent examples of novelty architecture, it has an accessible interior and has become a tourist attraction. The novelty architecture may take the form of objects not normally associated with buildings, such as animals, people or household objects. There may be an element of caricature or a cartoon associated with the architecture. Such giant animals, fruits and vegetables, or replicas of famous buildings often serve as attractions themselves. Some are simply unusual shapes or constructed of unusual materials.

There are, for instance, upside down houses: they’re more common than you think. Why would anyone want to build an upside-down house? It is very hard to find a rational answer for this question. Perhaps the artists and designers of these flipped out homes wanted to shake up the way we think of society’s most pressing need, shelter. Maybe they just wanted to stand out from the crowd. In that, at least, they’ve succeeded. However, it's impossible not to stop and stare at these unorthodox structures. What makes these buildings even more interesting is that they're actually being used, as opposed to just being art installations.

One of such houses is the notorious “The World Stands on its Head” (“Die Welt Steht Kopf”) House located on the island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea. It was opened to the public as a museum in the autumn of 2008. This upside down house, complete with interior furnishings, is the brainchild of the architects Klaudiusz Golos and Sebastian Mikiciuk, who carried the theme of upside downness to the inside as well. Here, the entire furniture is attached to the ceiling, even children`s puppets and fire trucks are stuck in the play area at the up there.

From the foundation to the furnishings, nothing is right-side-up at the house. The very first step through the door of the house leads to confusion. Dizziness is a common subject to the viewer of this type of house. The 120-square-foot house has a slight tilt. The house is the main attraction of the island visited by almost 20000 tourists per year.

Not only Germans like the idea of weird houses. Some Russians are also fond of it and even live in such houses. For example, there’s not much information available to explain why a homeowner in St. Petersburg, Russia, built his home upside down. Perhaps he wanted to make a statement on the status of the Russian real estate market. Perhaps he was holding the blueprints upside down. In the picture you can see the Russian upside-down house after completion. Note the decorative brickwork along the base, sorry, the top of the walls. Note also the doghouse in the yard which was NOT built upside down – for Laika?

Questions:

1. Can you define the adjective “weird”?

2. What else, apart from the word «house», could the adjective «weird» be applied to?

3. Could you provide a few words that are synonyms to the adjective «weird»?

4. Could you provide a few words that are antonyms to the adjective «weird»?

5. What could they be applied to?

6. What are the reasons, according to the author, which make the home owners wish the upside down design?

7. What architectural trend such houses associated with?

8. What is known about the origin of this trend?

9. Which two houses are discussed in the text?

10. Is there any difference between them?

11. Would you like to have such a house/cottage? Give your reasons.

12. What is better in your opinion, a house built to an individual design, or a house of mass series construction? Give your reasons.

13. Could you tell about some strange (weird) house that you have seen?

Дата добавления: 2015-10-29