What if a house were built between gigantic boulders? Or a hotel were designed to look like dozens of small houses stacked on top of one another? These are just some of the astonishing structures featured in Weird Buildings, the new book by Imogen Fortes, published by Hoxton Mini Press, which invites readers to discover some of the world’s most unusual buildings.
The book offers a visual journey through architectural projects that challenge convention, transforming creativity into concrete, steel and stone. Featuring houses, hotels, museums and roadside landmarks, it shows how architecture can go far beyond functionality to become a true form of artistic expression.
One of the highlights is the Casa do Penedo in Fafe, Portugal, built in 1974 between four massive granite boulders. Designed as a family retreat, the house appears to emerge naturally from the mountainside and has become one of Portugal’s most photographed architectural attractions.
In the Dutch city of Zaandam, the Inntel Hotel stands out with its 12-storey façade made up of dozens of stacked traditional houses, paying tribute to the region’s architecture and to a painting by Claude Monet. In Lebanon, the Airplane House is shaped like a commercial aircraft, while in the United States, the historic Big Duck in New York has retained its giant duck shape since 1931. In Texas, the mysterious Steel House, built from Corten steel, resembles a rusted spaceship straight out of a science fiction film.
More than a collection of architectural curiosities, Weird Buildings demonstrates that architecture can surprise, provoke and inspire, revealing that some of the world’s most extraordinary buildings were born from the boldness to imagine the impossible.
Read more here.
