DIFFERENT ARCHITECTURE

Hungry for some “tasteful” architecture? These 7 mouth-watering buildings may look delicious but their designs serve a greater purpose: to project a brand image that warms the heart (while aiming for the stomach).

Basket Building, Ohio, USA

Why put up a billboard advertising your company’s wares when your company HQ can perform the same function more interestingly? That’s the philosophy behind The Longaberger Company’s headquarters building in Newark, Ohio. The family-owned business, likened to the Tupperware of baskets for their corporate and marketing methodology, built a giant, 7-story replica of a Longaberger Medium Market Basket to house their corporate offices and staff.

Albion House, Liverpool, UK

Formerly the White Star Line Building where the RMS Titanic and her sister ships were conceived and controlled, Liverpool’s Albion House (built 1896) sports a trendy-for-its-time red brick & white Portland stone exterior that reminds even the most unsavory character of fresh, streaky bacon.

Just like the state-of-the-art ships it directed across the seven seas, the White Star Line’s headquarters was a showcase of wealth, opulence and beauty. The shipping line never really recovered from the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and by the mid-1930s the headquarters building stood vacant. It’s a testament to the foresight of Liverpool’s city fathers that this iconic building remains standing today.

Hood Milk Bottle Building, Boston, MA, USA

The 40-ft tall Hood Milk Bottle has stood proudly in front of the Boston Children’s Museum since 1977 but its history actually goes back to 1933. That’s when Arthur Gagner built the Coney Island style bottle to sell homemade ice cream beside his store in Taunton, MA. The building sat empty and abandoned from 1967 to 1977 and it’s a wonder it wasn’t destroyed by fire at some point in that lonely decade.

Easter Egg Museum, Ukraine

The Pysanka Museum was built in the year 2000 and is located in the Ukrainian city of Kolomyia. “Pysanka” is the Ukrainian word for richly decorated, batik Easter Eggs and the museum at Kolomyia is the only one in the world dedicated to this important cultural icon. The museum’s central hall measures 46 ft (14m) high by 33 ft (10m) wide, and is designed to resemble a classic Ukrainian Pysanka and is painted in traditional themes inside and out.

The Donut Hole, La Puente, CA, USA

The Donut Hole in La Puente is one of the few remaining examples of programmatic or mimetic architecture left in California, let alone the world. The need to attract newly mobile car-driving customers that arose in the first half of the 20th century has faded now that other advertising venues such as the Internet have taken over. If the concept behind The Donut Hole isn’t surreal enough, how about the actual process of ordering: you literally drive into the unmapped, quantum space that exists inside a giant donut hole.

The Pineapple, Dunmore, Scotland

Designing buildings that look like food is not a new trend, as The Pineapple in Dunmore, Scotland, proves most eloquently. The pavilion was built in 1761 by John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, as a birthday present for his wife Susan. Judging from the vase-shaped chimneys along the roof of the pavilion, historians assume that many exotic plants were grown in greenhouses just beyond the outer wall. The 53 foot tall Pineapple that rises above the pavilion was planned with the utmost care; each leaf drains separately so that seasonal freeze/frost cycles won’t damage the delicate masonry.

Pineapples in Scotland? Not so strange – though first discovered by Columbus in 1493, pineapples had been grown in Scottish hothouses since the early years of the 18th century.

Fruity Bus Stops, Japan
These groovy bus stops from Japan are curiously empty but that just seems to add to their surreal appearance. One might expect the Cat Bus from Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro to pull up and, perhaps, begin nibbling on the shelter for a snack.

Humor -

WIFE FROM HELL

A police officer pulls over a speeding car. The officer says, " I clocked you at 80 miles per hour, sir." The driver says, "Gee, officer I had it on cruise control at 60, perhaps your radar gun needs calibrating." Not looking up from her knitting the wife says: "Now don't be silly dear, you know that this car doesn't have cruise control."

As the officer writes out the ticket, the driver looks over at his wife and growls, "Can't you please keep your mouth shut for once?" The wife smiles demurely and says, "You should be thankful your radar detector went off when it did."

As the officer makes out the second ticket for the illegal radar detector unit, the man glowers at his wife and says through clenched teeth, "Dammit, woman, can't you keep your mouth shut?"

The officer frowns and says, "And I notice that you're not wearing your seat belt, sir. That's an automatic $75 fine." The driver says, "Yeah, well, you see officer, I had it on, but took it off when you pulled me over so that I could get my license out of my back pocket." The wife says, "Now, dear, you know very well that you didn't have your seat belt on. You never wear your seat belt when you're driving."

And as the police officer is writing out the third ticket the driver turns to his wife and barks, "WHY DON'T YOU PLEASE SHUT UP??" The officer looks over at the woman and asks, "Does your husband always talk to you this way, Ma'am?" "Only when he's been drinking."