Sometimes construction projects can take a while to get done. And hey, that’s understandable—we’re talking about huge, complicated jobs that require a ton of skill and foresight to pull off properly. Starting them up, on the other hand, only takes a bit of money and some workers. What follows are ten famous structures that had the money, but not the skill and foresight—they’re “works in progress,” or, if you’d prefer, “colossal screw-ups.”

You’ve probably heard of Westminster Abbey. It’s one of the most famous and beautiful churches in the world—let alone England—and is by all accounts an architectural masterpiece. Surprisingly enough, however, it is not the mother church of Catholicism in the country—that honor belongs to Westminster Cathedral, which is literally right down the street from the Abbey. Another honor belonging to Westminster Cathedral? It’s never actually been completed.

Work is still ongoing, supposedly, but almost the entire interior is undecorated—leaving nothing but unfinished brickwork in its place. This is quite contrary to most Catholic churches, as anyone who’s ever been inside one can attest—and indeed, the Cathedral was (and is) supposed to look just as fancy as the rest. Work began in 1895, but apparently it’s been too expensive to finish decorating the mother church of literally all of England. And Wales.

The ‘German Stadium,’ as it’s called in English, broke ground in September of 1937 in Nuremberg, Germany. If you’re at all familiar with world history, that should probably raise a red flag.

Yes, the stadium was the brainchild of one Adolf Hitler, who wanted to build a gigantic, Roman-style arena for various nefarious purposes (including, but not limited to, hosting various Nazi rallies and replacing the Olympics with something called the Aryan Games). Thankfully, World War Two halted production before they could get any serious work done, and (also thankfully) the Nazis didn’t do so well in that. Thus the only remains of Deutsches Stadion are some crumbling pillars and walls from a test site, and a big lake in Nuremberg that filled in the former construction pit.

The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine is one of the largest Christian churches in the world, and an iconic feature of Manhattan in New York. By all means it should be considered a landmark, but officials in charge of that sort of thing are waiting until the building—which was started in 1892—is actually finished.

Construction on this thing has pretty much been a mess from the start—it’s been plagued by everything from financial woes to engineering problems to wars and fires, not to mention the fact that the designers switched up its whole architectural style a couple times (just for the hell of it, presumably). Church officials are still trying to figure out exactly how to finish this thing, but in the meantime it enjoys the affectionate nickname ‘Saint John the Unfinished.’

This one definitely fits into the realm of colossal screw-ups. The Super Power Building is to Scientology as the Vatican is to Catholicism, according to church leader David Miscavige. Work began in 1999 in Clearwater, Florida, and was estimated to take two years and $40 million. In 2003, work was abandoned for six years so that the church could re-plan the entire interior and solicit their followers for donations, despite the daily $250 fines it was getting for just sitting around. Work commenced in 2009, but the building has still never opened. Many followers left the church in disgust, having donated millions to the cause, and in January 2013 Luis and Rocio Garcia actually filed a lawsuit against the church for wasting their money.

The International Space Station (ISS) isn’t so much a building as it is a ‘modular structure,’ but it belongs on this list because it’s in a state of perpetual construction. Unlike most of the items here, the ISS kind of has to exist that way—and considering it’s operated and maintained by countries from all over the world, the fact that construction hasn’t fallen apart yet is actually pretty impressive. The first ‘component’ of the ISS, called Zarya, was launched into orbit in 1998, and the most recent one was added in 2011. Now, to be fair to the premise, the ISS was technically supposed to be ‘completed’ by 2005—but due to changes in technology and science, this date never really stood a chance. Hence, we have several new components scheduled to be attached over the next couple of years, and construction has been vaguely deemed ‘nearly halfway’ finished.

Not only is the Ajuda National Palace in Lisbon a famous tourist attraction, but it was also the official residence of the Portuguese royal family. That of all things, you’d think, would put it on the Portuguese builders’ priority list. Apparently not, though, because construction—which began in 1796—was never actually completed. Unfortunate finances and a series of wars led to the project being repeatedly adjusted and scaled back, but construction continued in spite of these setbacks all the way up until the Portuguese revolution in 1910, which abolished the monarchy. Currently, the half-finished palace functions as a museum.

If you’ve heard of Woodchester Mansion, it’s possibly because it’s been featured on a few ghost-hunter type TV shows under the presumption that it’s haunted. To be fair, a mental hospital was interested in setting up shop there at one point, and soldiers were stationed in the surrounding area during World War Two—but seeing as no one ever actually lived in the place, I’d take any rumors of ghosts with a grain of salt. No, the real reason Woodchester Mansion is famous is because it’s a hell of a shell of a house—an outer mansion with an almost completely unfinished inside. See, the guy who commissioned it, William Leigh, was kind of a perfectionist. An increasingly poor perfectionist, though—whenever he managed to get any money to have his mansion worked on, he always personally supervised construction and/or changed up the plans. So the half that’s built is built well, at least. The mansion is open to visitors, in case you ever wanted to see the inside of a house that only has an outside. Which, let’s be honest, sounds kind of awesome.

Like the poor Portuguese kings and queens who had to live in Ajuda Palace, the good parliamentarians of New Zealand have been working out of an unfinished building for over a century. Plans for the then-new headquarters were drawn up in 1911, and involved two stages of construction: one for the important chambers, and the other for the apparently-not-so-important chambers, like a library, and the Crown Law Office. The whole thing was supposed to take just two years, but they didn’t even get started until 1914, and they didn’t get the first stage done until 1922 (in fairness, there was a war going on at the time). In any case, the second stage of the official parliament buildings was never built—so it wasn’t ‘officially opened’ until 1995. It’s still not finished, technically speaking, but a different library/office building called the Beehive has been put up in the extra space. So at least they’ve got something.

Most of the items on this list, despite being incomplete, are still being used for something or other. But as promised, some of them are nothing more than useless, colossal screw-ups. Marble Hill falls into that latter category.

This nuclear plant in Indiana was started in 1977, and for about 7 years was all set to become a fully functioning, power-generating cornerstone of the nuclear power industry. Then, in 1984, after sinking $2.5 billion (with a ‘b’) into getting the reactors to about the halfway point, the company behind the project up and abandoned it—they simply couldn’t afford to continue. They ended up selling some of the equipment to recover a few million (not with a ‘b’) in lost costs. The plant’s been sitting half-finished ever since, although the company that owns it now is currently in the process of demolishing it.

Unlike Saint John’s Cathedral up there, the Sagrada Família church in Barcelona has received a lot of prestigious recognition—despite being a work in progress since 1882. Not only has it been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it’s also been visited by the Pope and proclaimed a basilica (which for churches is kind of like winning the Super Bowl). The Sagrada Família is the brainchild of the famous architect Antoni Gaudí, who spent most of his life building it up into the grotesque, nature-inspired work of art it is today. Tragically he passed away in 1926, after being hit by a tram. His masterpiece, at that point, was less than a quarter complete.

But it’s been carried on ever since, inspired by Gaudí’s vision, and funded almost exclusively by the millions of tourists who flock to it every year. Today, the Sagrada Família is more than halfway done, with an optimistic completion date of 2026—the centennial of Gaudí’s death. Barring that, the current head architect is confident that it will be finished “perhaps in less than a century.” So keep your calendar open.

If you like unfinished works of art and/or colossal screw-ups, MJ Alba urges you to check him out on Twitter @MattJAlba. If you want to help him get more followers than his brother, that would be pretty cool too.

New York City is well-known for its bustling Times Square, towering skyline, and Broadway theater shows. Yet, New York, like many big cities, has a storied history, and some of the buildings there have seen such tragic events that they are more notorious for their unfortunate pasts than their desirable architecture.

Many ghost hunters and the paranormal-curious have been known to head to these spooky locations with hopes to investigate further. As it appears, there might be other reasons why New York is called the city that never sleeps. Here are ten of them.

10 The Dakota

The Dakota, located at 72nd Street and Central Park West, is home to some of the most sought-after real estate in Manhattan. It was built in the 1880s, and its owner, Edward Clark, who was the founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, died at the age of 70 two years before the building was complete.

Overlooking Central Park, the Dakota is famous for both its Gothic architecture and haunted history. Horror fans will notice the exterior was used for scenes in Roman Polanski’s 1968 film Rosemary’s Baby. Also in the 1960s, when renovations took place; workers claimed they saw the ghost of a blonde-haired girl in the hallways.

Tragically, on December 8, 1980, Beatles singer John Lennon was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman outside the Dakota. His wife still lives there, and she has claimed that the ghost of her late husband visited her one night and told her, “Don’t be afraid. I am still with you.”^[1] Before his death, Lennon also revealed to his wife that he had witnessed a “crying lady ghost” stalking the halls in the night.

9 The House Of Death

In Greenwich Village, 14 West 10th Street was home to author Mark Twain from 1900 to 1901, and his ghost is believed to be one of the 22 spirits that haunt the building, all of whom either lived or died at the residence.

One former resident saw the ghost of a man with “white hair, wild-like” sitting in a chair looking out the window, and when she asked him what he was doing there, he replied, “My name is Clemens and I got problems here I gotta settle.” Also, an actress named Jan Bryant Bartell complained of hearing noises as well as experiencing visions and feelings of dread at number 16 West (next door). She then moved to number 14 West, but the sensations continued, and she believed it was the ghost of Mark Twain.

In 1987, wealthy attorney Joel Steinberg brutally beat his adopted daughter to death at number 14. The building has since been referred to as “The House of Death” by those who know of its haunting history.^[2]

8 The Campbell Apartment

A cocktail bar called the Campbell Apartment in Grand Central Terminal was once the office of financier John W. Campbell. Following his death in 1957, it became a small jail before it was sold once again. Since the location’s restoration, the historic architecture has been mixed with contemporary design elements and offers a cozy place to enjoy a drink close by the busy main terminal. However, the history of paranormal activity here also attracts many ghost hunters.

In 2010, owner Mark Grossich said, “Over the last several years, employees have had instances where they felt someone pushing them from behind when they were walking across the floor, and there was no one there. They’ve felt gusts of cold air coming from out of nowhere. My staff has even reported seeing apparitions of an old, fashionably dressed couple sitting and having a cocktail on the balcony when the place was completely closed.”^[3] He added that the ghostly goings-on are so frequent that many of his staff members refuse to be in the place on their own.

7 The Conference House

The Conference House on Staten Island was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966. On September 11, 1776, Lord William Howe, Benjamin Franklin, Edward Rutledge, and John Adams all met here at a failed meeting over a peace treaty during the Revolutionary War.

In 1676, Christopher Billop, an English Royal Navy officer, acquired the land and built the Bentley Manor—which has since had its name changed to the Conference House. It is believed that Billop killed the maid of the manor by stabbing her on the staircase and then throwing her body down the stairs. His motive was that he’d discovered she was signaling to the enemy, and it’s said that her ghost still haunts the building. Another ghost that resides here is the spirit of Billop’s fiancee, who died of a broken heart when he abandoned her, and her cries can still be heard.^[4]

The building also sits on the largest Lenape burial ground in New York City, called Burial Ridge, which would explain a lot of the hauntings in this place.

6 The Lefferts-Laidlaw House

If the thought of hearing knocking on your door in the middle of the night—only to answer and see nobody is there—frightens you, then the Lefferts-Laidlaw House at 136 Clinton Avenue near the Brooklyn Navy Yard is one residence to avoid. In December 1878, then-owner Edward F. Smith heard knocking at his door and loud rattling of his windows, which continued through the night until he eventually called the police. As the police surrounded the building outside, a brick was thrown through the dining room window despite numerous police officers being at the property. After a search of the surrounding grounds, there was nobody else to be seen.

Many psychics have tried to understand what evil spirit haunts this place, and they hold “semi-seances” on the sidewalk outside the house, yet it all still remains a mystery. Built circa 1840, the temple-fronted Greek Revival-style mansion boasts six bedrooms and was last on the market in 2016 for $4.5 million.^[5]

5 85 West 3rd Street

Author Edgar Allan Poe is best known for his haunting Gothic stories, including “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Yet he might have gained inspiration for one of his most famous works, “The Raven,” during the time he spent living at 85 West 3rd Street. He lived at the address from 1844 to 1845, the same time the narrative poem was published, and according to those who have resided there recently, he hasn’t moved on.

The building was demolished by New York University and rebuilt as Furman Hall, yet some of the original features remain intact, such as the facade facing the front street and an original banister. Students living in the hall claim to have seen a mysterious ghost-like figure that stands near the banister and resembles the late Poe.^[6] In 1849, Poe died mysteriously at the age of 40 years old. He was found acting delirious in Baltimore, Maryland, and there has been much speculation surrounding his actual cause of death, with theories including alcohol poisoning, suicide, cholera, and even murder.

4 84 West 3rd Street

Across the street from Edgar Allan Poe’s former residence is a house with its own dark history. At 84 West 3rd Street, there is a former Fire Patrol station that was first built in 1906. Tragically, in 1930, a firefighter hanged himself in the building after discovering that his wife was having an affair. It’s believed that his heartbroken ghost haunts the building, and previous firefighters have complained about strange noises and also seeing the ghost suspended in the air—seemingly hanging from the rafters.^[7] The station has since been transformed into a private residence.

This certainly is one haunted street, as just a short walk down the road will take you to Hangman’s Elm, which is a large tree in Washington Square Park where public executions were once carried out. According to local legend, the last hanging that took place was in 1820, when a slave named Rose Butler was executed for burning down the home of her master.

3 The Manhattan Well Murder

Located in SoHo, the basement of the former Manhattan Bistro was the site of an infamous murder. One night in late December 1799, a young woman named Gulielma Elmore Sands was due to meet her lover Levi Weeks, as they had plans to elope. It was the last time anybody would see her alive. Then, 11 days later, her body was found in the basement’s well with bruises to her neck which suggested that she had been strangled.

Weeks was arrested and stood trial in what became known as the “Manhattan Well Murder,” but he was soon acquitted, thanks to his strong legal team. Since then, the well where the young woman’s body was found has attracted many ghost hunters and fans of morbid history alike. Maria DaGrossa, whose family ran the Manhattan Bistro, once noted, “People are constantly asking to come down here [to see the well].”^[8] After the bistro closed, the basement became the site of a clothing store.

2 12 Gay Street

Originally built in 1827, 12 Gay Street in the West Village is a three-story brick townhouse that doesn’t appear to have anything mysterious about it to an outsider looking in. However, the place is said to be haunted by a restless spirit that won’t keep quiet at night. A neighbor, who has lived on the same street for more than two decades, said, “I wouldn’t go in there right now—it’s legendary that ghosts live there. That place would be like moving into The Shining.”^[9]

Those who’ve entered the house claimed to have felt the sensation of others despite being alone, along with hearing footsteps on the stairs at night and seeing a man wearing a top hat appearing in doorways. There is also talk of a lot of paranormal activity in the basement, which was once used as a puppet theater by a previous owner. In 2009, the house was up for sale, and the new owners could guarantee their own real-life Stephen King experience for the asking price of $4.2 million.

1 57 West 57th Street

There have been many cases of haunted houses, but at 57 West 57th Street, it’s a haunted penthouse that sends shivers down the spines of those who visit there. According to local legend, those who took up residence in the penthouse would soon go insane and even turn to murder. Edna Crawford Champion was the wife of an inventor until her French lover, Charles Brazelle, beat him to death. After she lied to the police and led them to believe that her husband had suffered a heart attack, she bought the penthouse as a love nest. Then, one night, Charles turned on Edna and beat her to death with a telephone—her bodyguards then responded by fatally throwing him out a window.

The apartment was eventually sold to a man named Carlton Alsops, who became tormented by the sounds of high heels tapping across the floor, which caused him so much distress that his marriage eventually broke down. Alsops ended up in a mental asylum and gave up on the apartment completely.^[10] It’s likely that the apartment’s current residents have also heard, or have been warned, of the penthouse’s past.

Cheish Merryweather is a true crime fan and an oddities fanatic. Can either be found at house parties telling everyone Charles Manson was only 5’2″ or at home reading true crime magazines.
Twitter: @thecheish

When people in the ancient world found gigantic ruins, they often described them as Cyclopean—as if only mythical Cyclops could have built such things. We tend not to go in for such legendary explanations today, but plenty of mysterious buildings from the past are still provoking debate. We may not know who built them, or even why.

10Nan Madol

Nan Madol in Micronesia is an ancient city built on a hundred tiny islets in the sea. This watery location has led to Nan Madol being called the Venice of the Pacific. The buildings and walls of the city are constructed of huge blocks of basalt columns and coral. How the city came to be built is the subject of myth among locals.

Two brother wizards, Olisihpa and Olosohpa, arrived from over the sea in a giant canoe. They sought to set up a place to worship the god of the sea and the god of good harvest. Their first two attempts to bring stones to the bay failed. It was only when they used the magic of a dragon to levitate the blocks that they managed to build the city. Descendants of the wizards ruled the city until it was abandoned.

Nan Madol is still being explored to work out how it was constructed. To build the city, the inhabitants, who lacked pulleys and metal tools, would have had to move almost 2,000 tons of stone a year, each year, for 400 years.

9Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan is home to some of the largest Pre-Columbian structures in the Americas. At one time, it had a population of over 100,000, making it one of the largest cities in the world. Despite this pre-eminence we have almost no idea of who founded the city.

It seems to have been founded around 200 BC, about a 1,000 years before the Aztec period. The city is dominated by pyramids. The largest, the Pyramid of the Sun, is the third-largest in the world.

As mysterious as the city’s founding is its abandonment. Different theories have been given as to why the inhabitants left the large city. Was it revolt by the lower classes? External invasion? No evidence of either has been discovered, so it is still an open question.

8Puma Punku

Puma Punku in Bolivia has attracted great attention ever since its discovery. Blocks of stone cut with precise lines and holes dot the temple complex. One weighs over 130 tons. So strange and carefully carved are the stones that they have been claimed by believers in Ancient Aliens as proof of extraterrestrial visitation. Quite why aliens would wish to build a temple in Bolivia is yet another mystery.

Puma Punku was built without mortar to hold the stones together. To hold the walls up each stone was cut to interlock exactly with its neighbors. This would be skilled work even today. Further, the stones used to build the site were quarried about 50 miles away. Puma Punku has been much damaged by time and looting. At one time, it may have been richly decorated, and so its role and purpose might have been easier to discern. Carbon dating of deposits show that it must have been built at some time after AD 530.

7Derinkuyu Underground City

Imagine building a city for 20,000 people without the aid of modern technology. Now try to imagine building it entirely underground.

Turkey boasts several underground cities, but the largest is in Derinkuyu. The city was expanded and inhabited and used as a place to flee for protection until at least 1923. But the whole place was forgotten about until accidently rediscovered when a tunnel was broken into during a housing refurbishment in the 1960s.

The structure of the local rock makes the construction of underground cities remarkably easy. It is soft enough to hew away but sufficiently strong to resist collapse. The tactical advantages of living underground are clear to see, but the cramped living conditions can hardly have been healthy ones.

6Ggantija

Ggantija is a megalithic temple complex on the island of Malta. Ggantija means “Giantess’s Tower,” and local legend has it that Ggantija was built by a giantess called Sasuna. She carried the enormous stones used at the site on her head. Some of these stones are over 5 meters in length.

Ggantija is three temples built in the same area and surrounded by a wall. Begun around 3600 BC, these temples predate metal tools and the wheel on Malta. No wonder later generations thought only a giant could have built it. Small stone spheres have been found which may provide a clue as to how the blocks were moved—they were perhaps ball bearings placed beneath the stones.

5Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe is a ruined city forming the largest collection of ruins in Africa south of the Sahara. Local legend has it that it was here that the biblical Queen of Sheba had her capital. This is unlikely as the site was only built and occupied from the 11th to the 15th century.

There is some debate as to who built Great Zimbabwe. In the past, this has been a politically fraught question, with the white government of Rhodesia unwilling to accept that the advanced city had been built by the native peoples. Now, there is general agreement that it was constructed by the ancestors of the Shona, though with some dissenters.

At its height, around 18,000 people lived at Great Zimbabwe. The 5-meter-high walls that protect the site were made without the aid of mortar.

4Baalbek

Baalbek in Lebanon reached its peak under the Roman Empire but had been a major city long before that. At the heart of the Roman city were a triad of temples raised in honor of Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus. While they were magnificent in the way all Classical temples were, at the base of the temple of Jupiter is a mysterious feature—three gigantic stones. These three stones, weighing 800 tons each, are the largest stones ever used in construction.

In the ancient world, the site was called the Trilithion (“Three stones”). But no one knows why such huge stones were used as a foundation. In a nearby quarry lie more squared-off monoliths, larger than the others, that were never completed or used.

3Menorcan Taulas

On the island of Menorca can be found huge T-shaped rock formations. Made from one stone resting on another, these Taulas are surrounded by walls with a single entrance. All but one of the Taulas are directed toward the south.

We know that they were built by the Talaiotic Culture that existed on the island until the Roman conquest. Most seem to have been set up around 1000 BC.

Clearly they have some ritual use, but no evidence has come down to us of their exact significance. One archaeologist has seen in the flat stone on top the horns of a bull and so suggested Taulas are sites of worship of a bull god.

2Longyou Caves

In Longyou, there was a belief that the local ponds were bottomless. No one settled the matter until 1992, when a villager drained one. The pond was a flooded man-made cavern. Other ponds were soon drained, and 27 such grottoes have been discovered.

Clearly artificial, the grottoes were all carved by hand. None interconnect, but some are separated by only thin rock walls. The purpose of these caves is as unknown as the people who made them. It is thought that the water that once filled the caverns may have helped to stop them collapsing.

1Tomb Of China’s First Emperor

Most people know of the Terracotta Warriors. These thousands of individual statues were placed around tomb of the Emperor to guard him in death. Records suggest that the Emperor is entombed in a palace built for him underneath a hill. We can see the hill, and there is evidence of empty spaces within. But the Chinese government will not allow excavation of the central tomb.

This may seem perverse, but there is good reason to take our time. The scientific processes available to us are improving all the time. When the first terracotta warriors were unearthed, the pigments on them flaked away within seconds of exposure to air. Who knows what damage opening the tomb may cause?

One thing we may find inside are vast pools of mercury. A Chinese historian said the tomb contained lakes and rivers of the liquid metal, and analysis of the soils at the site do contain mercury concentrations much higher than the surrounding area.

The world is full of derelict buildings, many of which are in a truly dismal state of disrepair and give off an eerie, desolate vibe. Most of us will pass structures of this sort in the town or city we live in on a regular basis without even giving them a second thought, let alone wondering what events led them into their current dilapidated state.

Of course, lots of these buildings have been abandoned for fairly mundane reasons, but in some cases, the stories that lie behind them are darker and sadder. The following are ten derelict buildings with stories that ensure nobody will want to use them in the future.

10 Chateau Miranda

This neo-Gothic building in Celles, Belgium, was also known as Chateau de Noisy and was constructed between 1886 and 1907. The original plan was for the wealthy Liederkerke-De Beaufort family to use it as their summer home. However, the building was claimed for use as a base by the Nazis during World War II, and at one time, a number of German soldiers were living in it.^[1] There is nothing particularly creepy about this, apart from the inherent creepiness of Nazis, but the chateau became one of the places where the Battle of the Bulge was fought, which meant that a number of men died there.

If the thought of the spirits of all of those dead soldiers roaming around a Gothic-looking building in the middle of nowhere isn’t unsettling enough, this chateau went on to be used as a place for sick children to stay after the war ended. It was referred to as a “holiday camp,” although it does not seem like a place that many kids would want to spend their holidays at. Inevitably, not all of the children who stayed there recovered from their illnesses, so the chateau became even more associated with death. Sadly, Chateau Miranda was demolished in 2017, meaning all of its ghosts had to find somewhere else to haunt.

9 Sanzhi UFO Houses

These futuristic pod-shaped buildings in New Tapei, Taiwan, were proof that modernism offers us no defense against creepiness. The Sanzhi UFO Houses looked like something we might expect to see in a 1950s sci-fi movie. Work on building them began in 1978, with the intention being for the site to be a resort once the houses were complete.^[2] The idea was that officers in the US military who had been posted to the area would use the finished development, but nobody ever got to take a vacation there because work on it was scrapped two years after it began following a series of mysterious deaths among the construction crew.

It has been reported that some of the workers died in car accidents, while others committed suicide, but the precise reason for the seemingly cursed nature of the development has been a source of debate ever since. Some believe that the decision to split a sculpture of a Chinese dragon that was situated near the gates led to a curse, while others think that it was built on a site haunted by Dutch soldiers. The buildings were demolished at the end of the 2000s.

8 Willard Asylum

An abandoned asylum is always likely to have a fairly eerie atmosphere, but the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane takes it to a whole other level. Situated in Willard, New York, it was originally built in the 1860s to be a place of safety for the mentally ill at a time when “treatments” such as imprisoning them in cells or leaving them chained up in poorhouses were common. The idea came from Dr. Sylvester D. Willard, and the asylum was organized in a way that was typical for the period, with men and women kept apart, but with a cinema, gym, and bowling alley among the facilities, there was clearly an effort being made to make its residents happy.^[3]

Despite the attempts to make Willard Asylum a more progressive place for treating the mentally ill, the presence of a graveyard full of thousands of unnamed markers for those who died there is grim reminder that it was still essentially a prison. However, what really gave Willard Asylum its unsettling reputation are the suitcases that were discovered in an attic after the facility was shut down in 1995. Numbering more than 400, these suitcases contained personal items that had been brought to the asylum by new inmates. They provide a melancholy glimpse into the lives of its residents, many of whom never left and are among those buried anonymously in its cemetery. Among the possessions found in these suitcases were everything from children’s toys and books to family photos.

7 The Murder House

The Scottish city of Dundee has known its fair share of violent crime, but the events that took place at its infamous “murder house” have earned a place in local folklore. The large three-story house is located in the wealthy Roseangle area of the city, and it is a place that most of us would be happy to live in—but it remained derelict for decades. It was the home of a retired doctor named Alexander Wood and his wife Dorothy, both of whom were in their late seventies when their lives were brutally ended in May 1980. The frail elderly couple were attacked by an intruder, who beat them to death using a hammer. The scene of the killings was so gruesome that Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Cameron, who was in charge of investigating the crime, said at the time that the degree of violence involved was “not normal.”^[4]

The killer turned out to be a local man named Henry John Gallagher, who committed a further two horrific killings in Kent before being captured. Gallagher was judged to be insane and went to Broadmoor Hospital instead of prison, which seems reasonable, given that the scene he left behind at the house in Roseangle was described as looking like an abattoir. Meanwhile, the murder house became a bleak feature of the landscape in the center of Dundee and part of the Dark Dundee visitor tour. As of August 2018, plans had been made to turn the murder house into a bar and restaurant.

6 Fort Douaumont

This fort is situated not far from Verdun, France, and it was designed to prevent the Germans from invading that region in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War. It did not actually come into play until World War I, but by this time, the French had abandoned the use of fixed fortifications as a military defense, and the small garrison left at the fort were easily overpowered by the Germans when the latter staged a surprise strike at the start of the Battle of Verdun.

The French army eventually regained control of it in October 1916, with the public in France demanding that all energy be put into reclaiming a building they saw as a symbol of their nation as a whole. The battle to win it back was bloody and involved intensive shell attacks, which hit the supplies of ammunition and grenades that were kept in the center of the fort. Some 800 Germans were killed by the mix of toxic smoke and explosions.

With the fort under assault, the dead could not be buried outside and had to be put into one of the fort galleries and sealed in.^[5] Some of the skeletal remains are now buried in the fort cemetery and ossuary, but others remain forever walled in within the building itself.

5 St. Gerard’s Hospital

Abandoned hospitals have the same potential as asylums for creepiness, and St. Gerard’s certainly fit that particular bill. It was located in Birmingham in the UK and was built by a local charity called the Father Hudson Society as a facility for poor children who were suffering from tuberculosis and other illnesses caused by poverty. It was originally constructed back in the 1890s and remained in use for almost a century before closing its doors for the last time in 1988. It lingered for roughly 30 years before it was finally knocked down.

What made St. Gerard’s such an unnerving place to walk around was the fact that the contents of the building weren’t removed. These included beds, wheelchairs, hospital equipment, syringes coated in blood, X-rays and medical charts of children who were treated there, and the toys and coloring books that they amused themselves with.^[6] Most of these items had been damaged by weather conditions over the years since the hospital shut down but remained intact, making the presence of those who once worked and received treatment there feel almost tangible for anyone exploring the derelict building.

4 Church Of The Nine Ghosts

The actual name of this 14th-century church is St. George’s Church, and it is in Lukova in the Czech Republic, where it was consecrated in 1352. From the very beginning, it developed an association with darkness, as it was ravaged by fires on more occasions than anyone would expect of a church. However, despite this spate of strange events, the church was continually rebuilt and repaired until one final disaster in 1968 proved the last straw for residents of the village. During a funeral service that year, the roof of the church caved in, which led many local people to believe that it was haunted, so the church was finally abandoned.^[7]

That’s creepy enough, but it wasn’t the end of the story. After it stopped being used as a church, the inside of the building started to fall into disrepair, and Jacob Hadrava, an artist from the local area, decided to save it from being knocked down by turning it into an art installation. He created nine shrouded figures made of plaster that sit in the pews—hence the nickname “Church of the Nine Ghosts.” Hadrava called his finished work My Mind, and it has become a popular tourist attraction among the sort of people who listen to Joy Division on their summer holidays. More ghostly figures have since been added to the original nine.

3 Hulme Hippodrome

This abandoned theater is located in Manchester, England, and opened its doors in 1901, staging music hall performances for years before being given the new name of the Second Manchester Repertory Theater in the 1940s. It later went on to play host to legendary artists like Nina Simone, but after a period when it was used as a venue for bingo during the 1970s, it was closed down and went on to become a source of fascination for many people living in Manchester.

While any derelict theater has an element of eeriness about it because it was once full of life, laughter, and people, the connection Hulme Hippodrome has with the strange Gilbert Deya Ministries is what really makes it creepy. This organization bought the building and used it to hold church meetings, at which Deya allegedly told infertile couples that he could provide them with what he called “miracle babies.” Deya and his church were investigated by the BBC in 2004 over suspicions that these babies were being kidnapped from families in Nairobi, Kenya. The investigation found that the babies that he claimed had been born to couples in the UK did not have the same DNA as the people who were supposed to be their parents, and Deya was eventually sent back to Kenya to face charges of child trafficking in 2017.^[8]

2 Hirta

This entry is actually several buildings that make up a settlement on the Scottish island of Hirta. Hirta is part of the St Kilda archipelago and is one of the most remote places in the whole of the UK—as well as being empty since the residents left in 1930. At one time, Hirta was the place on St Kilda where the majority of people lived, with the residents of the island growing potatoes and barley, catching fish, and eating eggs and meat from seabirds.

Life in this detached location was surely never easy, but the story behind the final abandonment of it is very bleak. The settlement had survived a number of tough experiences, including an epidemic of smallpox in 1727, but the winter of 1929 proved to be so brutal that it led to multiple deaths, decimating the community and leaving only 36 remaining. Grief and desperation led those who had survived the harsh winter weather to plead with the government for a move away from the island to the mainland. Although the island was evacuated almost 90 years ago, buildings such as houses and the school hall are still there and are now sometimes visited by tourists.^[9]

1 Red Dress Manor

The actual name of this abandoned farmhouse in Powys, Wales, is Calcott Hall, and it was originally built back in 1725. The last person to live there was a woman named Ellen Jones, who died during the 1970s. Everything in the house has remained exactly as she left it since her death, making it appear as if she is still alive and has simply gone out. The house still has the food that she left in the fridge, as well as paperwork with her personal details on it and photographs from different parts of her life.

The odd nickname that the building has been given by local people stems from the presence of a red dress that belonged to Jones and that she left hanging over a door, where it has remained for over 40 years. Just in case there is any doubt that she was the owner of this dress, there is also a framed photograph of her wearing it hanging on one of the walls.^[10] Little is known about Jones, her life, or what she died of, but it would be hard to walk around her home without feeling her ghost haunting the place.

I am a freelance writer based in Dundee who has previously written sketches and jokes for BBC radio shows. I also make short films as a member of Wardlaw Films.

When we think of the US, we picture towering skyscrapers and apartments in the cities, copycat suburb houses with white picket fences, and little lonesome red farmhouses in the fields and prairies. Everything is a standardized design of steel, glass, and bricks. However, the US is also the home of world-famous artists, architects, and rich people who have the money to make their crazy dreams a reality. Many of these unique individuals have created works of architectural wonder and amazement, while others . . . at least created something unique. Here for your enjoyment are 10 of the most bizarre and unique buildings in the United States of America.

10 Summum Pyramid

Located in Salt Lake City, Utah, the nearly 9-meter-tall (30 ft) and 12-meter-long (40 ft) Summum Pyramid is the primary center for the Summum religion. Founded by Claude “Corky” Nowell in 1975, the Summum religion shares many similarities with Christianity, except for two things: They believe their teachings came from extraterrestrial beings and that they are one of the only practitioners of modern-day mummification.

The Summums believe that a person’s soul doesn’t really die. It only transfers to a different state of consciousness upon death, and a preserved body is needed for that transition. Hence, they spent 1977–79 building a sacred place to house these mummified remains. Though it sounds strange, thousands of people have paid the Summums to mummify their loved ones—both human and non-human—with prices ranging from $20,000 for mummifying a pet to around $70,000 for a human mummification and ceremony. That’s not bad for a religion whose leader legally changed his name to Summum Bonum Amen Ra.

9 The Longaberger Company building

How many companies do you know that have employees who work in the product that they sell? In Newark, Ohio, the employees of the Longaberger Basket Company work in a seven-story version of their product. The giant basket is 59 meters (192 ft) long by 38 meters (126 ft) wide at the base and 63 meters (208 ft) long by 43 meters (142 ft) wide at the top. Its handles weigh approximately 150 tons. Unsurprisingly, the seven-story Longaberger Basket Company headquarters holds the record for being the world’s largest basket.

The building was the dream child of Dave Longaberger, the company’s founder. Starting the company in 1976, Longaberger spent $30 million to build the office in 1996, and it took over two years to complete the structure. Originally, Longaberger planned to franchise the design, turning all of his company buildings across the US into versions of the company headquarters. Sadly, the dream passed away along with Longaberger. Right after the construction of the basket headquarters, Dave Longaberger died at 64 years old in 1999 from kidney cancer. However, his legacy lives on in both his company’s baskets and in one of the most bizarre company headquarters in the world.

8 Dick Clark’s Flintstones Home

When you visit Malibu, California, you expect to see mansions and beach houses belonging to the rich and famous, not a home straight from prehistory. Created by late TV host and media personality Dick Clark, the home is carved entirely from stone. Wanting to build on the property but being blocked by the Malibu Park Conservancy Group, Dick Clark revealed in an interview that he was allowed to build on the property if he shaped his home to look like a natural rock formation.

The rock home sits on 23 acres of land and has one bedroom, two baths, a living room, and a kitchen. Furnished with some period-matching furniture, the home is a surprising replica of the Flinstone home from the popular 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Flintstones. After the death of Dick Clark in 2012 from a heart attack, his widow put his home up for sale. An undisclosed buyer bought the home in 2014 for $1,777,777, which sounds expensive until you take into account that the original asking price was $3.5 million.

7 The Mansion On O Street

When visiting Washington, DC, it’s easy to miss the Mansion on O Street, mainly because many people assume it’s one of the larger hotels in the area. Instead, they pass over the three large, three-story homes that house the hotel. Designed by US Capitol architect Edward Clark in 1892 for his family and relatives, the three homes were built with connecting basements and main floors but with separate sleeping quarters. In the 1930s, the homes were separated into individual houses as lodging for FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and his men. But on February 14, 1980, H.H. Leonards purchased the homes and renovated them back into a single unit as a bed-and-breakfast and later purchased another row of townhouses, bringing the total of the homes to five buildings.

Now totaling 2,800 square meters (30,000 ft²), the hotel has over 100 unique and stylized rooms that come in themes from the Victorian age to 1970s disco style. Also, the building contains multiple hidden rooms, which can only be accessed by secret passageways that guests enter by way of secret doors. These secret doors include the cliche of moving a book on a bookshelf, concealed doors in wallpaper, and even doors hidden behind mirrors and spice racks. The hotel also has a strict privacy policy, which has made it a haven for the rich and famous, including presidents, ambassadors from around the globe, musicians, artists, and civil rights leaders. The hotel also contains many memorabilia and gifts, given to the hotel by guests, to the point where it also functions as a museum. So, when you need to disappear for a while or face a potential scandal, look no further than the Mansion on O Street as a great place to hide.

6 The Mushroom House

Far out in Perinton, New York, lies a home straight out of a science fiction novel. Called the Mushroom House or Pod House, the home was created by architect James H. Johnson in 1970. Designing it after the underbelly of the Queen Anne’s Lace flower, it became known as the Mushroom House for its brown coloring, which resembles a mushroom. Spanning 387 square meters (4,168 ft²), the home is composed of four interconnecting pods lifted off the ground by reinforced concrete “stems.”

In 1989, it became a Perinton Town Landmark. Then, after its original owners moved, it went on the market. In 2012, Michael Gaginer and Theresa Sherrod bought the whimsical home for $799,900, down from the asking price of $1.1 million. The lesson we can learn from this is that while people are willing to pay millions to live in a sculpted slab of stone, people won’t do the same for a home that resembles something you’d cut up and put on pizza and burgers.

5 The Moroccan-Style Palace

Our next building looks like something straight out of a Middle Eastern storybook. It’s a large Moroccan palace, complete with mosaic ceilings, colorful tile, and decadent furniture. There’s just one thing that makes it so bizarre: It’s in the suburbs of Houston, Texas. Built in 2005, the home is a work of Arabesque architecture, a style of Islamic art and architecture where simple designs or motifs are seamlessly interwoven and repeated as many times as the creator desires. (Famous examples of this style include the architecture of the Brunei Royal Palace.)

Measuring 1,858 square meters (20,000 ft²), the home has eight bedrooms, nine bathrooms, multiple living and dining rooms, and a court with three tiled fountains. It’s beautifully decorated with intricate tiled floors, the previously mentioned mosaic-style ceilings and walls, and handcrafted furniture. In addition, the home sits on 3.8 acres of land that includes two separate two-story guesthouses, a cabana, a pool, and an empty petting zoo. Although this desert oasis went on the market in 2011, it has since been leased for rent, making it one of the most unique rented houses in Texas—and also the most expensive. How expensive is it? The rent for this diamond in the sands is $26,000 per month. Instead of living in Aladdin’s palace, you might as well simply go see his humble abode in Disneyland for half that much money.

4 The Gehry Residence

When Frank Gehry and his wife moved into their Santa Monica, California, home in 1977, the neighbors had no idea that the budding architect would transform it into a work of art. Gehry is now one of the world’s most famous deconstructivist (the distortion and dislocation of the basic elements of a building, forming a wild, usually chaotic structure) architects and has designed spectacular and bizarre buildings all over the globe. His earliest work was the transformation of his own home.

Wildly transforming the two-story, pink bungalow from the 1920s, Gehry wrapped corrugated aluminum (typically used in airplane hangars) around the structure, then added extending skylights, and finally used chain-link fencing to connect the new exterior to the second story. In 1991, in response to a growing family, Gehry expanded the building and molded the skylights and outside barrier. In 2012, the American Institute of Architects awarded Gehry the AIA Twenty-five Year Award; his home still remains to this day. What was the cost of undertaking such a project? Gehry said in an interview with Barbara Isenberg that buying and then remodeling his home only cost him $260,000.

3 Hole ‘n The Rock

Another bizarre building, this time in southern Moab, Utah, the home of Albert and Gladys Christensen is unique in that it is carved entirely from a sandstone cliff. Taking over 12 years to drill and carving more than 1,400 cubic meters (50,000 ft³) worth of sandstone, the project was the brainchild of Albert Christensen. It was initially just a small play area for his sons to sleep in at night back in the 1940s. By 1952, when Albert and Gladys moved in, the small place had been transformed into a 464-square-meter (5,000 ft²) home, which the couple furnished together.

The house has a 20-meter (65 ft) chimney, a bathtub built right into the rock, and 14 spacious rooms, made for the Christensen’s children and grandchildren to sleep in. Alongside the furniture and appliances, Albert hung many of his religious paintings on the walls, and, on the other end of the coziness spectrum, he kept many of his homemade taxidermy projects in the house, as well as his wife’s doll collection. (This wasn’t nightmare fuel at all.) Sadly, Albert died of a heart attack in 1957, but Gladys lived on, keeping up the home, giving tours, and running a gift shop until her death in 1974. The home, however, is now a memorial and tourist attraction with daily tours and a running gift shop.

2 The Walt Disney Concert Hall

Since its founding on October 16, 1923, The Walt Disney Company has become synonymous with its unique, bold creations. This subject brings us to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, one of the most famous concert halls in the world. Another work of Frank Gehry, the hall was originally designed and built in 1987, when Lillian Disney donated $50 million to create a concert hall in the name of her deceased husband. The project, however, was shut down in 1994 but was revived two years later by a successful fundraising campaign and media attention.

Completed in 2003, the 19,000-square-meter (200,000 ft²) building has an exterior featuring a series of undulating, curved, and angled forms that symbolize not only the motion of the city of Los Angeles but musical movement itself. The surface also uses reflective, stainless steel that focuses and directs light into the building during the day. On the inside, the hall is designed as a single entity, having the orchestra and audience in the same space instead of the typical boxes and balconies of other concert halls. While this space is an impressive visual, it did come with one kink: In 2005, many panels had to be replaced, because the glare from some of the panels was not only blinding but actually reflected enough heat to cause the air on the opposite sidewalk to skyrocket over 60 degrees Celsius (140 °F). Talk about hot art.

1 The Parisian Palace

Although castles are commonly believed to be strictly a European attraction, many architects and settlers—either from Europe or inspired by European architecture— have built castles in the US. Some are stunning monoliths that have a picturesque and awe-inspiring air to them. Others, including the Parisian Palace, don’t. Located in Las Vegas, Nevada, this 638-square-meter (6,872 ft²) palace was designed and built by Nico Santucci in 2004.

The castle has a rather over-the-top European style. Guests enter the palace through long front gardens with statues of Roman and Greek deities standing watch over the house. Inside the house, there are 12 imported, 272-kilogram (600 lb) crystal chandeliers, hand-painted murals by Thomas Bisesti on nearly every ceiling and wall, and a full marble bathtub, all of which might sound nice.

Then, things get bizarre with the addition of windowless rooms featuring only red carpet and disco balls, staircase walls covered in 10,000 red roses or gold crocodile wall coverings, rooms decked out in gold and gold-colored furniture, and a motorcycle right by a grand staircase. The Parisian Palace was put on sale in 2013 for $5.25 million, but while the current owners wait for someone to buy this . . . eclectic mansion, they’re using the place as a hotel, party rental, and wedding venue. Because nothing says “romantic getaway” like being in a room that looks like King Midas went to town.

J.T. Charles has a certified degree in wumbology and Disnerdology from the D23 University. When not emotionally traumatized by television episodes, he can be found writing on Wattpad.com as “JTCharles” and on Tumblr at foreverdisneynerd.tumblr.com.

For most people, Stonehenge stands as a symbol for the most ancient of civilizations, the work of humans who had barely emerged from their hunter-gatherer origins. Those people might well be surprised to know just how many mysterious buildings survive, in one form or another, from much earlier epochs—and in places few would even dare to look.

10White Temple Of Uruk
3200 BC

A long way from the quiet shires that house Stonehenge stands a building that is yet more ancient. Perched at the top of the oldest existing ziggurat, in what is modern-day Warka, Iraq, is the weather-worn White Temple. Less known than the complexes on the ziggurat at Ur, the White Temple is only 20 meters (60 ft) in length. The name, added in modern times, comes from its whitewashed, mud-brick walls, whose sides still stand sentinel over the sands of the long-gone Sumerian empire. What the original name for the temple was, no one knows, as the early history of the site is achingly difficult to piece together. Could this building have buried within it secrets relating to a truly ancient organized religion?

What makes the White Temple especially intriguing is its connections to Anu, the oldest god of the Sumerian pantheon (and one of the stars of the Epic of Gilgamesh). It is also fascinating for the treasures it may well have housed, including the Warka Vase. This 5,000-year-old artifact was once housed in the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad, before being looted in April 2003. It was later returned in a dozen pieces, months later, a sad reflection of the fragile state of Iraq’s present and its ancient past.

9Tarxien Temples
3250 BC

The Tarxien Temples are set amid the built-up neighborhood of Paola, just half an hour from Valletta, the capital of Malta. Less well-known than the Ggantija Temples and nearby underground Hypogeum of Hal-Saflieni, these aboveground buildings are the most complex of all the ancient temple sites in Malta.

There are three temples at Tarxien, all different ages, with the oldest dating to 3250 BC. The mystery lies in the beliefs of the people who constructed them. Were they simply artistic structures, suggested by the intricate and beautiful animal carvings that can be seen there, or did they serve a Sun god? Perhaps they were a homage to an obese fertility goddess, whose corpulent figure crops up so often at the site.

The Tarxien temples were discovered accidentally by a farmer in 1913 and have since been carefully restored, though they are still open to the elements. A tent and flood protection have been proposed for the temples, but for the moment, they remain within view of the azure sky and the ever-staring Sun.

8Sechin Bajo Plaza
3500 BC

Everyone has heard of the legendary Inca Empire and their Machu Picchu citadel, but fewer know about the remains of Peruvian civilizations that are older—much older. Five thousand years before the Incas reached their peak in the 15th century, ancient groups in the New World were constructing Sechin Bajo. The site consists of a circular plaza 14 meters (45 ft) in diameter, 370 kilometers (230 mi) north of modern-day Lima.

Adobe friezes show a warrior holding a knife in one hand and what could be a head or a shield in the other. There are disputes over the age of the site, but carbon-dating techniques conducted by a German and Peruvian archaeological team in 2008 date the plaza to 3500 BC, making it the oldest building complex in the Western hemisphere.

Things get even more mysterious with the mention by the team of older plazas that might be buried beneath the main site. That mystery will have to be for another day, however, as the archaeologists await further grants to delve deeper. In the meantime, scientists are filling in the site with dirt to preserve it and protect it from tomb raiders.

7West Kennet Long Barrow
3650 BC

Seven hundred years before Stonehenge was being prepared, West Kennet Long Barrow was already built, just 25 kilometers (15 mi) from the famous stone circle. A barrow is a place to hold the dead, traditionally the social elite, and this barrow is one of the best preserved in Britain. It dominates the nearby area, at over 100 meters (330 ft) long and 12–24 meters (40–80 ft) wide, and it is tall enough inside to let a person stand upright. Dating from 3650 BC, it was in use for almost 1,000 years, holding the bones of 50 people.

Speculation abounds as to why the barrow was abandoned. Was it simple neglect or something more cryptic? Did a change in belief lead to a change in burial practice and a blocking up of the old barrows? Could it be something to do with the arrival of the Avebury stone circle, built around the time of the Long Barrow’s demise, just 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) away?

6Knap Of Howar
3700 BC

The two stone structures that form the Knap of Howar may at first appear insignificant, but they are in fact 5,700 years old and are the oldest known stone houses in northern Europe. The walls of these houses still stand over 1.6 meters tall but were only uncovered in the 1930s, after severe sea erosion and gales blew their cover.

The houses can be found at the northern tip of Scotland’s Orkney Islands, an archipelago of over 70 islands, of which 20 are inhabited. Together with the more famous sites of Orkney, such as Skara Brae and the Ring of Brogar, the Knap is part of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney UNESCO World Heritage Site. The name of the site comes from Old Norse and means “mound of mounds.”

Several curious questions linger over these prehistoric houses. What is the significance of the pottery shards and stone and flint tools found throughout the houses? Was the Knap a workshop, whose tools were traded far beyond the islands? The houses had spacious living quarters, and there are indications of yet older structures beneath. Just how ancient and advanced was the civilization that made such homes this far north?

5Monte D’Accoddi
4000 BC

If most people were asked where they could find a truly ancient pyramid, few would mention the northwestern coast of Sardinia, in the Mediterranean. But it is here that you would find Monte d’Accoddi, a 6,000-year-old building whose true purpose is still the subject of debate. With its earliest foundations going back to 4000–3650 BC, this site not only predates Stonehenge but is also more ancient than the oldest pyramids of Egypt, which arrive on the scene over 1,000 years later.

Scholars translate the name as “Stone Mount,” and the building consists of a ramp over 40 meters (130 ft) long, leading to a step-pyramid that would have been 8 meters (25 ft) tall. Uniquely, the nearby area also houses both a 4.44-meter (14.6 ft) upright menhir and a limestone sphere with a circumference of almost 5 meters (15 ft). Lonely Planet describes the site as “unlike anything else in the Mediterranean,” and for such a phenomenal place, surprisingly few tourists venture here.

Monte d’Accoddi has been defined alternatively as an altar, a ziggurat, a temple, and a pyramid. Only adding to the mystery is the “red room” at the center of the site, whose walls are smeared with red ochre. Despite repeated studies, there is no clear answer as to just what happened on this mysterious mount.

4Tumulus Of Bougon
4700 BC

The Tumulus of Bougon ranks as one of the world’s few remaining structures that would have been regarded as ancient even back in the time of Stonehenge. A tumulus is an artificial mound, usually one built over a grave site. The site at Bougon, in the Deux-Sevres department of France near the Atlantic coast, consists of no fewer than six tumuli.

The biggest is 72 meters (240 ft) long, and the tumuli vary in size and shape; some are circular, others rectangular or trapezoidal. Were these shape choices simply based on aesthetic tastes, or is there a deeper significance, perhaps related to the builders’ beliefs in the afterlife?

Other mysteries surround these 7,000-year-old buildings. A skull of a man was found inside, and it bears truly ancient evidence of trepanning. To trepan a skull meant to perforate a hole in it, with the presumed aim of curing mental disorders. Did the man survive his affliction, or was he hastily buried at Bougon? We might now regard those who carried out this procedure as mad, but we can now see just how timeworn a cure it was.

3Cairn Of Barnenez
4800 BC

A faceless portrait—repeated and mysterious U shapes—frantic zig-zags. All of these symbols etched out on stone slabs, inside vaults that have stood for over 68 centuries. These are some of the secrets that are sepulchered inside the Cairn of Barnenez, in northern Finistere, in the Brittany region of France.

The Cairn of Barnenez is not the grave site of one man but houses 11 different tombs, added one by one over centuries, starting in 4800 BC. This is such an ancient monument that as big a chasm of years separates the builders of this cairn from the writers of the Old Testament as separates those biblical authors from the 21st century.

This is no small site either. The cairn is 75 meters (250 ft) long and 25 meters (80 ft) across at its widest. The estimated weight of the stones that make up the site is 12,000 tons, making the cairn the biggest megalithic mausoleum in Europe.

2Tower Of Jericho
9000 BC

The Tower of Jericho marries mystery with biblical fame, beauty with fear, grandeur with power. The origins of the 8.5-meter (28 ft) stone tower, a staggering 11,000 years old, justify the tower being described as the world’s oldest skyscraper.

The tower marks a milestone in the history of human progress, standing tall before most human tribes had settled down into sedentary communities. Constructing the tower marked one of the first achievements of what could be called the urban human, who for tens of thousands of years previously had roamed the land without a fixed home.

The mystery lies in the tower’s purpose. Almost every year that has passed since it was discovered 65 years ago has provided a new theory for its function. The ideas span everything from the tower being a time-keeping device to constituting a flood-defense, from being a symbol of wealth to being a defensive territorial marker. Even how it was constructed remains to be deciphered. As a part of the biblical city of Jericho, whose walls were so famously to fall, the tower’s future as a monumental marker in human history is assured.

1Tell Abu Hureyra
11,000 BC

The rectangular walls of the houses of Tell Abu Hureyra truly have an epic story to tell—one with a final twist.

The story begins at the dawn of human agriculture, a remarkable chapter in the tale of Homo sapiens. Some of the earliest cultivated cereals are found among the jaw-droppingly old remains of Tell Abu Hureyra, in what is now northern Syria. The village has been radiocarbon-dated as being a mind-blowing 13,000 years old.

This may have been the first foray into full-blown farming, according to research led by Professor Hillman of University College London. “As the wild grasses and seeds that the people relied on for food died out,” said Hillman, “they were forced to start cultivating the most easily grown of them to survive.” We will never know for sure what inspired these earliest farmers to be the first to launch the human race into its latest epoch.

But what of the final twist? These ancient structures were deliberately flooded and now keep their secrets deep beneath the waters of Lake Assad.

Philip tutors in an inner-city London school and is set to have a viral educational video channel on YouTube, if only he can get round to posting more videos.

The Nazis seriously wanted to showcase the superiority of Germany and the Aryan race. And what better way to do that if not with architecture. The architectural style of the Nazis imitated that of ancient Rome, which Hitler hoped to surpass in development. His aim was to totally modify Berlin’s landscape and rename it Germania, which would be the capital of a Germany-dominated Europe.

This dream, coupled with World War II, led to the construction of some really impressive buildings. The Allies destroyed several of these buildings during and after the war, but some survived and are still around today. They have been repurposed and are now used for the good of man.

10Flak Towers

Flak towers were huge, castle-like forts, built to deter Allied aerial attacks on Berlin and Hamburg in Germany and Vienna in Austria. Eight towers were built in total, each with reinforced concrete walls of between eight and fourteen inches (20-35 cm) thick. The walls were impenetrable to Allied bombs—even when they suffered direct hits—and none were destroyed all through the war.

Each flak tower consisted of two towers: a G combat tower with eight 128 mm anti-aircraft guns and thirty-two 20 mm guns, and an L command tower with a radar and forty 20 mm guns. The combat tower could engage ground targets eight and a half miles away or aerial targets fifty thousand feet in the air with its 128mm guns, which had an impressive firepower of 8,000 rounds a minute.

Flak towers doubled as bomb shelters with room for ten thousand people, although over thirty thousand people crammed themselves in the towers when the Soviet military invaded Berlin. The forts withstood Soviet ground assaults, forcing the Soviets to bypass them and later negotiate for their surrender.

Four of the eight forts were demolished after the war. The demolition proved difficult, and one took five months of planning and three demolition attempts before it finally fell.

Today, one of the towers in Vienna, Austria, has been converted into an aquarium, while another is used by the Austrian Army. A third tower is used to store artwork. In Hamburg, Germany, one has been converted into a nightclub, and another is being converted into a renewable energy plant to provide electricity for a thousand homes and heating for three thousand.

9Vogelsang National Socialist Castle

The Vogelsang National Socialist Castle in Eifel, Germany, was built between 1934 and 1936. It was used as a school for indoctrinating young Germans with Nazi ideology but ceased operation after World War II broke out in 1939. It was converted to a military barracks during the war and a training site for the Belgian army after that. It has been returned to the German government, which wants to convert it to a museum.

Unlike many other Nazi buildings, the Vogelsang Castle still contains Nazi symbols including a swastika that is etched into the ground and covered with a mat. Several other Nazi symbols on the walls were covered over with plaster. German Jews want the castle pulled down, while other Germans, who do not share their views, want it turned into an old people’s home, a hotel, or a park.

8Dachau Concentration Camp

The Dachau Concentration Camp in Dachau, Germany, was the first of the infamous Nazi concentration camps. It was originally built to hold political prisoners but soon housed Jews, Jehovah Witnesses, Roma Gypsies, homosexuals, and criminals, who were used for medical experiments and forced labor. Like other Nazi concentration camps, the gates to Dachau bear the words Arbeit Macht Frei—work sets you free.

The camp also had its own gas chambers, which were probably never used. Instead, prisoners were sorted at the camp and those sentenced to death were transported to other concentration camps where they were killed.

Today, the Dachau concentration camp is a memorial site and museum visited by over eight hundred thousand people each year. At the entrance of its crematoria is a small Russian Orthodox chapel, built on soil imported from Russia. The chapel is too small to accommodate visitors; however, it is used for private prayers and religious services.

7Prora Holiday Resort

The Prora holiday resort on Rugen Island, Germany, was built as part of the Nazi party “Strength Through Joy” program that was intended to allow the working class to enjoy the luxuries of the middle class. Besides its role as a holiday destination, it was also supposed to function as an indoctrination camp, where visitors were educated on Nazi ideology.

The dormitory-like resort had eight lookalike buildings, complete with cinemas, large theaters, and ten thousand rooms overlooking the ocean. A swimming pool and festival hall were also proposed but were postponed due to the outbreak of World War II.

During the war, Prora housed new conscripts, laborers, refugees, and prisoners and after the war, it housed the Soviet and East German militaries.

One of the resort’s eight buildings was destroyed by the Soviets after the war. Another was converted into a hostel, two are privately owned, and the last four are being converted into luxury apartments. Renovation is still ongoing and is expected to be completed by 2022.

6Wolfschanze

The Wolfschanze (Wolf’s Lair or Wolf’s Fort), in Ketrzyn, Poland, was Adolf Hitler’s command center for most of World War II. It is the site where Hitler survived an assassination attempt by Nazi officer, Count Claus von Stauffenberg, who tried to kill him with a bomb hidden in a suitcase. Hitler only survived because the meeting was held in a building and not a bunker, and the briefcase was shifted away from him moments before it detonated.

The location of the “lair” was carefully chosen. It was hidden by thick forests and built close to a lake that prevented a ground assault from its eastern flank. It had over eighty buildings and bunkers manned by over two thousand workers and soldiers. It was also surrounded by over 50,000 landmines to stop a ground assault.

The Nazis abandoned and attempted to destroy the base as the Soviet Army advanced in November 1944. However, the task proved difficult for them, and they only managed to partially destroy it.

The buildings in the Wolf’s Lair remain unused, and it is currently a tourist attraction. However, the former Waffen SS garage has been converted into a hotel and restaurant. The Lair is maintained by the Poland Forestry Service, which hopes to lease it to anyone who can afford the £90,000 ($111,000) rent.

5Reich Air Ministry

With 2,800 rooms and seven kilometers of corridors, the Reich Air Ministry—the headquarters of the Nazi Air Force, the Luftwaffe—was the largest office complex in Europe at the time of its completion in 1936. Surprisingly for a building of its importance, it survived the war unscathed and was retained for military use by the Soviet Union.

The building housed the Treuhand committee that was tasked with privatizing the assets of the former East Germany when the Cold War ended in 1991. The committee proved unpopular with Germans and its first chairman, Detlev Rohwedder, was assassinated the same year. This is why the building was renamed the ”Detlev Rohwedder Haus.”

The building is still used as a backdrop in Nazi-era movies, and although not open to the public, is open for a free tour every August. It currently houses the German Ministry of Finance.

4Banana Bunker

In 1942, the Nazis built the 120-room banana bunker as an air-raid shelter. The Soviets took over it in 1945 and converted it into a prisoner of war camp. Later on, East German authorities converted it into a warehouse to store fruits imported from Cuba. This is why it is called the Banana Bunker.

After the reunification of Berlin, the building was converted into a performance hall and later, a nightclub dubbed the “hardest club in the world” due to its wild sex parties. Authorities later shut the club down, and the bunker remained unused until a couple purchased it to display their art collection in 2003.

3Fichtebunker

The Fichtebunker in Kreuzberg, Berlin, was built between 1883 and 1884 to store gas for the city’s street lamps. It fell into disuse at the turn of the century when the city switched to electricity, and it remained unused until 1940 when the Nazis converted it into a bomb shelter designed to hold 6,000 people.

The building was heavily renovated for its new role. Its outside walls were reinforced to 1.8 meters (six feet) thick, and the ceiling was reinforced until it was three meters (ten feet) thick. It was also segmented into six floors, each with 120 rooms.

The building exceeded its 6,000 capacity towards the end of the war when over 30,000 people sought refuge in it to escape Allied bombings. This number included the local police station, which moved in with its prisoners, who were kept in specially built cells.

The bunker was repurposed as a refuge after the war. Later on, it served as a homeless shelter and a food depot. The food stored there were the so-called “Senate reserves” Berliners could rely on in case the Soviet Union launched a land blockade into Berlin.

It fell into disuse at the end of the Cold War and remained abandoned until a private firm purchased it in 2006. The firm converted its rooms into luxury apartments, complete with a rooftop garden. It is now known as the Circlehouse.

2Reichssportfeld

Adolf Hitler ordered the construction of the Reichssportfeld sports complex for the 1936 Berlin Olympic games. At the same time, he wanted to use the event and stadium to showcase the superiority of Germany and the Aryan race.

The Nazi radio network was housed in a bunker underneath the stadium during World War II, and, after the war, the stadium became the headquarters of the British military. Its name was also changed to Olympiastadion to remove all its links to the Nazis.

The Olympiastadion maintained its sports and cultural role after the British abandoned it, and it even held three matches during the 1974 FIFA World Cup, hosted by West Germany. In 2006, the final of the FIFA World Cup, hosted by a unified Germany, was fought out in the stadium. It remains a sports complex today, and it is the home base of the Hertha Berlin football team.

1Templehof Airport

Templehof airport was Europe’s busiest airport in the 1930s. The Nazis shut it down when they came into power and replaced it with a prototype concentration camp, which they also shut down and tried replacing with another airport they never completed.

The US took over the airport after World War II and used it to airlift supplies into West Berlin in 1948-1949. The US also leased out parts of the airport in 1951. Today, several government and private institutions, including the German police, a kindergarten, and a dancing school, call it home.

Tempelhof ceased handling commercial flights in October 2008 when work began on a more modern airport for Berlin. However, the control tower remains under the control of the German Army, who uses it to monitor air traffic around Berlin.

Today, Templehof’s airfield has been converted into a public park, while its buildings were converted into a refuge for Syrian and Iraqi refugees. In 2015, Berlin was preparing to take in 40,000 refugees, to be housed at the airport and several disused barracks.

Oliver Taylor is a freelance writer and bathroom musician. You can reach him at [email protected]

Ancient structures and design will always be admired and it will remain huge tourist attractions, but there is also something to be said for modern architecture. Architects and builders around the world have in recent years come up with striking ideas that translated into mind-blowingly stunning buildings. On this list are just a few of these types of modern buildings that inspire Pinterest boards and Instagram stories worldwide.

Top 10 Repurposed Nazi-Era Buildings

10 Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino

In 2019, the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino opened in Hollywood, Florida in the form of an enormous guitar-shaped building. It took close to a decade to complete the design and construction and the building also features a light show when night falls. Guests who stay at this 638-room hotel enjoy breath-taking views all round of the Hollywood beachfront and the venue includes a massive performance venue as well as pool resort area. The project was part of a $1.5 billion expansion and is 34 stories high.

9 Markthal Rotterdam

A series of apartments forming a huge arch and allowing for a covered square featuring a market hall during the day and a food court of popular restaurants at night, is what the hybrid Markthal building in Rotterdam is all about.

The daily market includes 96 stalls that sells fresh food and other items and it is overseen by an 11,000 square meter mural that covers the vaulted interior. The mural includes images of food, flowers and insects. To highlight the colorful interior, the external façade is covered in grey stone.

The ends of the arch provide protection during bad weather with the help of single-glazed cable net façade which is the largest of its kind in Europe.

8 Bosjes Chapel

Creating a striking image in front of a range of majestic mountains, is the beautiful Bosjes Chapel in Wellington in the Western Cape Winelands of South Africa. The building includes dramatic lifts and dips in its roof, almost touching the surface of the large pool that surrounds it and features cross-shaped frames and a golden pulpit.

The wing-like appearance of the chapel was inspired by the seventh verse of Psalm 36 which says: “How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.”

From a distance, the chapel almost seems to hover or float above the surface of the water and as one draws near to it, its serene atmosphere envelops the senses.

7 Santiago Bahá’í Temple

The Santiago Bahá’í Temple opened its doors in 2016 and is accessible to people from all faiths. It took six years to complete construction and this house of worship is ringed by nine entrances, comprises of nine pathways and nine fountains and takes on the shape of a ‘flower’ with nine petals or arching ‘sails’. Inspiration for it’s unique look was taken from Sufi whirling dancers, Japanese bamboo baskets and shattered glass. Its interior is covered in translucent marble and its cast-glass paneled exterior absorbs and reflects the beautiful colours of sunrise and sunset.

The stunning temple is 30 metres in height and within three years of its opening had received more than 1.4 million visitors.

6 Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, also known as Sahar International Airport is the second busiest in India and won the award for Best Airport in India in 2016. It is named after the 17-century Maratha Emperor, Chhatrapati Shivaji and is considered to be one of the best places in the world for shopping, (apart from flying, that is.)

The long-span roof of the terminal building is one of the largest on Earth and is supported by 30 steel columns. The terminal also holds the longest and biggest cable wall system in the world. Furthermore, the coffered panel design was inspired by the shape of a peacock’s eye, which is the national bird of India. Each of the coffered panels contain a round aperture with a laminated lens that is able to produce two colors when light falls on it. Therefore, when the light strikes these panels just right, the entire airport resembles a palace constructed with colored glass.

5 Jiunvfeng Study

The Jiunvfeng Study is an eye-catching visitor centre located on the side of Mount Tai, which is considered to be the most famous sacred mountain in China.

The idea behind the design of the centre was to create a “floating cloud hovering in the mountains.’ The elongated building provides panoramic views over both the mountain as well as Shenlong Grand Canyon and includes a coffee shop for those who want to sit a while and take in the scenery.

The cloud-inspiration is taken even further at night when LED lighting strips built into the double-layer membrane of the canopy, lights up and makes the entire building look a cloud with a halo.

Its entire form was built to correspond to the topography of Mount Tai, blurring the lines between architecture and the natural surroundings.

4 City of Arts and Sciences

Valencia is home to the modern scientific and cultural complex, City of Arts and Sciences, which is the largest complex of its kind in Europe. It includes the massive Oceanografic building inside of which you will find the biggest aquarium in Europe. The aquarium contains 500 species of ocean life including sharks, dolphins, penguins and sea lions.

The complex also holds the Prince Felipe Museum of Sciences building and the “eye of the city” which is an audio-visual building that comprises of a planetarium as well as an IMAX cinema. Visitors to the City of Arts and Sciences can also enjoy theatre, opera and dance shows at the onsite opera venue, Palau de les Arts.

The most recent additions to the sprawling structure are a blue building called the Agora and the Umbracle which is an open-air space.

3 The Lotus Temple

The Lotus Temple in Delhi is the oldest building on this list, having been dedicated in 1986. Much the same as the Santiago Bahá’í Temple, the Lotus Temple allows all faiths inside its walls and the lotus design is meant to embody the message of tolerance that Bahá’í teaches.

It has been called the Taj Mahal of the 20th century and is a huge tourist attraction. The architect of this gorgeous building, Fariborz Sahba, won several awards for the design of the Lotus Temple and before Covid-19 was visited by around 10,000 people every day.

The temple comprises of nine sides formed by 27 marble petals. The marble was imported from the Penteli Mountain in Greece. There are several domes which allows for the white walls to be illuminated as natural light shines through, creating a serene ambiance.

2 One Central Park

Once Central Park in Sydney perfectly encapsulates the look and meaning of a living walls. This very unique and massive landmark consists of two towers, a sky garden, pool, several restaurants, 623 apartments, shops and a whole lot more. The 18-story tower is called Once Central Park west and the 34-story tower is known as Once Central Park East.

On the sides of the buildings, vegetation flourishes with at least 35,000 plants decorating the exterior, and the sky garden is a big selling feature for the penthouses at the top. Below the sky garden is a unique, cantilevered heliostat system that reflects light onto the vertical walls shaded by the shadow of the bigger tower. The heliostat system also doubles as a lighting installation that resembles silent fireworks.

1 The Wave

In 2019, the collective efforts of architect and builder brought to the life The Wave, a residential project on the Vejle Fjord in Denmark.

As the name suggests, the building was constructed to look like five waves running along the waterfront and it makes for a magnificent landmark. The structure holds 100 apartments topped with double-height penthouses at the top of each tower.

The wave-shaped structure is reflected in the ocean water during the day and at night it is illuminated to look like mountains. The building was designed with the idea that it would ‘change’ along with the time of day.

Years before the project was completed, it was awarded the Residential Building of the Year award in 2009 and it is hoped that this amazing building will bring more tourists to the waterfront.

10 Amazing Ancient Buildings Still In Use Today

Would you like to read the good news or bad news first? The bad news is that millennia of warfare, death, and obsolescence have left behind a world full of abandoned and dilapidated buildings and other structures. The good news is that the enterprising among us get to make some wild new homes if we want to.

Thanks to time and the ever-present march of progress, many old buildings currently sit vacant, just waiting to be cleaned out, cozied up, and converted into that far-out house that everyone talks about. Guaranteed to surprise you, this list brings together ten of those abandoned buildings that a creative and resourceful person turned into awesome new homes.

Related: Top 10 Repurposed Nazi-Era Buildings

10 A Public Bathroom

Looking at the photos of architect Laura Clark’s sleek, modern one-bedroom apartment in London, anyone would assume it is a lovely, ordinary home. Until, that is, they find out that it spent most of its days as a public bathroom off of a main street in a crowded city.

Clark has said, “For me, that’s about saving sites with an interesting history, but which have been abandoned and forgotten,” and her dedication is apparent. It took six years for Clark to convince housing authorities to let her redesign the space. And redesign it she did, converting the old stalls and sinks into a bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom (probably the easiest part of the process). It even has its own terrace/patio.

They say don’t s–t where you eat. I guess the loophole here is that you need to convert the john into a home first.

9 A British Castle

The Astley Castle in Warwickshire, England, has stood since the 1100s. Over the past millennium, the property went from manor house to castle, crumbled and was rebuilt, acted as a troop garrison in the English Civil War, and crumbled again. Luckily, in 2012, the remains of the castle’s walls were incorporated into a new, modern home.

Nowadays, the house is rentable, and anyone staying the night is treated to a gorgeous blend of ancient stone and modern brick. Instead of leveling the eroded stone or repairing it outright, the renovators kept it where it lay, filling in empty sections with new brick. The result is entirely unique and a whole new level of cozy. I’m sure it’s structurally sound, too, right? Even though the walls are made in part with crumbling stones…

8 A Water Tower

There are dozens of water tower homes across the globe, each with its own personal take on home renovation. But perhaps the coolest of them all, if only for its location and view, is the Sunset Beach water tower in Sunset Beach, California.

The 87-foot-tall tower was built in the 1890s, and it wasn’t until the 1980s that the tower became a home. All four stories of the house take advantage of its circular frame with wraparound windows and even a wraparound porch. Located just a block from the Pacific Ocean and the titular Sunset Beach, its view is stunning.

7 A World War II Railcar

In Fort Collins, Colorado, one couple built their own tiny home from the most unexpected shell: a salvaged railcar from World War II. They decided to keep the railcar’s exterior the same, and it still boasts every scratch, ding, and dent it accrued throughout its long life. That only serves to highlight by contrast the exquisite new interior.

The space inside looks like Bob Ross would call it home. The furniture is vintage, the hardwood is exposed in many spots, and the remaining walls are hand-painted and muraled. Flowers and blankets abound throughout the space and, combined with the surplus of light brought in by the vaulted roof, make it hard to imagine a home more deserving of the word “charming.”

6 A Bridge

The river that used to run beneath the covered bridge just outside Nevada City, California, has long since run dry, rendering the bridge useless. Useless, that is, until the building was converted into a chic loft-style home and hotel.

The interior is decorated with contemporary European taste and comes together nicely. Perhaps the best part of the interior is that the entire 100-foot-plus length is visible from any spot inside. The whole house is long and narrow (it was a covered bridge, after all), and it creates the unique and surreal impression of an average house’s room all separated and arranged in a row, all walls between them removed. Though the building operated as a hotel for years, they have removed their website, and it seems likely only one family now enjoys the Historic Covered Bridge House.

5 An Elementary School

A Canton, Ohio, resident named Kynsey Wilson purchased a 45,000-square-foot home for only $35,000. Her secret? She bought an abandoned elementary school.

Wilson is currently working to make the old building into a home, but only a piece of the second floor. The rest, she is converting into “a public space, co-work environment, some conference rooms, my home office…(and) as many as 15 guest rooms for visiting family and friends.” Wilson has so much space beyond what she needs. I mean, it is a full-sized elementary school. In fact, she is open to suggestions from anyone on how to use it. In her own words, “If somebody has a really great idea and is motivated and wants to come partner up with me, I’m open to it. I’ve got a lot of square footage.”

4 A Half-Abandoned Mall

Built way back in 1828, the Arcade in Providence, Rhode Island, is the oldest indoor mall in the United States. Like so many malls across the globe, the Arcade was powerless to prevent the loss of much of its business in the latter half of the 20th century. It closed during the ’70s and was reopened, only to close again in 2008. When it reopened again in 2013, it made a seemingly wise decision: while its first floor is still a mall, developers converted its second and third floors into apartments.

There are 48 apartments within the mall’s bounds, all of which are small studios. Though small, the units are well-lit and open into a massive interior courtyard. A little sunshine and some green can go a long way. These features open up the apartment and don’t feel as cramped as they otherwise might seem. And given that the Arcade is located right in the heart of downtown Providence, the units are popular enough to require a waiting list to rent one.

3 A Jail

In 2020, a house was put up for sale in Fayette, Missouri, that could easily be mistaken for a completely average home. The outside is as ordinary as can be: one door, two stories, old red brick, a lawn, and a fence. The inside is ordinary, too, until you reach the end of a hallway that leads to your own personal jail.

That is because the building, built in 1875, spent decades as the Howard County Sheriff’s Office. When they renovated the house, nearly all of it was updated and made modern. Only the jailhouse was left as it was, and all nine cells still sit as they used to, complete with locks and bars on the doors and windows. It’s probably worth asking why someone would want that particular house. And yes, we are implying that they use the jail cell as a Fifty Shades of Grey playroom.

2 A Lunatic Asylum

Though several mental health facilities have been abandoned and converted into housing, perhaps none have transformed more than the notoriously cruel New York City Lunatic Asylum. It is now the luxury apartment complex known as The Octagon.

The former lunatic asylum was one of the most infamous in existence for its mistreatment of patients, mainly due to journalist Nellie Bly’s landmark 1887 exposé, “Ten Days in a Mad-House.” Bly had faked mental illness enough to be admitted to the facility, and during her ten days there, she witnessed beatings, torture, and an appalling lack of hygiene. When the facility finally closed in 1955, it sat vacant until 2006. Then it was renovated and made into the swanky living spaces it now is, complete with a private gym, rec room, and pool.

1 A Private Island Fortress

Spitbank Fort was built in 1878 on a private island just south of Portsmouth, England. It served as an active naval base for England until 1956, a whopping 78 years. Since then, it has been closed, renovated, re-closed, and re-renovated, and currently, Spitbank acts as one of the coolest hotels imaginable.

The island retains its strategic location and fortified construction and now boasts a casino, spa, pool, gym, and wine cellar. In addition, it takes advantage of its panoramic views of the English Channel with multiple observation decks and even a lighthouse-like crow’s nest. It’s been said repeatedly, but only because it’s so true: the combination of security and luxury brings to mind the lair of a James Bond villain. Luckily, the hotel is open for booking and also open for outright purchase, with a listing price of $5.2 million.

“They don’t build them like they used to.” Whenever people see a particularly distressing piece of modern architecture they are likely to sigh that sentence. It is true that without constant upkeep the glass and steel structures that dominate modern cities would soon slide into broken ruins. Ancient builders who did not have access to modern materials had to make do with stone, timber, and concrete. These are substances that will survive us all.

Many buildings from the ancient world are still visible today but a few have managed to transcend their own time and continue to be used today. Here are ten living examples of ancient architecture.

Top 10 Amazingly Preserved Ancient Foods

10 Proserpina Dam

Threats to dams are all too common in news stories these days and not just through terrorism. Many dams built in the middle of the 20th century are already showing serious signs of breakdown. Failing dams can threaten thousands of people with a watery death or the destruction of all their possessions. Yet there is a dam that has stood for nearly 2000 years and is still in use today.

Proserpina Dam in Spain was built in the second century AD by Roman engineers to supply the city of Augusta Emerita, modern day Merida, with water. Standing 12 metres high and over 400 metres long the dam was constructed from soil covered in bricks and supported by several buttresses. The water held back by the dam fed into the Milagros aqueduct, some of whose towering arches still stand.

While the Proserpina dam no longer provides drinking water for a city it remains in use to this day. Farmers in the local area use the water it supplies to irrigate their crops by opening and closing the inlets on the dam just as the original builders would have been able to.^[1]

9 Arles Amphitheatre

The Romans liked to build impressive structures not only for the benefits they brought to themselves but also to show natives all of the benefits that came with being under the control of Rome. Wherever they went aqueducts, temples, and theatres were sure to spring up in shining stone. The amphitheatre in Arles must have been one of the greatest sights a Gaul was ever likely to see.

Erected in 90 AD the Amphitheatre could hold 20,000 people. 120 arches surround an oval arena. The banks of seats allowed the action to be viewed from all sides, as the name amphitheatre (“view from both sides”) suggests. For over 400 years the amphitheatre in Arles was home to games that ranged from animal fights, to theatrical shows, to gladiator combats. With the fall of Rome in the West however the amphitheatre fell out of use, at least for its original purpose.

The walls of the amphitheatre became the walls of a fortress. 200 houses, churches, and a town square grew up in the middle of it. Only in 1826 did the houses begin to be taken down and the amphitheatre was restored to its original state. Today plays and concerts are performed there but those who wish to see the sand stained red with blood once again can also see bull fights.^[2]

8 Theatre of Marcellus

While Arles’ amphitheatre has been fully restored there is a theatre in Rome that has been repurposed entirely. The Theatre of Marcellus built in 13 BC was the largest theatre in Rome at the time of its completion and able to hold almost 20,000 spectators. Named for the nephew of the Emperor Augustus it would remain one of the grandest sites in Rome until the Colosseum was erected. Now though it is one of the most outstanding set of private residences in the Eternal City.

The Theatre of Marcellus fell into disrepair in the fourth century AD and some of the building was dismantled to reuse the building materials elsewhere. The bridge of Cestius across the Tiber was partly constructed with stone from the theatre. Much of the structure was saved however and over the centuries became first a fortress and then a private home for the incredibly wealthy Orsini family.

Over time the palatial home of the Orsinis was divided up into apartments and these still remain today. It may not be how the builders originally intended the structure to be used but its arches stand just as proudly today as they did when Augustus first opened the theatre to the public.^[3]

7 Theatre of Epidaurus

While the Romans loved a show they at first went to see them in wooden structures that had an unfortunate habit of falling down. When a wooden amphitheatre collapsed at Fidenae in 27 AD around 20000 people are said to have died in the disaster. The Greeks however could have shown them a safer method of building that they had perfected centuries before – they built their theatres on naturally occurring slopes.

The theatre of Epidaurus was constructed in the 4th century BC based on a design by the architect Polykleitos the Younger. Built on the site of a sanctuary dedicated to the healing deity Asclepius the theatre hosted singing and theatrical performances for centuries. This is not as unusual as it may at first sound as for the Greeks viewing plays was thought to play a role in curing some sicknesses. At the very least you were distracted from your malady.

The theatre lay buried until 1881 but was soon excavated and restored. Today it is a popular venue for music and theatre. The acoustics of the theatre are so good that even those sitting in the back row can hear a person standing on the stage without any need for a microphone.^[4]

6 Diocletian’s Palace

Diocletian was the only Roman emperor to ever voluntarily retire and enjoy a lengthy post-imperial life. He knew that he had to remove himself from any of the empire’s centres of power or he would constantly be drawn back into the politics so he built himself a palace in what is now Split in Croatia. In 305 AD he settled into his new home and spent his time growing cabbages.

Diocletian’s palace was more than just a jolly retirement villa for an old man. Surrounded by stout walls it held the ex-emperor’s living quarters but also barracks for a sizeable armed force to protect him. These walls were the key to the palace’s survival.

When Slavic people invaded the area in the 7th century many local people retreated behind the walls of the palace for protection. Soon the palace formed the nucleus of first a town and then a city. The old town of Split is built almost entirely within the walls of Diocletian’s former home. While there are many new buildings inside the walls much of the original palace survives and is in use as homes, shops, and churches.^[5]

8 Incredible Resurrected Ancient Sounds

5 Maymand Caves

Troglodytes have a bad reputation but sometimes living in a cave is the smart thing to do. In hard conditions the shelter of a cave can be the ideal home. Thick walls insulate you from harsh winters and scorching summers. The narrow entrances are easily sealed for protection. Now wonder that many in the past chose caves to live in, nor that some people still call them home.

In Maymand in Iran there are signs of human habitation from over 10,000 years ago. Ancient engravings and pottery sherds litter the area. Yet it is the caves of Maymand that are most interesting and evidence shows that they have been in continual habitation for 3,000 years. Today 300 caves exist in the village which are stacked one atop another in steps up the side of a slope. Each cave consists of a single room with space for a central stove that can be used for heating and cooking.

The caves are not natural features but were scratched out of the rock under Maymand. Local legend has it that the caves were carved out with flakes of hard stone found in the area rather than with more traditional tools.^[6]

4 Mundeshwari Temple

If a building remains important to a community then the chances are that it will survive anything. The Mundeshwari Temple at Kaura in India is considered to be the oldest functional Hindu temple in the country. The small, stone shrine is octagonal in shape and is thought to date from around 600 AD. While the name of the temple suggests a link to the asura Munda the main focus of worship is the four-faced aspect of the God Shiva.

The temple is covered in engravings and decoration but was once larger. The area around the building is strewn with fragments of lost parts of the temple. Currently these remains of the larger building are being studied and the original structure may one day be revealed.

As it is the temple remains a place of worship for many Hindus. The smoke from torches and burning incense has stained the interior walls almost black. Restoration work has been done to remove this marks of devotion but they seem to have done the building little harm over the last few hundred years.^[7]

3 Castel Sant’Angelo

Sometimes what an ancient building ends up being used as can not possibly have been foreseen by its builders. Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome has gone through so many transformations that it is hard to imagine that it started its existence as a mausoleum for a Roman emperor.

Emperor Hadrian was a bit of a builder. As well as the famous wall across northern England that is named for him he rebuild the spectacular Pantheon in Rome, another building that still welcomes visitors today. But when he build a tomb for his ashes to be stored in he had no idea it would at various times be a fortress for Popes, a prison, and a museum. Left unfinished on Hadrian’s death the huge cylindrical structure beside the Tiber was completed by his successor and served as the resting place for many in the imperial family.

The tomb was incorporated into the walls of Rome when they were expanded by the emperor Aurelian. This began its transformation into a military site. When the Popes used it as a stronghold to retreat to in times of danger they stored their valuables in the chamber at the centre of the structure – probably the very spot where Hadrian himself was interred. Now Castel Sant’Angelo is a museum containing many Roman and Christian masterpieces, aptly mingled together in this strangely blended building.^[8]

2 Horyu-ji

It is easy to see how some structures have survived for so long. A cave can hardly burn down and a dam takes quite some effort to dismantle. But when a building is made largely of wood it becomes more amazing that they survive at all, let alone intact. The pagoda at Horyu-ji in Japan is widely considered to be the oldest surviving, functional wooden building in the world.

At the core of the pagoda is a central wooden pillar 35 metres tall. By examining the growth rings of the wood it has been worked out that the tree it was taken from was felled in 594 AD. Even though a fire swept through the temple in the 670 AD many of the surviving buildings date from the rebuilding that took place in the 7th century.

As Japan has been riven by war and subject to powerful earthquakes over the centuries the survival of these delicate buildings is almost miraculous. Still a site of worship today they give an insight into the first appearance of Chinese Buddhist architecture in Japan and remain much as they were when first built.^[9]

1 Tower of Hercules Lighthouse

On a rocky outcrop on the northern coast of Spain a lighthouse pulses out a warning to ships to keep them safely on course. If you had visited the same spot in the 2nd century AD you would have found the same structure doing the same thing. The Tower of Hercules, as it is now known, is the oldest functioning lighthouse in the world.

Originally called the “Farum Brigantium” the lighthouse was supposedly modelled on the Pharos of Alexandria, the great lighthouse of the city and one of the wonders of the ancient world. At the base an inscription can be read in Latin that describes the lighthouse as the work of an architect called Gaius Sevius Lupus and the tower being dedicated to the god Mars. The current Tower of Hercules stands 55 metres tall. The original Roman tower was 34 metres in height before two additional levels were added in the 18th century.

Legend has it that the tower was built on the spot where Hercules slew the giant Geryon. Today the coat of arms for the nearby city of Corunna show the lighthouse built atop the giant’s skull and bones. Archaeologists have found many interesting artefacts in the region, though they have not yet located a giant skull.^[10]

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