The Shard, Europe‘s tallest building, has recently finished external completion. Located in London, the building is 1,016 feet in height, and is being promoted as an icon for the city. While visitors won’t officially be able to go to the top of The View from The Shard, the building’s viewing platform, until February 1, 2013, tickets have gone on sale.
With 95 stories, 44 elevators, 206 flights of stairs, 600,000 square feat of office space and 11,000 panes of glass that will be angled to reflect the sky and change with the weather, the building is impressive. It will feature apartments selling for about £50 million pounds, office spaces, restaurants, a five-star hotel and the viewing platform. Plans for The Shard were approved in 2003. While some believe the building is a disgrace to London’s heritage, creation of the project moved forward.
Later this year, the building will have to change its title to tallest building in Western Europe, as the Mercury City Tower in the Moscow International Building Center will be completed, at 1,089 feet.
On July 5, a laser light show was held to celebrate the building’s external completion, which can be seen in the video above.
Almost a hundred years ago in southern Florida, a heartbroken man accomplished something incredible.
Edward Leedskalnin was an immigrant from Latvia. He moved to Florida in 1918 hoping to cure his tuberculosis. But it wasn’t only his lungs that were sick; his heart was sick too. When he was 26 back in Latvia, so the story goes, he had been engaged to Agnes Scuffs, ten years his junior. His “Sweet Sixteen” jilted him the day before the wedding and poor Ed never recovered. He immigrated first to Canada, then the United States, working various jobs before making it to Florida. He never got over his lost love and never married.
That heartbreak led to an obsession.
Over the course of 28 years, he excavated more than 1,000 tons of bedrock and constructed a weird fantasyland of towers, sculptures and furniture out of massive stone blocks. The result was Coral Castle. Hints of his lost love can been found all over, such as the heart-shaped table and the stone cradle that’s so well balanced it can rock. There are stranger objects too, like an elaborate sundial and a tube through which you can see the North Star.
%Gallery-159645%Leedskalnin usually worked at night and didn’t let people watch him. This created an air of mystery around it and led to claims that he used magical forces to build the castle. After all, people asked, how could a 5-foot-tall tubercular man move such massive stones? Actually Leedskalnin came from a family of stone masons and used this knowledge to make his amazing creations. A few photographs show him using devices such as a block and tackle to move the stones.
Coral Castle isn’t a castle and it isn’t made of coral. In fact it’s made of oolitic limestone, but that doesn’t sound nearly as romantic. Not that it matters, the whole place is romantic. While the object of Leedskalnin’s love never came to Coral Castle despite many invitations, countless other people have visited and been inspired. Billy Idol wrote his song “Sweet Sixteen” about the story and exploitation director Doris Wishman filmed her bizarre “Nude on the Moon” there. Hit the link to see the trailer for this 1961 nudie cutie, but be warned it’s not work safe.
Coral Castle is in Homestead, Florida, and is open every day of the week. Check out the gallery to see some of the amazing monuments Leedskalnin made to his lost love. Also check out our article on Mystery Hill, an equally strange place in New Hampshire.
In this narrow blue-hued alleyway in the Moroccan town of Chefchaouen, a woman rests. Flickr user Mark Fischer captured this quiet, everyday moment during a recent visit to the town, a former fortress whose blue buildings, distinct architecture and proximity to Tangiers make it a popular tourist destination.
Does your favorite travel portrait belong here? Upload your travel shots to the Gadling Flickr Pool and your image could be selected as our Photo of the Day.
Are you visiting Washington, D.C., this summer and looking for fun family activities? The National Building Museum (NBM), D.C.’s museum dedicated to architecture, engineering and design, will offer a 12-hole mini-golf course under its 159-foot-high vaulted ceiling.
From July 4 through Labor Day (September 3), visitors can play Museum Golf among holes with building-related themes. NBM enlisted the help of area design and architecture firms to construct holes inspired by actual buildings, bridges, landscapes, or monuments, including the White House and Eiffel Tower, as well as more fantastical ones, the likes of which will remain a secret until the NBM’s course opens in July.
A round of mini-golf will cost $3 with museum admission or membership, or $5 without admission. While you’re there, make sure you check out NBM’s LEGO exhibit, which also closes at summer’s end.
It’s not uncommon for different cultures to influence each other and even borrow ideas. However, China is taking this to the next level by literally transforming the industrial city of Huizhou into a replica of Hallstatt in Austria.
According to the Daily Mail, the plan, which will cost over $7 billion, was found out about when blueprints were left behind at a Hallstatt hotel. Apparently, the Chinese had been visiting the city for three years, getting the necessary information to recreate the buildings and environment – even including an artificial lake to match.
So, how do locals of Hallstatt feel about China’s plan? Most are pretty proud, actually.
Says Ingrid Janu, the owner of a souvenir store in Hallstatt, “We’re happy they find it beautiful enough to copy.”
However, there are those who are upset over the sneaky approach used by the Chinese.
“I don’t like the idea of knowing that a team was present here for years measuring, and photographing and studying us,” comments Monika Wenger, a hotel owner.
