How and What

Ferdinand Cheval Palace A postman of France called Ferdinand Cheval, born in 1836 built this palace also known as Ideal Palace with the help of his wife by using the stones collected by him during the 20 km daily walk while delivering mails, in the last 30 years of his life. When he was 13 year old, he became a postman and after few years of service, he developed a habit of day dreaming because of the solitude of 20 km daily walk for delivering the mails. During his walk, one day he was attracted to a pebble in his path and started collecting in his pocket, every stone he encountered in his path. Later he used basket and wheelbarrow too. With his collected stones, he and his wife built the Palace, often working in night. He used lime, cement and mortar to bind the stones together. In the final years of the construction work, the palace started attracting people and today too, it brings lots of tourists to the village every year, though there are no other tourist attractions in th

Earth House An earth house is non-conventional type of house constructed without digging a foundation on a flat surface; rather it is built with the natural terrain by using sprayed concrete. This type of house doesn’t have corners or right angled walls, but are built according to the geometry of the existing environment by adjusting to the natural shapes, which is the most significant feature of this type of house. An earth house is the architecture mostly inspired by the ancient housing techniques, like burrows and caves, with a modern touch of art and strength of finely grained concrete. The concrete spray technique which was first patented by Natural Scientist Carl Akeley in 1911 is the method used to spray finely grained concrete in the structurally designed and welded web of metal bars. It is generally confused that an earth house is built by excavating and constructing the house under the earth, but an earth house is built on natural terrain adjusting to the slope allow

Chapel in the Rock Chapel in the rock also known as ‘The Chapel of The Holy Cross’ is a beautiful chapel in the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona, completed in 1956, designed by Marguerite  Brunswick , appearing like a chapel rising out of the surrounding rocks. The Chapel looks beautiful from all sides and is a major tourist  attraction  of Sedona.

Lotus Temple Also known as Bahai Temple, this beautiful temple with its magnificent design of a half open lotus flower was built by around 800 workers taking about 10 years to complete in 1986 in New Delhi India. The Architect Mr. Fariborz Sahba wanted to depict true love; hence the temple was designed in the shape of a lotus, by using 27 marble petals arranged to form 9 sided 40 meter high main hall with 9 entrances and capacity of 2500 people together. Like all other Bahai temples, Lotus Temple is also open to all, irrespective of Cast Creed and Color. Since its construction, Lotus temple has always been a major attraction for tourists.

Banknote Kaunas This office building of Kaunas, Lithuania also known as Office Center 1000, consists of about 4500 glass tiles, pained with enamel paint to form a complete and extraordinarily magnified, 1926 issued LTL 1000 Banknote of Lithuania, which appears to wrapped around the whole 10 story building. The Office Center 1000 was designed by Rimas Adomaitis, Raimundas Babrauskas, Darius Siaurodinas and Virgilijus Jockys to contradict the traditional architecture, which Kaunas is famous for. The Banknote that glitters on the walls of this curvaceous building constructed in 2008 is not functional today, but Office Center 1000 is the idle and most preferred and location for banks and offices.

  Ceramic House, Colombia This is a Ceramic house designed and built by Octavio Mendoza in Colombia. The house looks comical in shape and is very strong. It is built in the same way as a brick or mud utensils are made, by first moulding a desired shape out of mud, allowing it to drain in sunlight for proper time and finally backing it in intense heat. The houses built in this style has a very special feature that it has pores inside its walls which occur when water is evaporated on heating and space is left voided in the forms of pores that acts as thin capillaries. Due to this the house cools automatically in summers and is earthquake proof, being made of a single brick. The only drawback is that it is difficult to build if levels are required and repair and renovations weakens the house. Also there are various chances of errors since larger voids can cause a poor quality house.

National Grand Theater The National Theater of Beijing, China, also known as the National Grand Theater is an egg shaped opera house constructed with Titanium and Glass Frames and is surrounded by an artificial lake, built with Opera House, Drama Theater and Concert hall having a total capacity of accommodating 5452 people at once. All the theaters were designed to be covered with the famous egg shaped titanium framed shell ornamented with designer glass panels, by French Architect Paul Andreu, having the construction started in 2001 and completed, finished and opened for public in 2007. Being surrounded by man-made lake from all sides, the dome Theater appears to floating in water, with the pathway underneath the lake to enter in the theater. 

Tenerife Concert Hall Tenerife Concert hall is an auditorium located on the Avenue of the Constitution on Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which is the capital of Canarian Islands, Spain built in 2003. The building was designed by Santiago Calatrava Valls and special and most significant feature of the building is its large Arch over its roof, supported by only two points. The whole land on which the building was built is 23000 m 2 of which 6471 m 2 is covered by auditorium, having two parts. The main hall is equipped with amphitheater and 1616 seats, built with an objective of providing various sound sources from all sides, and is known as Symphony Hall. The second hall known as Chamber hall contains 422 seats is the smaller form of Symphony hall for small scale programs. The construction of the Concert hall was agreed in 1970, the construction actually began in 1997 and the hall opened for public finally in 2003.  The Auditorium is of great value to the local population as

The Conch Shell house The Conch Shell house is an artistic house constructed in the shape of a Conch Shell in Caribbean on an island of Isle Mujeres, designed by Octavio Ocampo by using the traditional material like concrete and POP for foundation and walls and seashells and corals have been used extensively in the washrooms. The inside of the house is built without corners on a land of 5500 Sq. ft. to have a magnificent experience of living and sleeping inside a real shell, with total 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, swimming poll, half bath near the sea, and 180 0 view of the sea from windows. This beautiful house with its traditional design and traditional interior is in the ownership of its designer and a well-known artist who built it for private use only.                                                                                                                                    

The Sage The Sage is a musical center that adores musical education, conferences and musical performances in in its tree different buildings constructed inside the same roof for different purposes, the first hall having space for 1700 people, the second one with 450 seats and the third smaller one to be used for training and rehearsal purposes. All the three buildings seem to be one but they are designed entirely differently from one another, and are also separated by a pathway between them to prevent noise disturbances and avoid vibrations between the walls. The biggest hall is constructed to be perfect with acoustics and it also has other features like, its roof can be raised or lowered to suit different types of the musical performances, the second one with 450 seats is one of the few 10 sided stages in the world and rest of the building is used for music creation and has 20 different sound proof rooms for teaching music to the interested students. The building resides on t

EMP Building Experience Music Project also known as Science Fiction Museum (SFM) founded by Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen acting as a nonprofit museum and meant to serve as a venue for public programs and exhibit technology and creativity was designed by Frank Gehry and located in Seattle Campus, Washington, USA was completed in 2000 by using Fabricated Steel Frame and Aluminum and steel panels. It is one of the few buildings to be designed on CATIA, the powerful D modeling Software developed by Dessault Systems. Mostly the CATIA is used in automobile and aircraft industries to produce precise 3D drawings with sleek curves. He building appears to be like a smashed guitar from outside and building stands on 13000 m 2 land. Inside its massive contour, the building contains restaurants, concert hall, 3D floating puzzles for public activity and educational purposes. The building was designed in the shape of an unassembled guitar to convey that it is meant to state, how the mus

The Gherkin The Gherkin is a 41 story 180 m tall office building in the shape of an erect gun bullet in London, as designed by Norman Foster and Arup Engineers, whose construction started in 2001 and finished in 2003 by Skanska, the main contractor. The building is structured by using Trapezoidal stainless steel frames fabricated together to produce a cross helical bullet shaped building. The building appears as if it is extracting energy from earth and is ready shoot the sky. The outer shell of the building is covered with glass frames throughout the building. The building was constructed with energy saving systems such as natural ventilation system, as a result the power consumption of the whole building is half that of a similar sized building. Having a skyscraper status and owing to its design, The Gherkin is the most widely known contemporary architecture of London.

BMW Welt It was designed by Coop Himmelblau, and was constructed between 2003 and 2007 to serve as a BMW showroom and provide the customers with magnificent experiences. The building is located in the Olympic park in the middle of the campus of BMW in a total area of 25000 m 2 in a major market area of Munich, Germany. The structure is inspired from the Mayan Architecture where triangular shaped girders were used to produce the required geometry and also support the structure. The building consists of ultramodern restaurants, shopping center, simulators to show the performance of the car, elaborate display space for BMW cars and recreation area too. The entire roof area of 16500 m 2 is lined with solar panels which produce enough electricity to run the building; hence it is environment friendly too. With its modern architecture, it is a landmark since the date of its construction.

Plais Bulles Palais Bulles a magnificent example of modern architecture constructed in the shape of bubbles. It was designed by Antti Lovag. The construction of this 28 bedroom house began in 1975 on a vast area of 1200 m 2 , 10 km away from Cannas, France and completed in 1989 and was sold to veteran Fashion Designer Pierre Cardin who made sensations 30 years back with his iconic bubble dress. Since being bought, Palais Bulles is a place for elegant parties and enjoyment. The house has been designed with pool and constructed so well by Antti Lovag that it looks like a cartoon palace in your dreams with awesome colors and design features giving it a shape of bubbles.

Crooked House Crooked house, designed by Szotynscy Zaleski  is live example of houses in fairytales and cartoons as they are little warped and irregular in shapes to appear comical. The construction of the house completed in 2003 on around 4000 m 2 land in Sopot, Poland and is part of a shopping center. The house is mainly used for business purposes; mostly accommodate offices related to real estate business. The architecture is so crooked that people feel dizzy to watch this house from front; even the sign boards are painted in the crooked shape to match the profile of the building. The Crooked house appears more like a drawing than an actual building. The house is indisputably a masterpiece and is a proud for 21 st century architecture .

Bullring, Birmingham, United Kingdom Bullring is a major commercial area of London consisting various shopping centers and stocks since the center was constructed in 1960. After 20 years of service, plans and proposals for the redevelopment started arriving for the first time in 1980. In 2000, demolition and planning the redeveloped building was permitted and traders were moved to Rag market in Edgbaston Street. The Bullring shopping center was mainly designed and planned by Benoy and the major contractor was Sir Robert McAlpine. The Building is divided into two parts, East Mall and the West Mall with the Balustrades in the East Mall. The parts of the center are connected with underground passage having retail shops at both sides. The glass roof known as sky plane covers the 7000 m 2 and appears to have support at all. The design of the building makes it a landmark and is one of the busiest places in London. The East mall consists of the Balustrades and the whole Bullring was

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World Panama Canal First Transcontinental Railroad Hoover Dam Brooklyn Bridge London Sewerage System Bell Rock Lighthouse SS Great Eastern

Hoover Dam Hoover dam also known as Black Canyon Dam is a massive Concrete Gravity Arch type Dam built on Colorado River in 1936 under the Govt. of President Franklin D. Roosevelt . The dam was constructed with a purpose of controlling flood and to generate hydroelectricity. The project of dam actually started in 1900 when surveying the site for construction began. Looking forward for the permissions and bidding for the contractors started in 1922. Construction actually started in 1931 by a company named as Six Companies Inc. which was a joint venture of seven companies ‘Utah Construction Company’, ‘Morrison-Knudsen’, ‘Pacific Bridge Company’, ‘Hennery J. Kaiser’, ‘W.A. Bechtel Company’, ‘McDonald & Kahn Ltd.’ and ‘J.F. Shea Company’. Hennery J. Kaiser and W.A. Bechtel Company were together counted as one to match the name of the venture. Nations top Dam Builder Frank Crowe was employed by Morrison-Knudsen and he was appointed the General Supervisor of the whole project. Fra

First Transcontinental Railroad The first Transcontinental Railroad was constructed in North America in the 19 th century. The railroad is 3069 km long and connected the Pacific coast at San Francisco Bay with Eastern US Rail network at Council Bluffs Lowa on the Missouri River. The Railroad was first proposed in 1830 and the route was surveyed at large scale by a team of Archeologists, Scientists, and Artists who carried an expedition of around 1,000,000 km 2 of area from 1853 to 1855. This survey produced 12 massive volumes of data describing the flora, fauna, native people, various tribes, weather conditions and topography of the whole area. After this massive report was published, it was considered the best source of information for those who want to know about North America but the only drawback in the whole 12 volumes was that it didn’t contain any map which could help in selecting a suitable railroad plan among various suggested routes. The whole construction was complet

Panama Canal Construction of the Panama Canal is considered to be the one of the most difficult projects in the world. It is a 77.1 km long canal connecting the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean passing through Panama. It has three Gatun locks to raise the ships to an elevation of 26.5 m above the sea level and enter the Gatun Lake (the biggest man-made lake of its time) after the 24.2 km float in the lake; ships are lowered by using basin locks. This total distance of 77.1 km saves thousands of kilometers and a lot of time of the sailors and helps in trade. The construction of the lake was first proposed in 1534 to be surveyed by the King of Spain. Because of its location and potential, the many others also tried to survey and plan a route in the narrow Isthmus of Panama separating two oceans. In 1877, French Engineers surveyed the rout and the excavation began in 1881. Due to the harsh conditions in Panama Rainforest, thousands of workers died of mosquito carried diseases. At th

Cybertecture Egg Modern architecture has evolved to a completely new era where absolutely sleek and precise designs for almost impossible shapes are developed on computers and are actually made to happen in reality. Today in 21 st century, a large number of such buildings have been either constructed or are under process, which were presumed to be practically impossible in the earlier years. Cybertecture Egg designed by James Law International and being constructed by Wadhwa Developers is one such magnificent masterpiece. It is in the shape of a giant egg which seems to have fallen on ground. The building is meant to provide high-tech, interactive and futuristic office space of 33,000 m 2 and space for parking 400 vehicles. The building has 13 floors above the ground and 3 more floors of basement made with RCC. The building doesn’t have any columns since the outer shell made by steel is designed to be strong enough to support the levels of the building. The building is stil

Fisher Reserve Lion Safari U.P. Govt. (India) is soon to inaugurate the lion safari falling on the left side of your drive if you are heading to Etawah from Gwalior from the main Etawah-Gwalior road in Fisher Reserve Forest. The project was started in 2005 but was discontinued due to some political issues. The work resumed in 2012 and is off to completion soon. The safari is proposed to attract and facilitate a large number of tourists and is aided with a lot of facilities. There is one double entry and exit gate at the point, where the safari starts and ends in the southeast direction. One emergency exit gate is also provided as a safety measure. The roads are separately marked as Black Topped Road, Jeepable road, Display area road and Patrol path. There is a nice arrangement of number of street lights with 220 volt supply from the ingle transformer near the staff quarters which are constructed on the east of the safari. Around 20 towers with CCTV cameras and lights have also

SS Great Eastern SS Great Eastern was an 1858 steam engine ship, built in London. This ship was special because she was the longest ship at that time and was about 3 times in volume than all the other ships at floating at that time and also was the first ship in the world to use double layered iron hull and have both screw and paddle propulsion system. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was the designer of the ship who showed the design to Eastern Steam Navigation Company at the suggestion of Scott Russell , a talented and experienced ship builder. The Eastern Steam Navigation Company brought investors and fund for the ship and Brunel built it under his own supervision. Project started in 1854 after facing many challenges and later the work was delayed and halted many times because of lack of fund and bankruptcy, though the project was completed finally in 1857 and finally launched in 1858. One third of the total assumed budget was spent in launching alone. After launch, this ship went

Brooklyn Bridge Brooklyn Bridge was constructed on East River connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan in 1883. At that time, it was the world’s longest suspension bridge and remained at its position for several years. The bridge is 26 m wide, 84 m high above the main water level and has a total length of 1825 m. Because of its strength; it is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the world. The bridge was originally designed by German engineer John Augustus Roebling who died of tetanus on his foot because of being injured while inspecting the project site. He gave the charge of constructing the bridge to his son Washington Roebling before death. The construction started in 1870 and shortly after this, Washington Roebling was also paralyzed of injury due to decompression sickness. Roebling didn’t leave the project, but looked after the whole construction from his apartment with the help of his wife Emily Warren Roebling who took coaching on math, physics and curved equations from hi