Famous buildings of the world: 01/01/2011

Museum of Contemporary Art in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Niterói Contemporary Art Museum (Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói — MAC) is situated in the city of Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is one of the city’s main landmarks.

Designed by Oscar Niemeyer with the assistance of structural engineer Bruno Contarini, who had worked with Niemeyer on earlier projects, the MAC-Niterói is 16 meters high; its cupola has a diameter of 50 meters with three floors. The museum projects itself over Boa Viagem (“Bon Voyage,” “Good Journey”), the 817-square meter reflecting pool that surrounds the cylindrical base “like a flower,” in the words of Niemeyer.

A wide access slope leads to a Hall of Expositions, which has a capacity for sixty people. Two doors lead to the viewing gallery, through which can be seen the Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro, and Sugarloaf Mountain. The saucer-shaped modernist structure, which has been likened to a UFO, is set on a cliffside, at the bottom of which is a beach. In the film Oscar Niemeyer, an architect committed to his century (Marc Henri Wajnberg, 2000), Niemeyer is seen flying over Rio de Janeiro in a UFO, which then lands on the site, suggesting this as the origin of the museum.

Wonderworks in Pigeon Forge, TN, United States.

(Image credits: jkaty27)

WonderWorks began as a Top Secret facility on a remote island, in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. As legend has it one experiment went awry, in an attempt to harness the power of a man-made tornado, the entire laboratory was hurtled skyward, hundreds of miles away, it landed upside down in the heart of Pigeon Forge TN. When you enter the building, everything will be upside down, so in order to participate in the fun, you must be inverted. Once you're properly aligned for your adventure, Family Fun awaits with more than 120 interactive, hands-on exhibits. As the Building hurtled skyward it encountered what can only be described as a time portal.

Late in the 1900's a traveling Troop the Hoot N'Holler Players and their Cook Scraps were on a steamer ship headed for Europe and their big break. The Ill fated Steamer chose a course thru the Bermuda triangle where it disappeared and was never heard
from again.

As the Building Emerged from the time portal, it had 5 new occupants, that's right Scrapps and the Hoot N' Holler players are here for you. Their mission, each night is to entertain you and your family and create memories that will last a life time. As you attend the Funniest Dinner Show in the Smoky Mountains you will enjoy a Hilarious evening of Fun. The cast sings & dances and Scraps tries to make his way into the show each night.

Habitat 67 in Montreal, Canada.

(Image credits: ken ratcliff)

Expo 67 was nicknamed "Man and his World", taken from Antoine de Saint Exupéry's memoir Terre des hommes, (literally "Land of Men"), translated as Wind, Sand and Stars. Housing was one of the main themes of Expo 67. Habitat 67 then became a thematic pavilion visited by thousands of visitors who came from around the world. During Expo 67 it was also the temporary residence of the many dignitaries coming to Montreal.

It was designed to integrate the variety and diversity of scattered private homes with the economics and density of a modern apartment building. Modular, interlocking concrete forms define the space. The project was designed to create affordable housing with close but private quarters, each equipped with a garden. The building was believed to illustrate the new lifestyle people would live in increasingly crowded cities around the world.

The complex was originally meant to be vastly larger. Ironically, the building's units are now quite expensive rather than "affordable" due to its architectural cachet. It is owned by its tenants who formed a limited partnership that purchased the building from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in 1985.

Edificio Mirador in Madrid, Spain

It’s a building developed by Dutch architects MVRDV. The building reaches 63.4 meters in height with 21 stories. The highlight of this building is the large central hole which is 36.8 meters above the ground. It’s the large lookout area that provides inhabitants with a community garden and a space from where they can contemplate the skyline.Different colors represent different blocks with its own planning, which offer at least 9 different types of apartments.

Turning Turso in Molmo, Sweden

HSB Turning Torso is a skyscraper in Malmö, Sweden, located on the Swedish side of the Öresund strait. It was designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and officially opened on 27 August 2005. The tower reaches a height of 190 metres (623 feet) with 54 stories. Upon completion, it was the tallest building in Scandinavia, the tallest residential building in the EU and the second tallest residential building in Europe, after the 264-metre (870 ft)-high Triumph-Palace in Moscow. A similar, taller skyscraper featuring the 90° twist is the Infinity Tower, currently under construction in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The 86-metre (280 ft)-high Kronprinsen was the tallest building in Malmö before Turning Torso.

The design is based on a sculpture by Calatrava called Twisting Torso. It uses nine segments of five-story pentagons that twist as it rises; the topmost segment is twisted ninety degrees clockwise with respect to the ground floor. Each floor consists of an irregular pentagonal shape rotating around the vertical core, which is supported by an exterior steel framework. The two bottom segments are intended as office space. Segments three to nine house 147 luxury apartments.

The Twisting Torso sculpture is a white marble piece based on the form of a twisting human being. Johnny Örbäck, former CEO of the Turning Torso contractor and Board Chairman of the Malmö branch of the co-operative housing association HSB, saw the sculpture in 1999 and contacted Calatrava to ask him to design a building using the same concept. Construction started in the summer of 2001.

One reason for the building of Turning Torso was to re-establish a recognizable skyline for Malmö since the removal of the Kockums Crane in 2002, which was located less than a kilometre from Turning Torso. The local politicians deemed it important for the inhabitants to have a symbol for Malmö — Kockumskranen, which was a large crane that had been used for shipbuilding and somewhat symbolised the city's blue collar roots.

As Turning Torso is a private residential building there is no access for the general public.

Universal Science Center in Bremen, Germany

(Image credits: Bogdan Morar)

The Universum Bremen opened in September 2000 near to the University of Bremen, Germany. Covering over 4,000 m² the exhibition contains exhibits related to one of the three topics: mankind, earth and the cosmos. The science center building, with its 40,000 stainless steel scales, resembles a mixture between a whale and mussel. It was designed by the Bremen architect Thomas Klumpp.

The company Universum Managementges. mbH runs the science center as a private enterprise. About 3.4 million people visited the Universum in the first seven years since it opened.

In 2007 the Universum opened a large outdoor area, the EntdeckerPark, and a new building, the SchauBox. In contrast to the curved metallic older building, the SchauBox, developed by Haslob Kruse and Partner, is cubic with a rust-red exterior. It is used for additional exhibitions, which change annually.

The EntdeckerPark, the 5,000 m² outdoor area developed by Planungsguppe Grün, offers a number of hands-on exhibits, landscape elements and a 27m-high tower, called the Turm der Lüfte.