9 Incredible Architectural Illusions
Nine edifices to make you feel unsteady on your feet.
The eye and the brain are incredibly powerful organs through which humans receive and process a large proportion of their sensory information. What we see every second of everyday helps shapes our understanding of almost every aspect of our lives. And our brains develop certain expectations about objects based on a long history of experience.
However, sometimes optical illusions can challenge our pre-conceived ideas of structures and confound both our eyes and brains. Through clever deceptive techniques, artists and architects can create buildings that elude our basic understanding of how constructions are made and what they include.
Here are nine bewildering optical illusions sure to confuse and amaze and challenge your conceptions of architecture.
Warped Building
This apartment building is your average apartment block...with a twist. A fairly large, warped twist. The unique structure is situated in the Czech Republic's capital city, Prague, and has picturesque views overlooking the River Vitara.
El Grifo Magico
Appearing to defy gravity and perform some magical feat, this 'floating tap' seems to be pouring an endless supply of water from its vantage point of mid-air suspension. Even though a magician should never reveal their secrets (and stop reading now if you would like the magic to remain), it has been revealed that a pipe hidden by the water actually holds the structure up.
Upside Down House
Spider-man? Gravity-defying shoes? Talented acrobats? No, it's another awe-inspiring architectural design that tricks and boggles the mind. This unorthodox house has everything upside down and back to front - literally.
Trompe-l'eoil
Ever after looking at this image several times, it is still impossible to fathom the appearance of this melting building, closer resembling a time warp than an apartment block. In actual fact, this image actually depicts a painting, but even then it succeeds in confounding the brain.The image uses the french art technique of tromp-l'eoil, which attempts to make 2D images appear like 3D optical illusions that really exist.
One-walled House
History has taught us to understand a house as a building comprising of at least four walls, a roof and a door. However, in Odessa, Ukraine, they have challenges this perception by creating a disconcerting house, which from the front appears orthodox, but when viewed from the side reveals only a single walled-building.
Cafe Wall Illusion
In 1979 a cafe was erected in Bristol, England, with a perplexing exterior that confused and bemused, and which continues to do so into the present day. A variant of the Münsterberg shifted chessboard illusion, this tessellating pattern uses light and alternating bricks of black and white to make the parallel and even lines appear to be sloped. All the line are actually horizontal and all the levels of the building perfectly equal in size.
Bâtiment
Another building which seems to flout all logical laws of gravity is the artist Leandro Ehrlich's mirrored art installation for the 'In Perceptions' exhibition in Paris. Whilst people appear to be casually hanging from 3-storey balconies or chilling whilst suspended horizontally to the wall, this trickery is actually a result of a mirrored painting of a building on the ground.
3D Lichtenstein House
The top image gives the impression of a quaint and colourful little house that would be fitting within the setting of a fairytale story. The second picture, however, reveals its highly deceptive nature. Cleverly using only two walls placed at specific angles, when viewed at from a particular viewpoint, this house appears to be a complete 4-walled building.
Sinking House
Another sneaky illusion using angles, the top picture of this house depicts a building seemingly falling into the depths of the Earth. Yet when righted, the correct angle of the house demonstrates a perfectly average home located on the slope of a hill.
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