Bizarre Buildings

This intriguing book selects the world's most extreme and sometimes weird buildings and structures. Some illustrate the personal expression of an individual builder or patron who has a vision well beyond the norm, while others were built by architects pushing the conventional boundaries of design. Some of the buildings are masterpieces on a larger scale. Examples include Frank Gehry's iconic Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, with its glistening, undulating walls. Some are indeed "follies" -- buildings that have no purpose -- including the surreal shark sticking out of the roof of a house in Oxford, England. Many of these strange buildings have a more obvious provenance, not as architectural follies, but as deliberate marketing ventures of the owner's product. In Flanders, New York, the Big Duck building is actually shaped like a duck in honor of the poultry once sold there.