Bizarre Buildings

The most unusual and wonderful structures from around the world.

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.