'One man's eyesore is another man's paradise'

Former architectural drafting student Ice Cube loves Charles and Ray Eames.
Via Chairfag.

Yesterday's home of the future

A place where nobody dared to go …

Watching Sleeper recently brought to mind Bob Masters and Roy Mason's Xanadu home in Kissimmee, Florida — two were also built in Wisconsin and Tennessee — and all were abandoned and demolished.
The experimental, computer-controlled polyurethane foam dwelling looked like it was plucked out of Ape City and set down in Disney's back yard.
The second video is from a German documentary and the uploader also has a five-part video of the abandoned interior.

Only the sign remains …

Observe things - 1909

"Vicksburg National Military Park. New concrete observatory tower." (via Shorpy)

PCL Headquarters, Wisconsin

We're waiting for a benefactor....just one....who is willing to purchase the classic Gobbler Supper Club for use as PCL's Midwestern headquarters. Imagine the fabulous ideas we could come up with for you in this refined setting!

Vintage Gas Stations

Esso (Exxon) gas station built in 1954, Netherlands.
More images of this specific station can be found here)

Top 15 modernist gas stations, ranked by the readers of oobject. (via Coudal Partners)


Uploaded by The other JAVA1888

Also check out the Flickr pool Vintage Gas Stations - "This group is for old gas stations (pre-mid-1970s) in any condition (restored or in disrepair; in use as a station or used now as something else)".

Strange internet cafes around the globe

Neatorama presents Strangest Internet Cafes From Around the World

CONEY ISLAND'S PSYCHOPLEX

"At the entry to the park, you will find the giant fiberglass visage of our mascot “Cap’n Baby Randy.” Always smiling, he beckons to visitors on the boardwalk, while his 40,000-candlepower eye-beacon protects ships at sea. Randy contains several attractions, including VINCE’S INSECTARIUM, and THE TAFFY DITCH. His jaunty cap also houses one of the finest cocktail lounges in New York City!"

PSYCHOPLEX

The Architecture of Paul Rudolph

The world was not kind to Modernist architect Paul Rudolph. Students picketed his Art and Architecture building at Yale when it first opened, bulldozers continue to attack his classic Summer homes, and he died of lung cancer--almost certainly contracted from asbestos at one or more of his worksites. Yet flickr user Kelviin has put together an impressive collection of his futuristic, fantastic, fabulous and sometimes failed projects.

The Nostalgic Glass

Mercantile National Bank
"Since its last tenant left in the early 1990’s, the Mercantile had loomed like a ghost ship over downtown Dallas. Once the center of power in the city and the pride of R.L. Thornton, the building now projected a blighted and musty air through the surrounding blocks. Buyers came and went; the years and seasons passed, and slowly, people forgot even what was inside."

"When the 20-story Dallas Building was added in 1958, R.L. Thornton moved his office over there. Perhaps the view here no longer suited him.

Reflected in the mirrors was the Republic National Bank, the Competition. That building, with its rocket-shaped spire, ultimately took away the Mercantile’s title as the tallest building in Dallas."


"The boardroom sat vacant, though likely no one had ever seen a larger conference table. The few people who came to visit in those last days could fancy themselves captains of industry, and who was there to say otherwise?"

The Nostalgic Glass - Photographical explorations of the ruined historical architecture of Russia and Elsewhere.
(via del.icio.us/lonita_links)

Московское метро

Photos, maps, tokens, and other memorabilia from the Moscow Metro.

Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)

'The Moving Pavement'
Why has this not been fully realized yet? It's 2007 and I still have to walk to the bus. It's an outrage!

"... an amazing collection of postcards from the dawn of the twentieth century that depict what life would be like in the year 2000 ..."

Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900) over at Paleo-Future. (via Couldal Partners)

A Filmgoing Oasis

Greenbriar Picture Shows tells us about The Oasis: the Drive In Theatre:

"... In the sixties, there were drive-ins … and then there were DRIVE-INS. The Oasis just outside Chicago was among the latter. I can’t believe such a place existed, and but for photographic evidence shown here, I still wouldn’t. Built at a cost of $555,000 over a twenty-acre spread, The Oasis sat 1,600 cars, along with seventy seats in each of two indoor theatres facing a 52 X 125-foot screen. The approach took you by desert tents and concrete camels with sheiks mounted thereon. Sand dunes were painted on fences running hundreds of yards alongside the entrance road. This was suburban Chicago, one minute from Oak Grove, Illinois, and 22 minutes from the city’s loop. ..."

My Idea Of A Filmgoing Oasis

Where Americans Live

Where We Live: Photographs of America from the Berman Collection.
Exhibition at The Getty.