YAKIMA COUNTY, WASHINGTON USA
This little funny looking gas station was built in 1922, intended to be a reminder of the Teapot Dome Scandal involving President Warren G. Harding and a federal petroleum reserve in Wyoming. The scandal rocked the presidency of Harding and sent Interior Secretary Albert Fall to prison for his role in leasing government oil reserves. The building has a circular frame with a conical roof, sheet metal "handle," and a concrete "spout." Said to be the oldest gas station in use in the country, it survived partially because it was moved years ago, to be closer to the interstate. It is no longer in operation.
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NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI USA
This place remains a startling icon along today's politically corrected highways -- one of those "Did I really see what I think I saw" mirages. Mammy's Cupboard is a restaurant built inside a 28-foot tall black woman's skirt.
The original restaurant opened in 1940, and has endured cycles of decay and restoration. Our photos were taken during a rather worn-down phase, paint peeling and both arms crudely amputated. Recent reports and photos indicate the exterior of Mammy's Cupboard has been repaired, arms and serving platter attached, and the interior has again been refurbished.
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SEATTLE, WASHINGTON USA
Experience Music Project(EMP) was founded by Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft. It is a museum of music history sited near the Space Needle and is by one of the two stops on the Seattle Center Monorail, which runs through the building. The museum contains mostly rock memorabilia and technology-intensive multimedia displays. The structure is also home to the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. Designed by Frank Gehry, the building resembles many of his firm's sheet-metal construction works, such as Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Walt Disney Concert Hall and Gehry Tower. The structure contains 140,000 square feet (13,000 m2), with a 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m2) footprint. Herbert Muschamp (New York Times architecture critic) described it as "something that crawled out of the sea, rolled over, and died." Forbes magazine called it one of the world's 10 ugliest buildings.
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VANCOOVER BC, CANADA
It was too hot for New York City; too hot for Stanford University. But a controversial, imposing sculpture by renowned international artist Dennis Oppenheim finally found a public home in laid-back Vancouver. A country church is seen balancing on it's steeple, as if it had been lifted by a terrific force and brought to the site as a device or method of rooting out evil forces.
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