As the young heroine of our favorite title in the literary nonsense genre proclaimed, “if I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrariwise, what it is, it wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would.” In keeping with the nonsensical theme, we’ve explored one of the weirdest design genres that we can’t quite wrap our heads around: the upside-down house.
We think the architects behind these wacky creations must have had Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in mind; after all, who hasn’t been inspired by Lewis Carroll’s timeless tale of falling down a rabbit hole into a land where it’s always time for tea, solicitous caterpillars smoke hookahs, and turtles, lobsters and fictional beasts square dance. From Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s take on a famous work of uncompleted architecture to a capsized cabin in California to an upside down house complete with an inverted car park, click through to check out our dizzying roundup of overturned architecture. Could you ever live in a house flipped on it’s head?
“Die Welt steht Kopf” — Isle of Usedom, Germany
Image credit: Impact Lab
Upside-Down House and Car Park — Sabah, Borneo
Image credit: Hayden Chan
Crazy House — Getorff, Germany
Image credit: Sven Herrmann
Wonderworks Museum — Orlando, Florida
Image credit: Wonderworks
Upside-Down House — Ganghwa Island, South Korea
Image credit: Juliane Eirich
Headfirst House — Putbus, Germany
Image credit: The Bulgarian News
Upside-Down Sales Office — Alanya, Turkey
Image credit: Xeroid
Upside-Down House — Lee Vining, California
Image credit: Hane C. Lee
Gravity Is a Force to be Reckoned With by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle — North Adams, Massachusetts
Image credit: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle
Inverted House — Szymbark, Poland
Image credit: Unusual Architecture