[A] Chinese hotelier [is making an] intriguing use of recycled industrial tubing.
This sturdy piece of circular masonry has been chopped up into some 15 separate mini-structures – each designed to host two people, and equipped with a double bed.
For all its no-frills approach, this unusual outpost is proving popular with holidaymakers keen to sample the countryside in what is one of China’s largest and heavily populated provinces.
Via Mail Online for the full article and additional photos.
Nemrut or Nemrud (Turkish: Nemrut Dağı ; Armenian: Նեմրութ լեռ) is a mountain in southeastern Turkey, notable for the summit where a number of large statues are erected around what is assumed to be a royal tomb from the 1st century BC.
In 62 BC, King Antiochus I Theos of Commagene built on the mountain top a tomb-sanctuary flanked by huge statues (8–9m) of himself, two lions, two eagles and various Greek, Armenian, and Iranian gods, such as Vahagn-Hercules, Aramazd-Zeus or Oromasdes (associated with the Iranian god Ahura Mazda), Bakht-Tyche, and Mihr-Apollo-Mithras.
East Terrace
These statues were once seated, with names of each god inscribed on them. The heads of the statues have at some stage been removed from their bodies, and they are now scattered throughout the site.
The pattern of damage to the heads (notably to noses) suggests that they were deliberately damaged as a result of iconoclasm.
West Terrace
Via Wikipedia.
Long Now friend and supporter Ken Wilson sends in this awesome concept for the Stockholm Library. This design seems like it would lend itself well to a 10,000 year library.
The image above is a rendering by a team of students at the Architecture School of Paris La Seine.
Bottom two photos of the exterior and interior of the existing components of the Stockholm Library via Wikimedia Commons.
Via The Long Now Foundation.
Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois, opened in 1966, closed in 1978. It was used for the mall chase scene in The Blues Brothers.
The building was demolished between February and May 2012.
Belz Factory Outlet Mall in Allen, Texas, opened in 1983, closed four years later, demolished in 2010.
New World Shopping Mall, Bangkok, Thailand, once an eleven story building, but the top seven floors were demolished in 1997.
Two years later it was burned out due to suspected arson.
Dixie Square Mall photos by jonrev.
Belz Factory Outlet Mall photos by Wikimedia Commons.
New World Shopping Mall photos by Renegade Travels.
Via io9.
In the district of Kabukicho, the mecca of gentlemen’s entertainment in Tokyo, seizure-inducing flashing neon lights advertise the thousand and one earthly delights one can experience for money.
Here the robots have their own techno-cabaret.
In the stroboscopic set of blinks and flashes, the Robot Restaurant highlights dinner with a unique performance; gigantic female machines, with Valkyrie torsos and Gundam engine legs on wheels will dance and pirouette in an spectacle much closer to “ParaPara” (synchronized Japanese dancing) choreography than to an actual striptease.
Modeled on video game characters, their cyborg faces mimic a large variety of positive emotions, rolling rhythmic eyes in their synthetic sockets, and equipped with “pneumatic busts” that can grow on demand.
Each of these clockwork amazons is piloted by one or two actual living, breathing bikini gogo dancers.
Video is about a year old, so doesn’t feature this newest addition, but gives you an idea of the brain-melting cacophony of the place.
Address for those in Tokyo:
B2F Shinjuku Robot Bldg, 1-7-1 Kabukicho Shinjuku-ku, Shinjuku, Japan
Photos via Daily Mail.
Shinjuku-Robot Restaurant via Atlas Obscura.
Enjoy tea and cake while sitting next to the tanks that hold the catacombs’ 18-strong rodent population.
Then, once you’ve chowed down, wash your hands (you don’t want sharp-toothed rodents mistaking your hands for food, after all) and the resident rat carers will bring the little critters over for you to play with.
To drink, there are cups of “rattaccino” or “ratte”. To eat: “black forest rateaux”, plus there’s also the chance to indulge in (wait for it) “car-rat cake”.
Looks like it might have been a one-time thing, unfortunately.
Photographer Seph Lawless had been traveling the country photographing a variety of “abandoned and broken” buildings for his book, Autopsy of America, when he came across two buildings from his past: Rolling Acres Mall in Akron, Ohio and Randall Park Mall in North Randall, Ohio.
[B]oth malls were now abandoned and slated for demolition, reflecting the decline of malls all across the country. [N]o new indoor mall has been built in America since 2006 and at least one expert predicts that half of all existing malls will close within the next 10 years.
Lawless saw this trend as a symbol of economic decline during the Great Recession, and decided to photograph both malls before they disappeared.
Photographer Steph Lawless via Slate.
