20 most unusual architectural structures in Europe

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Usually, when visiting foreign countries, they take us on excursions to all sorts of historical places and try to amaze the imagination with a heap of dates, names of reigning persons and legendary events. However, in addition to the heritage of antiquity, there are many interesting modern buildings in Europe. In this article, we have collected the most spectacular of them so that you will not miss a single one during your travels.

1. Vodafone Portugal Office

This project is the result of a competition organized by the telecommunications company Vodafone for the construction of its headquarters in the city of Porto. The concept of the project is designed to embody the motto of the company "Life in motion". Construction began in 2008 and completed two years later.

2. Scandic Victoria Hotel in Sweden

Scandic Victoria Tower is a skyscraper in Stockholm, Sweden. It is also known as Victoria Tower, however the Scandic name is used to distinguish it from Victoria Tower, which is located southwest of Westminster Palace. The hotel is 117 meters high and is the tallest building in Stockholm and the tallest hotel in Scandinavia.

3. Arnhem railway station in the Netherlands

The building of this station in the Netherlands was completely rebuilt in 2015. Its chic new hall has a modern look thanks to its original shaped steel columns.

4. Winery Marques de Riscal in Spain

The estate Herederos del Marques de Riscal can be called one of the most famous in Spanish winemaking. Their most high-profile project is the construction in 2006 of the Ciudad del Vino, designed by the famous architect Frank Owen Gehry. This is a large complex that includes a winery, a five-star hotel with 43 rooms, a restaurant with signature cuisine and a wine spa.

5. Waste incineration plant Spittelau in Austria

Hardly anyone outsider will guess what is in this building with a fun and unusual coloring. The plant was built in 1989 on the site of a former waste processing plant, which was closed after a fire. The company can dispose of up to 265,000 tons of waste annually, which is used to heat about 60,000 Viennese apartments.

6. Indoor market Markthal in the Netherlands

Markthal is an indoor market in Rotterdam located between Binnenrotte, Hoogstraat and Blaak. It was opened on October 1, 2014 in the presence of Queen Maxima of the Netherlands. Markthal is interesting in that it houses 228 residential apartments and commercial spaces under one roof. Under the market is the city's largest underground parking for a thousand cars.

7. Courtyard of the British Museum in Great Britain

The British Museum is the main historical and archaeological museum in Great Britain and one of the largest museums in the world, the second most visited art museum after the Louvre. It is located in the Bloomsbury area. At the end of the 20th century, a redevelopment of the interior space was carried out according to the project of Norman Foster, which still delights and surprises all tourists.

8. Ceretto winery in Italy

The Ceretto family is one of the main owners of the Piedmont vineyards, which cover more than 160 hectares of land in this corner of Italy. The family has four wineries and several restaurants built and decorated by the best designers of our time. The photo shows an observation deck in one of these establishments.

9. Guggenheim Museum in Spain

The Guggenheim Museum is a contemporary art museum located in Bilbao, Spain. The museum houses permanent exhibitions as well as temporary exhibitions of both Spanish and foreign artists. The museum building was designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry and opened to the public in 1997.

10. Corps Aula Medica in Sweden

The Karolinska Institute is the largest in Sweden and one of the largest medical universities in Europe. Aula Medica is one of the buildings of this educational institution, which houses an auditorium for a thousand people for scientific conferences and lectures for students.

11. Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in France

This building is called the most significant building of the 20th century from an artistic point of view. The chapel was built by the famous architect Le Corbusier and fits perfectly into the complex surrounding landscape. Initially, the non-standard building provoked violent protests from local residents who refused to supply water and electricity to the temple, but by now tourists who come to see it have become one of the main sources of income for the population.

12. Exhibition Center Louis Vuitton Foundation in France

The Louis Vuitton Foundation was created to support and develop creative freedom. His first manifesto was the construction of a completely unusual exhibition center in the Bois de Boulogne. Louis Vuitton says the new museum is like a beautiful sailboat thanks to its delicate light-colored glass structures.

13. The Armadillo Exhibition Center in England

This is one of the main attractions of Glasgow, located on the grounds of the Scottish Exhibition and Convention Center. This fantastic structure was built in 1997 by the famous architect Norman Foster. The three-storey building is a venue for international congresses, conferences and business meetings, as well as all kinds of exhibitions and cultural and entertainment events.

14. Skyscrapers Bosco Verticale in Italy

"Vertical Forest" (Bosco Verticale) is a residential complex of two towers 76 and 110 meters high. Two skyscrapers were built in Milan's Porta Nuova district in 2009–2014. The peculiarity of this project is that the terraces surrounding each of the floors are green spaces: about 900 trees, 5,000 shrubs and 11,000 grass paths have been planted here.

15. Inntel in the Netherlands

This hotel looks like a toy, which indescribably pleases tourists and residents of the city. The building was built in 2010 in the center of Zaandam and consists of 12 floors. Its height is 39 meters. There are a total of 160 rooms in the hotel, besides this there is a Turkish and Finnish bath, a swimming pool, a spa center, a conference room, a fitness center and a restaurant.

16. Office center Dancing House in the Czech Republic

The Dancing House is an office building in Prague in the deconstructivist style, consisting of two cylindrical towers: normal and destructive. This building is an architectural metaphor for a dancing couple, which is why it got its name. The authors of the project are Croatian architect Vlado Milunic and Canadian architect Frank Gehry. Construction was carried out from 1994 to 1996.

17. HARPA Concert Hall in Ireland

The project was designed by Danish firm Henning Larsen Architects in collaboration with Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. The building has won one of the most prestigious European architectural awards for its unusual style and daring execution. Glass panels in the form of honeycomb cells of different colors with built-in LEDs are inserted into the steel frame of the walls, which reflect and refract external light and create an amazingly beautiful play of colors and halftones. Thanks to the glass walls and ceiling, the room is filled with light and air.

18. Opera House in Norway

The National Opera House of Norway is located in the center of Oslo. The theater was built with state budget funds and is an institution run by the Norwegian government. It is the largest public building built in Norway since the construction of Nidaros Cathedral (around 1300).

19. Palace Ideal Palace in France

This unusual palace was built thanks to the efforts of just one person - a simple French postman Ferdinand Cheval (Joseph Ferdinand Cheval). Delivering mail, he traveled 25 kilometers every day, stacking stones of an unusual shape in a wheelbarrow. Of these, for 33 years alone, in his spare time, day and night, in any weather, with the help of the most unpretentious tools, he made his architectural dream come true.

20. Emporia Shopping Center in Sweden

This shopping center immediately attracts the eyes of passers-by with its unusual façade. It is located in the Swedish city of Malmo and is considered one of the largest in Scandinavia. The very impressive and memorable building of the shopping center was designed by the architectural studio Wingårdhs.