Atlas Obscura
June 10, 2009 9:40 PM Subscribe
Karl Junker House is just one of the locations on Atlas Obscura from Curious Expeditions.
There aren't many pictures of any of the locations but it's only been up for a week. The pictures that are there are too small to see much detail, I'd like to see them change that. In the meantime here is the Junker House website and an interior shot.
There aren't many pictures of any of the locations but it's only been up for a week. The pictures that are there are too small to see much detail, I'd like to see them change that. In the meantime here is the Junker House website and an interior shot.
Utterly odd and very cool. Though perhaps not very comfortable. Thanks, this is something I knew nothing about.
posted by From Bklyn at 3:41 AM on June 11, 2009
posted by From Bklyn at 3:41 AM on June 11, 2009
This is a terrific site. I couldn't get the first link to open (probably swamped), but the main pge leads to all kinds of other good stuff. This, for instance is the best account of the Great Molasses Flood that I've ever seen.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:53 AM on June 11, 2009
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:53 AM on June 11, 2009
I've been to the Karl Junker house myself, and the story behind it is not only one of schizophrenic madness, but romantic obsession. There is an ineffable, romantic sadness built into the very fiber of the place, the result of a brilliant, if disturbed mind's obsession for a real woman, and later, for love itself. In the end, the place transcends the limits of its builder, and stands, still, as a 3 dimensional meditation on the power of love to gently drive even the damaged human psyche.
posted by paulsc at 6:47 AM on June 11, 2009
posted by paulsc at 6:47 AM on June 11, 2009
Really cool! I love places like Rock City, the Winchester Mystery House, and House on the Rock; and efforts to catalog them read like a to-do list.
posted by now i'm piste at 7:37 AM on June 11, 2009
posted by now i'm piste at 7:37 AM on June 11, 2009
One of the houses in the sidebar, Eliphante, is the ongoing collaborative-sculpture-living space-compound of Michael Kahn and Leda Livant. Eliphante is also featured in the book "Home Work" by Michael's brother, LLoyd Kahn. LLoyd also wrote the influential book "Shelter", an awesome pictoral study of "vernacular architecture", mainly in the Pacific Coast Region. "Home Work" is its followup, interviewing people who were inspired to create their own handbuilt homes after reading "Shelter".
Possibly the saddest/strangest story in "Home Work" is a man who spent over a decade working on a stone house in Africa. Since the land belonged to a nudist colony, Ian McLeod built in the nude, using levers and carrying stones uphill. Eventually the land was sold and he had to abandon the house.
posted by dubold at 10:21 AM on June 11, 2009
Possibly the saddest/strangest story in "Home Work" is a man who spent over a decade working on a stone house in Africa. Since the land belonged to a nudist colony, Ian McLeod built in the nude, using levers and carrying stones uphill. Eventually the land was sold and he had to abandon the house.
posted by dubold at 10:21 AM on June 11, 2009
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I've always tried to visit museums when I've traveled; the weirder the better. Way back in the Bronze Age of the Internet, a wonderful magazine was published out of San Francisco called The Nose. My friend and fellow sideshow performer Tim "Zamora" Cridland wrote a piece for the now defunct Nose about medical museums. I've taken the liberty of reproducing the article on my own website.
posted by Tube at 10:23 PM on June 10, 2009