History

The Stanley R Mickelsen Safeguard Complex in Cavalier County, North Dakota, is the focus of an amazing set of images hosted by the US Library of Congress, showing this squat and evocative megastructure in various states of construction and completion. It’s a huge pyramid in the middle of nowhere tracking the end of the world on radar, an abstract geometric shape beneath the sky without a human being in sight, or it could even be the opening scene of an apocalyptic science fiction film—but it’s just the US military going about its business, building vast and other-worldly architectural structures that the civilian world only rarely sees — via BLDGBLOG

Photo: Benjamin Halpern, courtesy of the US Library of Congress

Whisper it quietly, rather than shout it from the rooftops, but Dracula’s Castle, in Transylvania, is on the market.

Not in the conventional fashion, with estate agents staking their For Sale signs in the ground, but in a quiet, offers-are-invited-from-the-right-people sort of way.

If someone comes in with a reasonable offer, we will look at who they are, what they are proposing, and will seriously entertain the idea, says Mark Meyer, of Herzfeld and Rubin. The New York law firm is handling the sale (he’s also the honorary American consul for Moldova)

The property comes with a long list of previous owners: everyone from Saxons to Hungarians to Teutonic knights. And although the facilities may not be exactly state-of-the-art (the plumbing is reported to require some work), there’s no questioning the detachedness of the property. It stands on top of a hill, and is most definitely not overlooked by neighbours — via Telegraph

Norman Bel Geddes (1893-1958) was an industrial designer who focused on aerodynamics. His designs extended to unrealised futuristic concepts: a teardrop-shaped automobile, and an Art Deco House of Tomorrow. By popularising streamlining when only a few engineers were considering its functional use, he made possible the design style of the thirties — via Retronaut

On 19 April, Southern Illinois University will begin to restore the world’s first geodesic dome home, built by Buckminster Fuller. Originally assembled in just seven hours from 60 wooden triangle panels, the dome was occupied by Fuller and his wife, Lady Anne, in the 1960s during his residency at SIU. After Fuller’s death, the dome was used as student housing before falling into disrepair. In 2001, the home was donated to a non-profit that had it listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. It will now be restored and preserved as a museum in Carbondale — via ArchDaily

Brooklyn-based designer Jake Wright was surrounded by military-related objects from the time he was a child. Born to an Air Force Pilot and a military defence contractor, Wright was naturally drawn toward these materials in his design work. Known collectively as Stockpile Designs, Wright’s line of furniture and home objects is based on obsolete and decommissioned military equipment — via Dornob

The Abbey Mills pumping station is a sewage plant designed so elaborately it looks like an authentic Byzantine monastery. It was thus named the Cathedral of Sewage. Located in the Thames estuary, this one-of-a-kind pumping station was built between 1865 and 1868 to siphon London’s sewage from the low level sewers up to the high level plant which processes the waste waters. Designed by architect Charles Driver and engineers Joseph Bazalgette and Edmund Cooper, the Cathedral of Sewage has a cruciform layout with intricate Byzantine architecture, a special touch that earned it a place in the United Kingdom’s Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. Not to mention, the fascinating building got a starring role in Batman Begins (2003) as the Arkham Asylum Laboratory with the Scarecrow and Rachel Dawes — via When On Earth