The Wow! Factor

Ikea macro-scale system

Before buying a home, many go to numerous viewings and carefully analyze every aspect of the ones visited. Between 1908 and 1940, in the US, however, there was an atypical trend: mail-order houses. The owners received them in the form of a kit that contained not only the materials needed for the arrangement but also modern facilities for those times, such as central heating, indoor plumbing, and electricity, to be installed with the help of family or friends. There have been many who have opted for such a home: over 70,000 units have been sold in three decades, some of them still standing.

When a game is taken seriously

Until 2019, when it was destroyed in less than half an hour due to a fire, the largest treehouse in the world was in the American state of Tennessee. It had no less than 80 rooms, set on ten floors. Although, in general, the construction of a treehouse involves a fun activity, in this case, the work to raise it was a titanic one. Horace Burgess has dedicated over 15 years to this project.

Japanese quality

The oldest wooden building still in use has an impressive history, as it is over 1,400 years old and located in Japan. It is the Horyu-ji temple in Ikaruga, Nara prefecture, built around 600 and included today in the Guinness Book.

Appearances deceive

Before you envy the owners of buildings in metropolitan areas like London, Toronto, or New York, think that those homes may be just an illusion. To give the city a more pleasant look, there are buildings whose sole purpose is to mark unsightly elements such as vents or mobile towers.

With the head in the clouds

Before the installation of a high-performance air circulation system, the employees of a factory belonging to the aircraft manufacturer Boeing were, in fact, with their heads in the clouds. And that's because, due to the impressive size of the building, rain clouds formed in the production facility.

Construction in record time

A war or a calamity brings significant damage to the inhabitants of a country. That's why various companies have built devices that turn concrete into Lego bricks. They can be used by those whose home has been destroyed to quickly build a new shelter.

Owner just on the paper

Although we are generally tempted to associate Hollywood houses with famous names in the world of cinema, there have been well-known characters from other fields who have purchased properties here. One of them is Adolf Hitler, who owned a mansion in the famous neighborhood of LA, which he never visited.

The online war

A small island, of just 1.3 square kilometers, located in the Nares Strait near Greenland has sparked a real war between Canada and Denmark. Not a violent conflict, but a very peaceful one, carried out on Google, where the sovereignty of the island was attributed sometimes to one country, sometimes to the other. Another way to dispute their rights was by visiting the island regularly when Canadians go with a bottle of whiskey and take out the flag of the Danes, replacing it with that of Canada. In turn, Danes leave a bottle of Danish Schnapps at the "crime scene" when changing the flag.

Sisyphus's work

Those who work on construction sites generally have a tiring schedule, which is proven by the employees assigned to build Winchester Mansion, a famous property in California. And this is because they worked at the home of the wife of the firearms magnate William Wirt Winchester, Sarah, non-stop for 38 years, until her death in 1922, when the works were abandoned.

Short-term investment

If in other countries houses pass from generation to generation, being used even for hundreds of years, in Japan things are different. Here, houses quickly lose their value, and half of the homes are demolished in less than 40 years. It is not surprising that in Japan, compared to the United States, there are four times as many architects and twice as many construction workers per capita.

Data for this article was obtained from businessinsider.com, retipster.com, guinnessworldrecords.com, and wikipedia.org.