The Zep Diner, a Popular Eating Place at Hollywood Modeled on the Lines of a Zeppelin, in the 1930s
The Zep Diner, a Zeppelin-shaped eatery, opened in Los Angeles in the early 1930s at 515 W. Florence Avenue near S. Figueroa. Continue reading »
The Humor, Depth, and Surreal Vision of Max Siedentopf’s Hyperrealistic Sculptures
Max Siedentopf, a Namibian-German artist born in 1991, is known for his surreal and humorous approach to art, often using ordinary objects in unexpected ways to challenge viewers’ perceptions. Continue reading »
Wonderful Photos of a Young Heather Locklear in Aerobics Fashion in the 1980s
Heather Locklear, born on September 25, 1961, is widely recognized for her iconic roles in TV shows such as Dynasty and Melrose Place, making her a significant figure in 1980s pop culture. In addition to her acting career, Locklear became a fitness symbol during the decade, largely due to her active lifestyle and connections with Hollywood celebrities who championed fitness, health, and beauty. Continue reading »
Vintage Photos of People Having Way Too Much Fun with Statues
This charming and quirky collection of vintage snapshots highlights a fascinating trend—people posing with statues. Continue reading »
How a Miniature Exhibit Triggered a Larger Discussion on Art and Society’s Boundaries
The Kentucky State Fair recently removed a miniature by artist Preston Poling aka “The Bearded Miniaturist”, which had won third place, after it was found to depict a “casting couch” scene associated with pornography. Continue reading »
Baroque Baths and Rococo Ripples: The Art of Historical Pools Reimagined With AI
In a fascinating intersection of history and modern leisure, photographer Tomislav Marcijuš, utilizing the power of Midjourney, envisions what public swimming pools might have looked like had they been designed during the Baroque and Rococo periods. Continue reading »
The Lotus Esprit S1, Known as “Wet Nellie,” Was Featured in The James Bond Film “The Spy Who Loved Me,” and These Photographs Are Really Breathtaking
The Lotus Esprit S1 was used in the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, where it was affectionately dubbed “Wet Nellie.” This “car-submarine” became an iconic Bond vehicle, with its ability to transform from a car into a working submarine capturing the public’s imagination. Continue reading »
SLAS Architects’ Innovative Design for a Public Space That Combines Leisure, Play, and Fitness
What can you do with a concrete platform? A lot, if you ask SLAS architects, the Polish firm that designed a stunning public space under the name “Activity Zone in Chorzów”. Continue reading »
Inside Outside: Performance Art in Public Spaces by Thierry Mandon
Thierry Mandon uses the video, the photography, the performance and the installation to express the poetic character of the everyday life, to make subtle transformations, where the spectator finds at the same time tragic and comic aspects of his existence. Continue reading »
Stunning Photographs Of The Old Cincinnati Library Before Being Demolished, 1874-1955
One of the large cast-iron book alcoves that lined the Main Hall.
Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County
Built in 1874 on the site reserved for an opera house, the Old Cincinnati Library was a thing of wonder. With five levels of cast iron shelving, a fabulous foyer, checker board marble floors and an atrium lit by a skylight ceiling, the place was breathtaking. Unfortunately that magnificent maze of books is now lost forever. Continue reading »
Handy Public Punching Bags Located Around Manhattan That Let New Yorkers Vent Their Frustrations
donttakethisthewrongway, a design studio based out of Savannah, Georgia, installed a series of “Public Punching Bags” around Manhattan during their visit to New York City Design Week 2019. The idea was to give people a way to momentarily express their frustrations in a public place before going on with their day, hopefully feeling a bit better than before. Continue reading »
Quirky Interventions By Octavi Serra Question The Rules Of Public Spaces
Octavi Serra uses the structures and symbolism of public spaces to question the systems we live with and find humor in their details. The Barcelona-based artist often engages with signage to subvert its original meaning, like forming a massive arrow pointing left with safety stickers that all individually indicate to exit to the right, or adding opposite directives to a signpost for routes to “hope” and “doom”. Serra also questions strictures of space, like adding “the road is lava” to a painted crosswalk, referencing the universal childhood game, or replacing parallel parking space lines with nonsensical squiggles. Continue reading »
Hilarious Questions Posed To The New York Public Library Pre-Internet
Now that we have the internet, we have access to pretty much all the information we could ever need. Before there was Google, people used their local public library. And not just because libraries are full of books. Librarians were specially trained to help people find information, or to simply answer a question themselves. Featured below are some of the funniest examples. Continue reading »
These Hand-Knitted Sweaters Will Make You “Disappear” In Public Places
We‘re used to the popular opinion that clothes are often designed to make people stand out from the crowd. Not in this case though. Continue reading »
This Public Toilet At The Central Bus Station In Russian Voronezh Is So Romantic They Lit Candels In It
Public bathroom, it is usually a place that gives you a bad experience and you just try to erase it from your memory as soon as you get out of it. However at the central bus station in Voronezh, Russia, the public restroom has no electricity, water nor heating from the beginning of the year but they charge the fee around $0.25. Continue reading »
This Public Seating Installation Was Inspired By Snowbanks That Gather Around Trees And Street Lights
When it was a little more sunny and a lot less snowy in Quebec City, Canada, Atelier Pierre Thibault designed a public seating installation named Le Banc de Neige (The Bench of Snow). Inspired by the cooler months of the year when there is plenty of snow around, the designer wanted to recreate the snowbanks that gather around the trees and street lights. Continue reading »
Photographer Asked Celebrities To Reveal Their Public And Private Personalities In Intimate Double-Portraits
Anne Hathaway
Andrew H. Walker/Shutterstock
Everybody has a public and a private persona, and celebrities are no exception. You might think you know something about them because of all the films you’ve seen them in, but it’s only once they’re out of the spotlight that their true selves are revealed. Continue reading »
Chinese City Opens Awesome Five-Star Public Toilet
People generally avoid going into public toilets, unless they absolutely have to. Most of them are dirty, uninviting places, but that’s definitely not the case with this recently opened five-star public restroom in Chongqing, China. Continue reading »
This Public Pavilion Covered In Plants Was Designed To Invite People To Sit Inside
Urban living specialists, Space10, and architects Mads-Ulrik Husum and Sine Lindholm have collaborated to create “The Growroom” – a pavilion filled with naturally growing herbs, vegetables, and plants, designed to thrive in urban settings. Divided into sections around an open center and bench, the spherical multi-sensory pavilion encourages people to step inside and experience the uniqueness of food producing architecture in an engaging way, and interact with their food in ways they likely haven’t been able to before. Continue reading »
This Colossal Vessel Will Be A New Public Landmark In Manhattan In 2018
Today, Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group announced that a new public landmark designed by Thomas Heatherwick of Heatherwick Studio, will open in Manhattan in 2018. Named ‘Vessel’, the landmark building will be covered by a polished copper-colored steel skin, and is a space that will allow people to have an elevated view of New York City. Standing at 150 feet tall, it will have 154 interconnecting flights of stairs, 2,400 steps and 80 landings, that together will create a mile’s worth of pathway. It also has a diameter of 50 feet at its base, widening to 150 feet at its top. It’s currently being fabricated in Italy. Continue reading »
Outfits Sourced From German Public Transportation Fabric By Menja Stevenson
Like most that read this article, German artist Menja Stevenson has had her fair share of rides in city buses and trains, each of which has forced her (and you) to sit on top of garishly designed uniform seating. The fabric, as investigated by this article on the BBC, is not only made to outlast spills and stains, but also trends, as many of the painfully drab designs can last a decade or more. Continue reading »
Public Pools Open In New York City For The Summer
Spencer Platt / Getty Images North America
People enjoy a hot afternoon at the Astoria Pool in the borough of Queens on the opening day of city pools on June 29, 2016 in New York City.The main pool at Astoria, the biggest in New York City and administered by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, sees over 3,000 people on a typical summer weekday. Continue reading »
This “Story Pod” Is A Free-For-All Lending Library Designed For A Public Park
On the edge of a recently completed civic square for the Canadian town of Newmarket, Ontario, Atelier Kastelic Buffey (AKB) have designed the “Story Pod,” a free community-supported lending library that is open to everyone.
Continue reading »
Artist Buys Abandoned Chicago Bank to Transform It into Public Arts Center
Till recently, the 17,000 square feet (1,580 square meters) Stony Island Savings & Loan Bank on Chicago’s South Side was just an old, abandoned construction. Built back in the 1920s, it has been vacant since the 1980s and has remained in a deteriorating state for all these years. Who could imagine that this decaying structure would soon become an amazing art center? Continue reading »
‘The Infinite Green’ By Adam Kalinowski, Is A Public Sculpture Covered In Plants
Adam Kalinowski has designed ‘The Infinite Green’, a sculpture that has been created as part of the visual art program of the European Capital of Culture in Wroclaw, Poland. Continue reading »
