La Pyramide is a fifteen-storey concrete complex completed in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, in 1973. It attempted to recreate the activity of a traditional African market vertically, placing shops around a vast central atrium with offices and apartments above them. The experiment proved expensive: circulation consumed much of the rentable space, while elevators and air-conditioning raised operating costs beyond what many traders could afford. It has stood largely empty since the 1980s.
Hôtel du Lac was a 416-room Brutalist hotel completed in Tunis in 1973. Each of its ten floors extended beyond the one beneath it, producing an inverted concrete pyramid whose top was nearly twice the length of its ground floor. Exterior staircases followed the building’s sloping ends like exposed machinery. Built as a symbol of Tunisia’s post-independence modernity, it closed in 2000 and later became the subject of a long preservation battle.
Pyrosomes are hollow, translucent tubes that drift through warm oceans and glow when disturbed. Although each resembles a single gelatinous animal, it is actually a colony of thousands of tiny cloned organisms arranged around a shared central cavity. Each member filters seawater for food before expelling it into the tube, their combined jets slowly propelling the entire colony. Some pyrosomes grow to 18 metres long: thousands of bodies travelling as one illuminated sleeve.
Catatumbo Lightning is a recurring concentration of thunderstorms above Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo, the most lightning-dense place on Earth. Warm, humid air rising from the lake meets cooler winds descending from the surrounding mountains, repeatedly rebuilding storms over the same location after dark. Lightning can continue for hours, illuminating the horizon so consistently that sailors once used it as a natural lighthouse known as the Beacon of Maracaibo.
The Menzi Muck is a Swiss walking excavator built for terrain where ordinary construction machinery cannot remain upright. Each of its four wheels sits at the end of an independently controlled hydraulic leg, allowing the machine to widen, crouch, climb over obstacles or brace itself across steep slopes and riverbeds. Rather than adapting the landscape for an excavator, the operator continually rearranges the excavator beneath them.
Phi Ta Khon is a ghost festival held in Dan Sai, northeastern Thailand. Villagers parade in patchwork costumes and towering masks traditionally assembled from sticky-rice steamers and coconut husks. According to local tradition, the spirits first appeared during the joyful return of Prince Vessantara, emerging from the forest to join the celebration.
Moskva Pool was a 130-metre-wide outdoor swimming pool built in central Moscow in 1958. Its circular basin occupied the foundations of the Palace of the Soviets, an enormous government building planned after the cathedral previously on the site was demolished, but never completed. The pool was heated year-round, allowing thousands of people to swim through Moscow winters beneath clouds of steam.
Ato Boldon is a Trinidadian sprinter who won four Olympic medals without ever winning gold. At the 2000 Sydney Games, he took silver in the 100 metres and bronze in the 200 while wearing Oakley Over the Top sunglasses: mirrored lenses held in place by two aluminium-coloured bands arching across his shaved head. The design looked more like protective machinery than eyewear and became one of the most recognizable pieces of equipment in Olympic history.
In 2016, Dutch police began training eagles to intercept unauthorized drones. The birds were taught to recognize the machines as prey, seize them in mid-air and carry them away in their talons. France followed with four golden eagles named after the Three Musketeers, raised around drones and rewarded with meat placed on them. The idea offered a remarkably medieval answer to a modern problem, but both programs were eventually abandoned in favour of electronic detection and jamming.
W. Reginald Bray was an English accountant who spent decades testing what the postal service was willing to deliver. Beginning in 1898, he mailed unwrapped turnips, a bowler hat, a rabbit’s skull, his dog and postcards addressed only with riddles or drawings. In 1900, he had himself delivered to his parents’ house, earning the name “the Human Letter.” He also mailed autograph requests to thousands of public figures, eventually building a collection of more than 15,000 replies.