The 6 Creepiest Places on Earth. It doesn't matter whether or not you believe in ghosts, there are some places in which none of us would want to spend a night. These places have well earned their reputations as being so creepy, tragic or mysterious (or all three) that they definitely qualify as "haunted. " Places like... Aokigahara is a woodland at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan that makes The Blair Witch Project forest look like Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood. It probably has something to do with all the dead bodies scattered around.
What Niagara Falls is to weddings, Aokigahara is to suicide. More than 500 fucking people have taken their own lives in Aokigahara since the 1950s. The trend has supposedly started after Seicho Matsumoto published his novel Kuroi Kaiju (Black Sea of Trees) where two of his characters commit suicide there. Also skulls.
Besides bodies and homemade nooses, the area is littered with signs displaying such uplifting messages like "Life is a precious thing! Winchester Mystery House Oh, bitch...! Ultra Swank House On Wheels. Future in Ruins: Small Open-Plan, Concrete & Wood Cabin. Death, decay, destruction? Wait, what? No, there are no plans to demolish this place now or in the near future – but years, decades or centuries from now if the retreat becomes abandoned it will decay in a visually-dynamic way, wood pealing away from a poured-concrete platform and central cast-in-place chimney.
While it is not the first worry of any architect (let alone a client), considering the way a building will weather and age both while it is used and if (when) it is eventually deserted shows forethought and imagination above and beyond the basic call of designer duty. Fortunately, Olson-Kundig Architects have a knack for thinking beyond the narrow logistical confines of a given house-as-project. First, the footing and certain core structural walls – most notably those wrapping the hearth in the middle – were poured on site and show the steel rebar holes that mark the means of their construction.
Tim Burton at the Museum of Modern Art | Slideshows. Before I Die. What matters most to you Interactive public art project that invites people to share their personal aspirations in public. After losing someone she loved and falling into depression, Chang created this experiment on an abandoned house in her neighborhood to create an anonymous place to help restore perspective and share intimately with her neighbors. The project gained global attention and thanks to passionate people around the world, over 1000 Before I Die walls have now been created in over 70 countries, including Kazakhstan, Iraq, Haiti, China, Ukraine, Portugal, Japan, Denmark, Argentina, and South Africa.
The walls are an honest mess of the longing, pain, joy, insecurity, gratitude, fear, and wonder you find in every community, and they reimagine public spaces that nurture honesty, vulnerability, trust and understanding. The Before I Die book is a celebration of these walls and the stories behind them. 2011, New Orleans, LA. Cordoba, Argentina. Najaf, Iraq. Brooklyn, NY.