Category Archives: Famous buildings and movie locations

China’s abandoned Magic Kingdom; Wonderland

Posted on May 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

I love abandoned sites. A few years back we took a trip to California and visited Bombay Beach on the coast of the Salton Sea. Sounds dreamy right? Well, it’s not. This is Bombay Beach.

Bombay Beach California

High salt levels and floods made Bombay Beach, once coined the Riviera of California, uninhabitable. Well, for most that is, as some die-hard residents still call it home.

California is also home to Disneyland. Anything but deserted. The Magic Kingdom draws in about 15.000.000 people each year. That’s close to the population of The Netherlands! Wonderland Theme Park in China, about a 45 minute drive from Downtown Beijing, is not so lucky. What was going to be the largest amusement park in Asia and Asia’s answer to Disney Magic Kingdom, is now probably competing with Tjernobyl as the largest abandoned site in the East. Disagreements with local government and farmers over property prices forced the project developers to stop construction in 1998. It now sits abandoned between fields of corn and houses along the highway to the Great Wall. I have tried to find aerial images of in on Google Earth but have not had any luck yet. But these pictures already show its marvel and make me want to book a flight to China to see it myself.

Photographs by David Grey (Reuters). For more from this series check this article on theatlantic.com

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Posted in Famous buildings and movie locations, Unusual homes

Tagged abandoned, amusement park, China, Disneyland, Ghost town, Magic Kingdom, pictures, wall, Wonderland, wonderland theme park

Don Draper’s apartment

Posted on April 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

With the return of Mad Men we were introduced to Don and Megan’s wonderful love nest; apartment 17-B. It is a 60s style penthouse on top of a high-rise in NYC. In the episode where Megan surprises her beau with a wonderful rendition of Gillian Hills’ Zou Bisou Bisou a guest complains about the street noise below. That might be the catch as for the rest this place is wonderful!

Shag carpets, sunken living room, bold design patterns and an abundance of built-in cabinetry, it has the aesthetic of what I wouldn’t mind calling home! It has the sofa I’ve been thinking of buying. I’d get it in petrol though….

Megan singing Zou Bisou Bisou for Don

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Posted in Famous buildings and movie locations, Homes of the rich and famous, Unusual homes

Tagged 60s, 70s, Architecture, bisou bisou, Decorating, Don Draper's apartment, Interior Design, Mad Men, Retro, set design, style, travel

Iconic Dutch architecture inspires Hotel in Zaandam

Posted on February 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

Check out this interesting hotel design by Dutch architecture firm WAM architecten. The design looks like a pile of typical green wooden houses stacked on top of each other. It’s the new Inntel Hotel Amsterdam in Zaandam, a town North of Amsterdam. The 4-star hotel has 160 rooms and a total of 11 floors.

What do you think?

Inntel Hotel Zaandam

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Posted in Design, designers and online finds, Famous buildings and movie locations, Unusual homes

Tagged Amsterdam, cool, Dutch Design, Hotel, Inntel Hotel Zaandam, luxurious, unusual, WAM architecten

9/11: What the new WTC could have been.

Posted on September 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. All eyes are on Ground Zero, the site of the former World Trade Center, where Daniel Libeskind Memory Foundations is being built. His design won an international competition hosted by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to redesign the WTC site. Libeskind’s entry was one of 7 designs. The others are worth remembering too so have a look at what the new World Trade Center could have been.