17 August 2008
While gliding through the DesignBoom Blog, I found something so fascinating as to beg a short post just to remind myself to look into this more. It’s a wooden house in northwestern Russia that stands 144 feet tall and is made primarily by hand from scraps gathered by one man. There are several cultural questions that lead to this ego creation, but first some background. The man who built this structure not only spent time in prison for organized crime but also is the richest man in his city of Arkhangelsk. How did he come to be allowed to build such a structure? Is it because there are no planning rules? Or do people fear this builder? Does it take fear (think Paris’ Champs Elysees) to be able to complete something so radical? There are so many questions you could ask.
D.I.Y. architecture
March 5th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
I recently heard that this city has a 2-story limit on wood construction and this building is being torn down for not being in compliance. The local officials must not have noticed until it showed up on the internet…