Mysteries come in many forms: ancient, modern, unsolved, and unexplained. But the world’s most mysterious buildings are a physical force to be reckoned with.
They’ve become popularized on websites like abandoned-places.com,weburbanist.com, and the granddaddy of them all, atlasobscura.com, an exhaustive user-generated and editor-curated database of the unusual.
Our list of mysteries doesn't trot out clichéd write-ups of the Bermuda Triangle and the Egyptian pyramids, nor is it promoting the usual suspects of PR-pushed “haunted hotels.” These peculiar structures are original, lesser-known, and often arcane. Mystery after all, must be authentic.
“In an age where it sometimes seems like there's nothing left to discover, our site is for people who still believe in exploration,” says Atlas Obscura cofounder Joshua Foer, whose own favorite mysterious buildings include a murder mansion in L.A. and an art house in Centralia, W.A.
“It's easy when traveling to get stuck on very well worn paths,” reiterates cofounder Dylan Thuras. “Often the most memorable thing you see on your travels is not the beautiful palace, but the run-down theme park left to rot on the outskirts of town. These places give you more context than the highly polished tourist routes.”
Our definition of mysterious is broad and varied. Some buildings on our list are being eaten alive by the earth, such as a sand-swallowed lighthouse in Denmark’s Jutland and a lava-buried church in the remote highlands of Mexico. Others have design elements that seem to defy logic or were mysteriously abandoned by their people centuries ago. New York’s shadowy Renwick Smallpox Hospital has more recent traces of human life—and an eerie energy that lingers.
We’ve got the photo proof.
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Renwick Hospital: Roosevelt Island, New York City
This abandoned Smallpox Hospital, replete with granite veneer, corbelled parapets, and mansard roofs, is a reminder of Gotham’s grisly past.
Its 100 hospital beds once hosted quarantined immigrants suffering from the gruesome disease. An ongoing $4.5 million restoration project will open Renwick to the public in 2013, kicking off with an art project that includes giant butterflies hovering over the site.
Mystery: Renwick is currently illuminated at night by an anonymous patron, who purportedly has a view of it from an Upper East Side penthouse.
Visit: The American Institute of Architects and Classic Harbor Line offer architecture-themed cruises around Manhattan with lectures on Renwick and other mysterious city sites.
Loretto Chapel: Santa Fe, New Mexico
The imposing Gothic Revival church’s spiral staircase is a woodwork masterpiece that somehow connects the choir loft to the ground-level pews—without a central column for stability, and with wooden pegs instead of nails.
Mystery: Legend has it that an anonymous carpenter built the staircase in 1878 then disappeared without pay.
Visit: Just around the corner is La Posada de Santa Fe, a three-story Victorian mansion turned art-stuffed hotel. Suite 100 was the bedroom of previous owner Julia Staab, and her spirit is said to haunt it.
Kolmanskop Diamond Camp: Skeleton Coast, Namibia
Local Bushmen considered Namibia’s Skeleton Coast “The Land God Made in Anger,” while the Portuguese called it “The Gates of Hell.”
Though the coast received its name because of beached whale bones that scattered its shores during the heyday of the whaling industry, today, skeletal remains of more than 1,000 fog-sacked ships and abandoned diamond camps earn it the title. Among the detritus being taken over by desert sands is Minenvewalter, the manager’s house at abandoned diamond mine Kolmanskop.
Mystery: Diamond miners purportedly haunt Minenvewalter; their axe-pick-punctured skulls were allegedly found here in the 1960s long after the colony departed.
Visit: Wilderness Safari’s Distinctive Namibia circuit includes lion and cheetah treks in the rusty dunes but also a scenic three-hour flight over the wreck-strewn Skeleton Coast. travelbeyond.com
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