World's most mysterious buildings

Yahoo! Travel ^ | Thursday, October 4, 2012 | Adam H. Graham

[SunkenCiv]

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 full of user-generated and editor-curated like Abandoned-places.com, weburbanist.com, and AtlasObscura.com, an exhaustive database of the unusual.

"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 AtlasObscura.com cofounder Joshua Foer.

Our definition of mysterious is broad and varied. Some buildings on our list are being eaten alive by the earth, such as a lava-buried church in the remote highlands of Mexico. Others have design elements that seem to defy logic or were mysteriously abandoned 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.

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.

[Churchillspirit]

You should be shot for that pun.

[SunkenCiv]

I have every ricochet that.

[SunkenCiv]

I’m glad they took those down, otherwise this structure would be really tacky. ;’)

[RegulatorCountry]

It’s called a daylight basement.

[Tijeras_Slim]

http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/

[Mears]

My first house was like that.

From the front it was one story,plus attic.

From the rear it was 2 stories,plus attic.

.

[Joe 6-pack]

Here is a really mysterious building. Note the sharp angle of the hillside. It was like the church building had to be built to conform with the angle of the hill which looks to take a chunk out of the right side of the church. Were adjustments made in the interior to take into account the hill?"

My parents' house in Western Pennsylvania is built into a much steeper hill than that. The hillside is dugout and there's no loss of interior space. What's at ground level on the front of the house (i.e. the garage entrance) is underground at the back of the house. The second floor at the front of the house is at ground level on the rear and opens into the back deck/patio.