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Superman’s Fortress of Solitude in Mexico

Thanks to the miracle of nature, it looks like there may be a Superman Fortress of Solitude in real life! This picture was taken in the Cueva de los Cristales (Spanish for “Cave of Crystals”) in Naica, Mexico.

Some of these crystals are 36 feet long! According to National Geographic, they reached this huge size because of an unusual combination of consistent volcanic heat and a rich watery mixture. These are some of the largest natural crystals ever found.

As beautiful as this cave may be, there are some differences between this and the real Fortress of Solitude. According to the comments on Make, “Superman’s cave was cold. This cave sits on a magma dome and stays around 120 degrees Fahrenheit. You can’t stay in the cave for more than 30 minutes and that’s with special gear, unless you want to cook your brain.”

Jim Denevan’s Artwork

The incredible concentric forms you see above are neither crop circles nor alien landings — they are part and parcel of the world’s largest artwork, which spans nine square miles. Jim Denevan (I’ve posted about him before) headed out to Siberia this year to draw these beautiful patterns on ice with a team of helpers and a broom. Denevan is known for creating expansive, meditative works with repetitive patterns and endless scale. Given that, Lake Baikal seems a pretty appropriate canvas. And even when the harsh Siberian winds carried the resulting artwork to the clouds, the momentary grace of the work is stunning.

A team of eight people committed to walking in circles for art, including a documentary filmmaker and a photographer. Given the ethereal nature of the piece, it’s not surprising how important documentation is to the process. After all, ice is one of the most potent artistic materials of our modern age. The team lived in a yurt in the center of the lake, building a fire on the lake bed every night (it would re-freeze every morning). Though the artwork melted away in May, the experience is chronicled on The Anthropologist, a site for promoting new work by Anthropologie.

LED Mushroom Lights

What looks like a mythical treasure one would stumble upon in a storybook tale, is in fact a beautiful eco-friendly combination of reclaimed wood and LED lights. Great Mushrooming is taking inspiration from the world’s best designer, Mother Nature, to create these luminous mushrooms whose only magic lies in their ability to charm.

Exhibited at the Design Festa 2010 in Tokyo, the Great Mushrooming’s work could easily be classified as fine art. Carefully handcrafted from glass, discarded wood and LED lights, the newly-formed fungi’s precise details are only cheekily offset by the industrial plastic on/off dial affixed to the side of each lamp. We’re struck by how this seemingly odd contrast adds a certain analog appeal to each light.

(Source: tokyobling.wordpress.com)

Crystal chandeliers by Hans Van Bentem

Hans Van Bentem has been designing incredibly contemporary custom crystal Chandeliers — a lighting installation usually relegated to very historical decoration for a number of years. Apparently people became obsessed with him when Madonna bought one. He has made skulls, penises, spiders, guns, airplanes and more.

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“Ephemicropolis“ — City of Staples

Creative artist, Peter Root, showcases his latest project, a city model created only out of stacked staples.

Named “Ephemicropolis“, Root’s staple model, depicts a fragile micro city that could collapse at the slightest wind blow or vibration. He used over 100,000 staples and spent 40 hours stacking them. Some of the staple skyscrapers of Ephemicropolis are up to 12 cm tall, while some of the smaller buildings are represented by a single staple. The city covers a floor surface of 6m x 3m. 

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Amazing Treehotel

The Treehotel is located in the forests of Harads, northern Sweden, with stunning views of the valley of the Lulea River.

While previous tree houses are fairly basic, the new hotel will feature six uniquely themed Treerooms created by five different architects — The UFO, The Cabin, The Blue Cone, The Nest and The Mirrorcube.

The hotel’s designers also wanted to minimise any impact on nature. They decided to apply a special film that is visible only to birds to the glass in order to prevent birds colliding with the structure.

The Treehotel, opened on July 17, will be open all year round. In the winter temperatures can plummet to -30 degrees so each room will have an electric under-floor heating system. The rooms have been constructed from wood and glass and feature an eco-friendly incineration toilet and water efficient hand basin.

They will vary from 15-30 square metres and range from between 4-6 metres from the ground. The rooms are accessible using a ramp or stairs. But the experience comes at a price - a night at the Treehotel costs upwards of 3500 kronor (approx. US$ 479).

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Back to The Futurama

For his piece “Back to Futurama,” artist Jeremy Dean gutted a gas-guzzling 8 mile-per-gallon HUMMER H2 and revamped it into a silver chrome, LED light-ridden, mega audio system decked “CEO Stagecoach” — a horse-drawn testament to the collapse of the auto-industry.

“Taking the logic of the past and putting it in the context of our current economic and environmental disaster, I am making my own satirical prediction of the future- Unless we come up with alternative fuel sources and rethink our reliance on a hyper inflated consumption based economy; we may be left with no other options than to hook our cars up to a horse.
As a symbol of this I am going to take either a Cadillac Escalade or HUMMER H2, which have become a monument to America’s consumption, greed and arrogance, and convert it to a horse cart. The cart will maintain all its former glitz and glamour: chrome, rims, GPS, working sound system DVD player, and TV screens, but will be pulled by a horse.” — Jeremy Dean

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