History Main / Bizarrchitecture

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mansion Winchester Mansion]] is the fucking MostTriumphantExample of this trope in real life. You know something is messed up when there are Staircases that lead ''into the cieling''. There's also [[BeyondTheImpossible 10 THOUSAND WINDOWS.]] This is more than the Empire State Building. There's also a legion hallways that criss-cross and go nowhere. Oh, and there are multiple doors with walls behind them, multiple doors that when you open lead to absolutely ''nowhere'' and there's ''no floor.'' There's just a giant drop. And, to top it all off, there's a 44 stair case that turns 7 times and is 150 feet all to just go up ''9 feet''.

* In DanSimmons {{Hyperion}} the technology of the Farcster leads to this. THe house of Martin Silenius had stairs which lead down to a tower on an other world. The toilet was on a raft in the middle on an ocean on an other planet as well. It is mentioned that albeit very expensive it is not uncommon to have such houses.

-->M.C. Escher

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mansion Winchester Mansion]].

* The Emperor's Tomb in {{ABC Warriors}}, one section is a direct homage of Escher's Relativity.

* In [[{{Blame}} Blame!]], it's pretty much all you see, as most shots are primarily of the characters' surroundings and not the characters themselves. The scale of many shots is mind boggling, and the architectural style jumps all over the place, mainly because the place in question is a Dyson sphere called the City with an [[UnnecessarilyLargeInterior inner surface at 1 AU and an exterior at about 8 AU]]. Therefore, if a building ''can'' be built, it probably ''has'' been built in The City.
* It's mentioned on {{YuYu Hakusho}} that the person who built the [[http://www.onemanga.com/Yu_Yu_Hakusho/114/11/ House of Four Dimensions]] was paranoid, yet insanity wasn't mentioned.
** When encountering a lava pit in Maze Castle, this is {{Lampshaded}} in {{YuYu Hakusho Abridged}}

* The dueling arena in {{Revolutionary Girl Utena}}, as well as Ohtori Academy in the movie.

[[caption-width-right:300: [[KingdomHearts Going up, then down, the number of steps is different...]].]]

->''There would be one long staircase just going up & one even longer coming down''
->''And one more leading nowhere just for show...''
-->Tevye, ''FiddlerOnTheRoof''.

Can also apply to vehicles too. Compare AlienGeometries, ArtistsAreNotArchitects, BenevolentArchitecture, and MalevolentArchitecture. Taken to the extreme, this can result in a man-made EldritchLocation. If looking for [[MCEscher M.C. Escher]], head on down to TrueArtIsIncomprehensible by way of the stairwell which goes upward until it loops on itself. Also note {{Zeerust}}, as the decades around the middle 20th century contain several prominent real-life examples.

* Seen in ''{{Yu-gi-oh}}'' when inside the [[JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind Pharaohs mind]].

** The borough (house of the Weasleys) is this too, as described by Harry. It is mostly held together by magic.

* ''DwarfFortress'' can have it's titular fortresses lain out however you like; there's nothing wrong with having the barracks and apartment complex sprinkled with random tombs and burial chambers. And then we can move onto the physics, which are hilariously bent. It can start with upside-down pyramids, and quickly moves on to having entire regions completely undermined and only held up by a handful of pillars, made from soap. ''Tallow soap.'' Bizarre constructions are a right of passage amongst DF players.

* ''Die Hard'' spends a lot of time in a very common bit of Bizarre Architecture. In the real world, by the time a duct gets to where its going, they tend to be much smaller than human sized. Like eight inches in diameter ...
* The office building in ''Being John Malkovich'' contains a 7 1/2th floor with a portal into the head of John Malkovich.

* {{Inception}} runs on this trope, including a folding city and multiple instances of Escher's neverending staircase.
** This is easily explainable because every example given took place ''in a dream world'', and were played with specifically ''because'' of their real-life non-existability.
* Dracula's Castle in BramStoreksDracula is essentially this, although on outside. Apparently distorted gravity doesn't help either. Portrayal of the castle during Jonathan's escape is nothing short of Escher's works.

* The castle of the Good Magician Humfrey in the ''Xanth'' series was constructed using several plans and layouts. At command, the castle can assume a different configuration meaning few visitors see the same castle twice.

* ''Twilight Zone (1985)'': in ''Wong's Lost and Found Emporium'' the emporium manifests itself in the form of a door that appears briefly sometimes in blank walls throughout the world. Go through the door and you are in a very very large lost & found shop, with everything that anybody has ever lost.

* ''Stargate: SG-1'': In the episode ''Abyss'' season 6 episode 6, there is a jail cell where Jack O'Neill is trapped inside by a shifting gravity field that turns the wall into the floor.

* Warehouse 13 has the Escher Vault, which is, uh, ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.

** Giant Objects: The [[color:blue:house]] is a [[BiggerOnTheInside rather]] [[{{Understatement}} large]] labyrinth disguised as a [[InvertedTrope house]].

** Unlikely Foundations: The foundation of the [[color:blue:house]] stretches farther down than the diametre of the earth.

** The building we see the most is also the most bizzare: the Library. Noted for being connected to every other library and book store ''anywhere'' and ''anywhen'', the geometry is so complex that search parties sometimes have to be mounted for lost students. There's also the bit where there isn't so much a cieling, just another part of the floor with more books.