This is our top pick for the 10 most interesting buildings from around the world. Criteria considered: strange, bizarre, unexpected architecture – buildings that make you stay, take a moment, and imagine their story.

1. The Crooked House (Sopot, Poland)

Bult in 2004, this crazy looking building is situated in Sopot, at Bohaterów Monte Cassino Street. The architecture of the  building is based on drawings by Jan Marcin Szancer and Per Dahlberg. It’s a popular tourist destination and inside are a number of pubs and restaurants, and it  is the most photographed building in Poland (no wonder).

2. The Basket Building (Ohio, United States)

The Longaberger Basket Company building in Newark, Ohio is 2nd most strangest building in the world ! The 180,000-square-foot building is a replica of the company’s famous market basket, cost $30 million and took two years to complete. I guess the CEO of the company who envisioned this building can now rest assure that all employees are ‘touched’ by the product.

3. Cubic Houses (Rotterdam, Netherlands)

The original idea of these cubic houses came about in the 1970s. Piet Blom developed a couple of these cubic houses that were built in Helmond. The city of Rotterdam asked him to design housing on top of a pedestrian bridge and he decided to use the cubic houses idea. Blom’s vision was to create a kind of village. Now you can still see the shops on the ground floor, while upstairs families live in strange-shaped little homes.

4. Forest Spiral – Hundertwasser Building (Darmstadt, Germany)

This building is called “Forest Spiral” and it’s located in Darmstadt, Germany. Its designer is Friedensreich Hundertwasser , and was built in  between 1998 and 2000.  The architect is renowned for his colorful designs which incorporate irregular, organic forms in an incomparable individualism. The structure of the altogether 12 floors has 105 apartments’. The roof is formed by a garden of beech, maple, and lime trees.

5. Dancing Building (Prague, Czech Republic)

This interesting building was constructed between 1992-1996, and is somewhat of a rarity in Prague: a modern, glass building surrounded by historic architecture. Dancing House has daring, curvy outlines, which led its architects, Vlado Milunc and the American Frank O Gehry, to initially name it the “Astaire & Rogers Building”, after the legendary dance duo. Like-minded Czechs tend to call it The Dancing Building, while less appreciative viewers have names for it like: “terrible“ and “looks like a crushed can of Coke“ to name but a few. Ouch!

6. Erwin Wurm: House Attack (Viena, Austria)

On number 6 we have Erwin Wurm – House Attack; it was a temporary installation during the Erwin Wurm exhibition in the end of 2006. This building is an outdoor sculpture at the Museum Moderner Kunst (MuMoK) in Vienna. Architects: Ortner & Ortner, 1998–2001.

7. Kansas City Public Library (Missouri, United States)

The  impressive bookshelf covering the Kansas City Public Library parking garage is definitely our pick for number 7. The 480-car garage, at 10th Street and Baltimore Avenue, was completed in 2004. Its south façade looks like a giant’s book shelf, with 22 nearly 30-foot tall book spines sandwiched between glass-surrounded stairwells made to look like bookends. Designed for the people, for a real library experience. Nice!

8. Hang Nga Guesthouse/ Crazy House (Vietnam)

The famous attraction in Dalat, often called The Crazy House, is a bizarre network of caves, cubbyholes and hidden stairwells, with precarious bridges leading from one concrete tree house to another. It was designed by eccentric architect Hang Nga, also the daughter of former president Truong Chinh. Most tourists leave before dark, but if you like it you can rent a room there, and you may expect to go to sleep with the giant girafe’s red eyes on your window. BOOO!

9. Beijing National Stadium (Beijing, China)

The Beijing National Stadium is a sports arena built to prepare for the 2008 Olympics. Because of its characteristic appearance, it is also known as the Bird’s Nest Stadium. The $423 million stadium (according to Wikipedia) is the world’s largest steel structure, as you probably already know. However, after the Olympics the stadium has not found significant use, and it seems that it will be transformed in a shopping-events area.

10. Nautilus House (Mexico City, Mexico)

Built using mainly chicken wire & concrete, this quite unique home claims to not only be earthquake proof but also maintenance free. Inside, the Nautilus House is all about smooth surfaces & gleaming bathroom fixtures. Nautilus Shell House was build for a Mexico City couple by Javier Senosiain, and we could not end this list in more wacky way

So people, how many of them have you seen up to now? What other wacky buildings do you know?