I’d say it’s common knowledge that the majority of us humans have a bit of a fascination with the macabre. Designers in particular love them some creepy things. If it’s not twisted, disturbing, or dark, we’re not interested. Considering my life long love of cemeteries and abandoned spaces, it’s no surprise I ended up in the Landscape Architecture school. I once did a project inspired by Aztec ball games that ended in ritual sacrifice. That project was a junior high school yard. Doesn’t ritual sacrifice feel so very junior high? It so does.
Anyway, here are a couple notable twisted beginnings:

VOSS by Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen was the king of turning creepy into couture. He’s done collections inspired by Jack the Ripper, the Salem witch trials and the Rape of the Highlands. But the show McQueen is most remembered for is VOSS in Spring/Summer 2001. Attendees were seated around a large glass box. The box was set to resemble a padded cell. Models came out in garments rooted in fantasy and insanity.

 

The most memorable gown from the show was made from dyed ostrich feathers and microscope glass slides painted red to evoke the image of the blood running underneath our skin.

At the end of the show, the glass walls fell, revealing a nude woman wearing a mask, surrounded by moths. Recreating this iconic Joel Peter Witkin image was one of the most groundbreaking, disturbing, wonderful, beautiful things McQueen ever did.

Joel Peter Witkin’s famous Sanatarium photograph

Santiago Calatrava and his skeletons

Calatrava is a world renowned architect and sculptor. The form of his buildings may look familiar, and that’s due to the fact that so many of them resemble skeletons. It’s said that the designer even has a dog skeleton hanging above his desk.

 

Calatrava’s first major public project, the Stadelhofen train station in Zurich is meant to resemble a rib cage.

This skyscraper in Sweden is inspired by the human spine.

This planetarium in Spain started with a sketch of an eyeball.

And here is what I’m finding particularly inspiring lately:

Feedlots by Mishka Henner
Industrial farming is gross. If I thought too much about what’s in the food we buy, I’d never eat again. But these images of factory farms taken by Mishka Henner are beyond stunning. It’s the kind of color and form that just sucks you in. I could stare at these for days.

Tacosa Feedyard, Texas

 

Randall County Feedyard, Amarillo, Texas

Coronado Feeders, Dalhart, Texas

Ossuaries

Ossuaries are essentially mass graves. But like really, really cool mass graves. Basically in places where they ran out of ground bury people in, people made these rooms covered in human skeleton pieces. They make chandeliers out of bones, coats of arms out of bones, crown molding out of bones. There are bones in the walls, bones in the floor, bones in the ceiling. Bone clock towers, bone-lined catacombs, bones bones bones! I would die to see one of these in person. (Ha! Get it? I would die. A little ossuary humor for you.)

I’ll leave you with these words by Alexander McQueen:
 

“From heaven to hell and back again, life is a funny thing. Beauty can come from the most strangest of places, even the most disgusting places.”
Now go be inspired!