december-2010

Facts
figures +
Inverted abode
114 days
Polish architect Daniel
Czapiewski designed an
upside-down house in the
tiny village of Szymbark to
‘symbolise the decline of the
modern world’. His previous
projects took just three weeks
to build, but workers were
confused by these plans, so
construction took 114 days.
24 Holland Herald
Blank canvas
570 gallons
To keep the White House
looking, well, white,
requires 570 gallons of
paint. The mammoth
landmark requires a
brush-up every ten
years, and it takes more
than 45 people to tackle
the job.
Tailored tune
1 Neil Young T-shirt
Infamous tune Sweet
Home Alabama was sung
by Lynyrd Skynyrd in
retaliation to Neil Young’s
Southern Man. Skynyrd felt
Young’s song implied
that Southern American
folk were racist and
stuck in the past, so
felt an urge to set
the record straight
with this ‘70s hit.
But the feud was
good-natured and
Skynyrd even wore
Neil Young T-shirts
to later concerts.
€21 million squat
HOME
‘‘At home
I am a nice guy:
but I don’t want
the world to know.
Humble people,
I’ve found,
don’t get
very far’’
Muhammad Ali, boxer
With views over central Paris and a ballroom that has seen 17thcentury
aristocrats rubbing shoulders, 1b Place de Vosges, is an
unlikely squat. But this €21,000,000 mansion currently houses a
32-strong squatting community. ‘My father was a shopkeeper in
the Pyrenees and my mother a Yugoslav gypsy,’ says Stéphane
Roques, one of the free-spirited members who has transformed
this 403-year-old historic monument into a seriously bling pad.