6 Impressive Works of Architecture in the Middle of Nowhere

Photographer Kaupo Kikkas has friends that know where to hide the bodies. When one offered to "show him something interesting," Kikkas agreed. Luckily, instead of waking up in a shallow grave, he wound up standing in the middle of the desert, staring at row after row of folding theater seats, patiently waiting to be stickily christened with soda and Skittles. This is the End of the World Cinema, the theater where Mad Max goes to watch chick flicks free of judging eyes.

Over a decade ago, some well-to-do French guy decided that Heat Death, Egypt, was the perfect place to build a cinema. So he had the seats, projection equipment, and a generator trucked in. Truly, he was ready to live the fever-dream. It wasn't meant to be, however; on opening night, the generator mysteriously failed due to what we have to assume was a pharaoh's curse, and the theater has been left to dry rot ever since. Sadly, the screen no longer stands. So all you have to watch is the gentle undulation of the sand devils.

But you should still go check it out. We know it's astronomically unlikely, but what if some poor tourist was out there exploring -- all dehydrated and scared, but still kind of awestruck at the brutal majesty of nature -- when he crests that last insurmountable ridge ... and finds you and your friends sitting in a post-apocalyptic movie theater, munching sandy popcorn and clapping for scorpions.

Nobody would ever believe him.

In the 1950s, everything was a race between America and Russia. So when the U.S. built a research station at the South Pole, the Soviets one-upped us by building one at the pole of inaccessibility -- aka the spot in Antarctica that is the farthest from the ocean and therefore the most difficult to reach. After presumably waving their dicks in the general direction of Uncle Sam until they froze solid, the Russians mustered up just a little bit more spite and slapped Lenin's head atop the whole affair.

The Soviets didn't stay there long, but their ramshackle "research station" remains. Of course, it was eventually buried by years of arctic winds and snowfall. Today, only the bust is visible above the frozen tundra, just waiting to confuse the holy shit out of the next alien parasite to stumble across it.

Driving along Route 90 in Texas looks like you took a left turn into a John Wayne flick. Sand, tumbleweed, dead lizard, vulture, high-end handbag store, coyote, telephone pole -- one of these things is not like the others.

And that's kind of the entire point. The store is actually an art installation, and while it does have a full stock of actual Prada merchandise, it's lacking in other business essentials, such as cash registers. Or a door. The artists' intent was for it to slowly degrade as the Texas environment has its brutal way with it -- and the locals have been happy to help the environment along by way of repeatedly vandalizing the place.

He opened the first underwater sculpture park in 2006 off the coast of Grenada, and soon after that expanded to Cancun, where drunken, sunburnt tourists are encouraged to rent some scuba gear and browse the subaquatic gallery while glubbing pretentious neologisms into their facemasks.

If you're wondering why deep-sixing the sculptures doesn't completely destroy them after a bit, well, this is one of those "art things." By building with pH-neutral, environmentally friendly media, Taylor hopes to help the environment by encouraging marine life to live in and grow on his creations. And if this all seems a little boring, take heart! As the coral slowly consumes the sculptures, they transform from lame old humans into something straight out of Resident Evil.

So come, don your fragile gear, plunge into a hostile environment, and explore the undersea horror garden!

It ... could probably use a better tagline.

It was originally built in the '80s by a man named John Hay, who intended it to serve as a bomb shelter after he watched an apocalyptic movie and became convinced that the end was nigh. After presumably watching some Care Bears, Hay changed his mind and realized everything was going to be OK, so he decided to sell his nuke-proof hobbit hole. It has since been remodeled into a hotel where guests are free to live out their fantasies of being the Morlock 1 percent.

Though the lodge's only architect was God (as Hay put it), Man has improved upon this divine construction by adding running water, heating, and all the luxurious furnishings that ore can buy.

Quiet, luxurious, remote, safe from nuclear Armageddon, and probably only, like, a one-in-three chance of digging too deep and freeing a Balrog. What more could you ask for in a vacation destination?

Congratulations! You've just bashed your face on the Viaduct Petrobras. Built in the '60s as part of the Rio-Santos Highway, it was later abandoned when officials decided a more coastal route was better, because apparently Brazil is McConaughey-levels of chill about their highway engineering projects. It still stands today, like a set from a post-apocalyptic film, just waiting for you to come and jump all over it.

That's right: you can book yourself an "adventure tour" here, during which you can rappel right off the side of the viaduct. Presumably while shooting twin Airsoft pistols and screaming terrible action-hero puns, if you're anything like us.

Eric Yosomono writes about the strange buildings of Japan for Gaijinass.com.

For more things we never saw coming, check out 8 Celebrities Who Are Great at the Last Thing You'd Expect and 6 Famous Artists You Didn't Know Were Perverts.