Instead of gargoyles, grotesques or ornate decorative details, this somewhat silly facade expresses an array of emotions through circular icons familiar to anyone with a smartphone or social media account.

Located in suburban Vathorst near Amersfoort, this design by Attika Architekten (images by Bart van Hoek) looks quite conventional at a glance. At each level, horizontal rows of light concrete break up stacks of dark brick and divide the tops and bottoms of windows.

Upon closer inspection, however, the mixed-use project has a detail that varies from one location to the next — round faces featuring a broad range of emotional states and attitudes.

“In classical architecture they used heads of the king or whatever, and they put that on the façade,” explains the architect. “So we were thinking, what can we use as an ornament so when you look at this building in 10 or 20 years you can say ‘hey this is from that year!’.” If nothing else, they seem to have hit that target.

“The cast concrete characters express a range of familiar emoji emotions, including the classic sad and happy styles, the instantly-recognizable kissing face, and the much-loved heart eyes personality.”

Formally speaking, this decor adds a layer of interstitial detail often found in early Modern architecture urban architecture (derived historically from Gothic influences). It adds an element that spans the fine grain of the brick columns and otherwise featureless and monolithic concrete rows.

Whether or not these emoticons will look funny, cool, creative, unique, dated or all of the above in a few decades remains to be seen. Still, it is certainly is a fun way to think about decor in the post-Postmodern world where rote historicism has become a thing of the past.

An unusual collection of found-object art in Chichibu, Japan is home to nearly 2000 rocks that naturally feature what appear to be facial expressions.

A jinmenseki (or: rock with human face) can look like anything from an abstract emoji to a famous figure, including ones in this array that are purported to resemble Donkey Kong, Nemo and Elvis Presley.

The founder of the museum, Shozo Hayama, passed away after 50 years of collecting and left the space and its collection to his wife Hayama six years ago. The key criteria: nature is the only artist in the mix (no modified rocks allowed).

Some of the rocks are named while others simply set on the shelves, left open to interpretation. Visitors can simply show up but are advised to call ahead since the hours of opening are not entirely consistent or predictable (h/t Spoon & Tamago).

Artist Nikita Nomerz is giving abandoned buildings and structures in Russian cities a new look… and the eerily expressive edifices are looking back!

Hailing from the northwestern Russian city of Nizhniy Novgorod, Nikita Nomerz cut his artistic teeth in the field of hip-hop graffiti. For the past few years, however, his focus has been on street art of a different sort. Nomerz gets his inspiration from the buildings and structures he paints, seeing the inner “soul” of the edifice much as a sculptor imagines the finished statue before the first chip of the chisel. “The Big Brother”, above, is one of Nomerz’ earliest such works dating from 2010. The lowest of the three images was taken in April of 2015 – darned graffiti artists!

“When you are doing street art, you create a dialogue with passersby, architecture, nature and with other artists,” explains Nomerz. “Maybe on streets, art is not so durable, but it’s for real alive. Works which has been done on the streets are living their own life.” Since not everyone can see the life still couched within these derelict structures, Nomerz employs his own talent and creativity to bring it to the forefront.

Since 2010, Nomerz has been engaged in a wide-ranging project he calls The Living Wall. From St. Petersburg eastward to the Chinese border city of Mudanjiang, Nomerz has left his mark – often quite a large mark – upon cities and towns in need of a little extra character. The bizarrely disturbing piece above is titled The Glutton; the striking installation below, The Chinese Residents. The latter stands out for NOT being created on an abandoned structure.

Nomerz’ main medium is spray paint but in some of his works, a little added plaster and some shifting of stone and/or brickwork is performed to enhance the composition. It’s startling how a row of decaying bricks can approximate a grinning mouth, as seen on The Toothy Man above – no doubt the building’s original constructors would be shocked at the transformation!

If the eyes are the windows of the soul, then the windows of abandoned buildings must be… OK, let’s not go there. Nomerz has no qualms about bringing out the inherent “personalities” of his inanimate subjects, mind you.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Artist Nikita Nomerz Gives Russian Buildings A New Look

Covering two sides of a three-story building in Rome, this ground-to-roof artwork is massive, even by the standards of a big-thinking street artist like BLU used to large-scale works.

Various window and door openings are incorporated into colorful characters with a” rainbow range of painted personalities,” some of which play off of the existing architectural details or structural quirks of the building.

BLU lives in Bologna and has been active in the street art scene since 1999 – he is well-known for his large-scale works around the world. Like Banksy, he keeps his identity a closely-guarded secret.

About the artist: “His graphic mania is directly proportional to the epic scale of his murals. His paintings seem to interpret the architectural language of public spaces and reinvent them into new shapes. Thus, his murals are never detached from the places where they were conceived because Blu is a painter in the landscape, urban or industrial. He always tries to communicate with the society which inhabits those spaces, searching for the uniqueness of each place.”