The late Adam West’s role as TV’s campy yet cool Batman garnered him a permanent place in pop culture – just ask these 12 graffiti artists.

Caped crimefighters don’t come any campier than Adam West’s iconic TV Batman, and the late actor’s take on Gotham City’s kitschy caped crusader still stands cowled head and bat-suit bedecked shoulders above a host of latter day Dark Knights. Seriously, would anyone spying a streetside stencil of bat-garbed George Clooney, Michael Keaton or (gasp!) Ben Affleck be moved emotionally? It is to laugh.

Comedic pretensions aside, Adam West never played the Batman for laughs. Instead, his signature deadpan delivery – coming from a guy wearing tights and accompanied by a similarly spandex-clad “Boy Wonder” – allowed kids to take the superhero at his words while letting adults appreciate the subtle humor in between the lines. Indeed, West’s Batman would have made a great politician, amiright? Check out Flickr user Brecht Bug‘s snaps of a sticker slapped on some subterranean NYC concrete in late 2015, while Robert S was moved to photograph a similar sticker elsewhere in Brooklyn in January of 2016.

Walla Walla Wall Walker

West, born in 1928 as William West Anderson, hails from Walla Walla, Washington… which has absolutely no relation to the creative modding of the Wet Floor sign above. Kudos to Flickr user timfootman for posting the image above in August of 2011; the photographer isn’t saying whether they’re also the artist but double-kudos if do. By the way, did you know those classic scenes of Batman and Robin effortlessly scaling building walls were actually filmed flat and tilted 90 degrees? Of course you did – and we’re still not invoking any Walla Walla connection.

Gouda Grief

It’s not often a graffiti artist is also a Flickr member but here we are – with Gu (10:Gu [VDS]). The artist is apparently based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, as that’s where most if not all of his superb Batman stencil graffiti works can be found.

West’s confident, restrained grin so perfectly captured by the artist is almost Mona Lisa-esque, adding to the character’s mystique and illustrating why West’s portrayal of Batman continues to earn respect as time goes by.

Streetcorner Chalkin’

“Saw this little Adam West tribute on my jog last night,” states Imgur member Seoulfoundation of the above street art tableau. The apparently anonymous road work was posted to Imgur on June 12th of 2017, just three days after West passed away at the age of 88.

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Bam Biff Pow Street Art Showcases Adam Wests Batman

Born on October 22nd, 1920, legendary psychedelic pop culture populist Dr. Timothy Leary would have been 90 years old this year. Leary’s pioneering work on the beneficial effects of psychoactive drugs was swamped by a conservative current of fear and paranoia from above: Richard Nixon famously declared him to be “the most dangerous man in America.” Turn on, tune in, drop out… and check out Timothy Leary in words and art. The doctor is IN!

Tuning In

(images via: Thecant, Britannica.com and The Tribune)

Though he famously exhorted America’s youth to drop out, Timothy Francis Leary himself did anything but. Beginning with a stint as a cadet at West Point in 1940, Leary attended a variety of colleges and universities ending in 1950 with his receiving a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.

(image via: Madame Pickwick Art Blog)

Leary’s education was interrupted by service in World War II, when was a sergeant in the Medical Corps. Not exactly the resume one would expect from a counterculture icon but many facts about Timothy Leary’s life defied easy or logical categorization. On the other hand, Leary was forced to resign from West Point after he was found to have gotten drunk on whiskey and then lied about it, thus breaking the institution’s honor code. Leary later declared that his court-martial was “the only fair trial I’ve had in a court of law”.

(images via: The Daily Beast and Book Soup)

Post-graduation, Leary’s career rapidly progressed. He was an assistant professor at Berkeley from 1950 to 1955, then moved on to become the director of psychiatric research at the Kaiser Family Foundation until 1958.

(image via: This Day In Quotes)

Leary finally found his footing in 1959 at Harvard University, where he lectured in psychology and introduced new treatment concepts revolving around the use of psychoactive substances and compounds, many of which were legal in the early 1960s. Leary soon moved from theoretical discussion to the practical use of psychedelic drugs, which resulted in his being fired by Harvard’s management in 1963.

Turning On

(images via: Motifake and EZZAL)

Let’s take a small step back. In the summer of 1960, Leary journeyed to Mexico and tried psilocybin mushrooms for the first time. Leary later remarked that he “learned more about the brain and its possibilities, and more about psychology, in the five hours after taking these mushrooms than in the preceding 15 years of studying and doing research in psychology.”

(images via: Dangerous Minds and Telegraph UK)

Upon his return from Mexico, Leary initiated the Harvard Psilocybin Project, a research program intended to analyze and document the effects of synthetic psilocybin on human subjects who ranged from prisoners to seminary students. The most tantalizing results came from The Concord Prison Experiment, which monitored the progress of prisoners treated with psychoactive drugs once they were released back into society.

(images via: Lysergia and Technoccult)

Leary’s subjects received a combination of drug therapy directly supervised by Leary combined with social support modeled after the system used by Alcoholics Anonymous. At that time, the rate of recidivism (return to a criminal lifestyle) among U.S. prisoners was 60 percent. Prisoners who underwent Leary’s therapy recorded a much lower recidivism rate of just 20 percent, declaring that they had received a new understanding of their purpose in life.

(images via: Crucify The Ego, Home in the Holler and Wilson’s Almanac)

One can well imagine how society would have benefited if Leary’s therapy had been instituted as a standard treatment, but alas it was not to be. In 1963 the FDA and DEA began severely restricting the medical and scientific use of psychoactive drugs, regardless of their perceived benefits, and within 5 years possession of even small amounts of psychoactive drugs could (and did) result in the accused doing substantial prison time.

Dropping Out

(images via: Ian C Friedman and 60’s Further)

Booted out of Harvard and deprived of both salary and funding, Leary and his associates were given the use of a mansion in Millbrook, New York, by several heirs to the wealthy Mellon family who encouraged Leary to continue his experiments. “We saw ourselves as anthropologists from the twenty-first century inhabiting a time module set somewhere in the dark ages of the 1960s,” said Leary on the Millbrook years. “On this space colony we were attempting to create a new paganism and a new dedication to life as art.”

(images via: Step Off and Bruce Eisner’s Vision Thing)

The Millbrook mansion was continually raided by various law enforcement agencies including the local police under the impetus of district attorney G. Gordon Liddy, who later rose to prominence in the Watergate Scandal. A series of raids, arrests and drug busts in the late 1960s saw Leary sentenced to decades in prison – often reduced or thrown out on appeal as Leary and his lawyers would prove several of the laws used to convict him were unconstitutional.

(images via: Netting America, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and SVToday)

The early 1970s saw Leary in exile after escaping from a forestry and gardening detail at a lower security prison. He spent time in Algeria, Switzerland, Austria, Lebanon and Afghanistan before being arrested and flown back to the United States. “If he is allowed to travel freely, he will speak publicly and spread his ideas,” remarked the judge at Leary’s remand hearing. Sentenced to 95 years, Leary ended up in California’s Folsom Prison – at one point he was locked in the cell next to mass murderer Charles Manson.

Bouncing Back

(images via: YankeePhil, The Edge AM 1400 and CNET News)

In 1976, Leary was released by California Governor Jerry Brown – the same Jerry Brown now running for governor – and in 1982 began a lecture tour with former nemesis (and ex-con) G. Gordon Liddy. The tour was hugely successful and helped bring both Leary and Liddy back into the public eye. The renewed publicity also boosted sales of Leary’s autobiography, Flashbacks.

(images via: Motifake, Wilson’s Almanac and Abraxas 365)

Never a one-trick pony, Timothy Leary refused to be pigeonholed by his reputation. By the 1980s he had embraced the thought of space colonization while rejecting ecologists who, Leary said, were content to remain “in the fouled nest”. He also remained a fervent proponent of recreational drug use though he was firmly against drug abuse. One of favorite snacks was a marijuana bud covered with melted cheese on a cracker.

(image via: Corazonada)

Leary was an early exponent of virtual reality, cyberculture and the Internet, describing the latter as “the LSD of the 1990s” and he set up one of the very first websites – which is still online. He also maintained his strong interest in space exploration and was thrilled by the prospect of having his ashes shot into space. When told that the capsule containing his ashes would eventually fall from orbit and burn up in the atmosphere, Leary was enthusiastic: “Finally, I’ll be a space pioneer, and everyone will know: That will be me. I will be the light.”

Checking Out

(images via: Tau Zero, Answers.com and Lycaeum)

In early 1995, Leary was diagnosed with inoperable prostate cancer. Not surprisingly, he embraced his looming death as an experience to be explored and shared. In his remaining months, weeks and days, Leary met with thousands of well-wishers, gave interviews, and renewed old friendships.

(images via: Audiovisualizers, Travelpod and Metroactive)

Some of the best known photographs and images of Leary come from this time of his life, as if the great counterculture guru had decided that life was more about giving than taking. Even as the cancer spread, diminishing his quality of life and causing him to lose weight, Leary remained open to those who sought his guidance or at least, his famously mischievous smile. The black & white photo below was taken by Michael Maloney in San Francisco, where Leary had come to promote an exhibition of LSD blotter paper art

(image via: Michael Maloney Photography)

Leary’s final journey (or at least, the prelude to it) was made into the 1996 documentary film Timothy Leary’s Dead. On May 31st, 1996, as the end quickly approached, Leary arranged for his dying moments to be videotaped for posterity and according to bedside witnesses, his last words were “Beautiful… Beautiful… Why? Why? Why? Why not?!l”

(images via: Kenny Shackleford, SharedMP3.net and Dominoes)

“Timothy Leary’s dead. No, no no no, he’s outside, looking in.” Leary was said to have liked “Legend Of A Mind”, the first song recorded for the Moody Blues’ 1968 album In Search Of The Lost Chord. Released at the height of sixties psychedelia, the song endures as a homage to the man who some say was never born, never died, just visited our planet for a while. We sure could use another visit right about now, wouldn’t you agree? Happy Birthday, good doctor!

Evoking images of flying saucers, interplanetary space pods and science fiction futurism, the Futuro house offered homeowners a chance to live in the future without ever leaving their front yards. Finnish architect Matti Suuronen designed the Futuro house in 1968 but only 96 of the fiberglass-reinforced polyester plastic pods were produced over a 5-year period – killed by the 1973 Oil Crisis that tripled the price of plastics. Today, roughly half of the ellipsoid structures have been accounted for and their iconic design has made them a favorite of pop culture collectors, retrofuturism fans and all those who appreciate the impact of 1960s Space Age style.

From Finland It Came

(images via: Artificial Owl, International Day and Discover Interior Design)

The Futuro house was the brainchild of Matti Suuronen, one of a number of Finnish architects and designers who garnered wide recognition for futuristic, post-modern structures and consumer goods. Along with Alvar Aalto, Eero Saarinen and Viljo Revell, visionary architects like Suuronen put Finland on the map when it came to futuristic, and, well, fantastic expressions of the post-modernist ethos.

(image via: Yu-Lin Chan)

Explaining his architectural philosophy in a 1957 speech, Alvar Aalto said, “We should work for simple, good, undecorated things, but things which are in harmony with the human being and organically suited to the little man in the street.” Toronto’s city hall, which was designed by Revell and opened in 1967, is shown above.

Design Ahead Of Its Time

(images via: ArcSpace and Zentropolis)

Airport terminals and city halls are one thing, homes for the “little man” are quite another. That’s where Matti Suuronen comes in, along with his iconic Futuro house. Measuring 10 feet (3 meters) high, 26 feet (8 meters) in diameter and perched upon a sturdy 4-legged steel base, the Futuro house could house a very small family in a pinch or several modules could serve different domestic functions. The basic design is a simple one, as can be noted by the consistency of Suuronen’s vision from the very first hand-drawn renderings.

(image via: Ektroverde)

The finished product proves the practicality of Suuronen’s design. The shape and form are timeless – with its “egg on an egg cup” format, the Futuro house looks as good today as it did in 1968.

Building For Tomorrow, Today

(images via: Populuxe and Skor-NL)

The Futuro house wasn’t built like other houses of the day; instead it was prefabricated in a factory. The first Futuro prototype, painted white, exited the Polykem plant in Hiekkaharju, Finland in late March of 1968. Production models (the first one being painted yellow) began coming off the line soon after.

Moving House

(images via: S de AC, Amy Antonio and Zentropolis)

Originally intended to be prefab ski cabins, Futuro houses were basically picked up at Polykem and set down on the desired plot of snowy land. Erm, it helped to have either a helicopter or a crane – or both – to do the picking up and dropping off.

Futuro-scapes

(images via: Futuro-House, Pour 15 Minutes d’Amour and San Diego Union)

The otherworldly appearance of the Futuro house makes it a popular subject for photographers. Finding a suitable scenic vista is often made easier by Futuro owners for whom the UFO look is to be accentuated to the max.

Windows Of The Soul

(images via: Zentropolis and Mechafushigi)

Some Futuro houses came with an extra set of 2 or 4 windows, which are undoubtedly attractive and probably help to reduce any feelings of claustrophobia. Arachnophobia, not so much.

Look Out For The Futuro

(images via: Amy Antonio, Eichler Network and Zentropolis)

It may have looked odd on the outside but from inside it looked even… odder. Futuro promotional brochures from the late 1960’s attempts to portray regular (ok, very groovy) people in average situations – in a very un-average home.

(images via: Hooked On Houses, P.S.1 and Christchurch Modern)

Photographic representations from a more recent date show off the Futuro’s spacey and surprisingly spacious interior.

Ramping It Up

(images via: Eichler Network, Artificial Owl and Sellsius Realestate)

An important – critical, actually – facet of the Futuro’s design was the airliner-style extendable ramp that unfolded out from the home’s outer hull. Once homeowners climb aboard and reel in the ramp, the Futuro exposes a practically seamless exterior that not only looks great, but also enhances security.

The Futuro Of New Jersey

(images via: Lost In Jersey and Stu Of Doom)

Sometimes even the coolest designs fall prey to their surroundings, and that’s the case with this Futuro house located in Franklin Park, NJ. Judging from the verdant undergrowth the home has been in place for some time, though it’s unknown when the owner decided to heck with the entry/exit ramp and built the incongruously traditional front foyer. I’m not here to judge, though… what happens in Jersey, stays in Jersey.

Pensacola Beach’s Spaceship House

(images via: C-Monster and Roadside America)

The so-called Spaceship House is currently the Pensacola Beach Preservation and Historical Society’s headquarters. Having survived Hurricane Ivan and Hurricane Dennis with nary a scratch, the southern Florida Futuro house sits atop a more traditional blockhouse structure with a permanent ramp to ground level.

Back To The Futuro

(images via: Futuro-House, Virgin Media and The Shopping Sherpa)

Here are some other views of classic Futuro houses uncluttered by later add-ons and appurtenances. With 300 square feet of living space inside they indeed may be small, but wouldn’t it be cool to keep one in the backyard, maybe as a home theater?

This video provides a deeper look at the Futuro house along with a text narration of the Futuro’s story from beginning to end. It’s accompanied by complementary cool mood music, “La Femme d’Argent” (The Silver Lady) by Air.

(image via: Peggie Scott)

In 1998, Finnish film director Mika Taanila made a documentary film titled “Futuro – A New Stance For Tomorrow”. If the video piqued your interest than this film is a must-see.

(image via: Westgate Street)

The Futuro house epitomizes Space Age style, a period of optimistic, futuristic aesthetics that roughly coincided with the first great burst of space exploration. From the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite in late 1957 to the end of the U.S.’s Apollo moon missions in 1972, earthbound designers let their creative spirits soar into orbit – and we gladly went along for the ride. Though ultimately short on practicality, the Futuro house satisfied our longing for better lives in a brighter future!