As proud, card carrying members of the creative class, we know all to well that finding original and intelligent inspiration can be tough, especially in a world where even the most obscure references are a few expert keystrokes away. Yes, keeping up with a well-edited Tumblr dashboard is enough to make your head spin, but still, it’s no excuse for lazy, uninspired design. As with anything, there’s the bad, the ugly, and then, there’s the unforgivable. Let us warn you dear readers: the architecture you are about to see falls definitively in to the latter category.
From a hotel intentionally designed to look like a commonplace salt shaker to the worst, larger than life representation of a fish we’ve ever seen, click through to check out our irreverent roundup of unfortunate design inspiration. Then, take the opportunity to pass a little anonymous judgement and nominate your picks in the comments below!
Holiday Inn inspired by a sugar shaker — Townsville, Australia
Image credit: City Noise; Alibaba
Asahi Building inspired by a human sperm — Tokyo, Japan
Image credit: Michael John Grist; best pictures of
National Fisheries Development Board regional office building inspired by a fish — Hyderabad, India
Image credit: NCSX; Free Pet Wallpapers
Chang Building inspired by an elephant — Bangkok, Thailand
Image credit: List25; Thomas Schoch
Fang Yuan Da Sha inspired by an ancient Chinese coin — Shenyang, China
Image credit: Derek Good Good Study; Wen Tai Sun
Diagonal Towers inspired by a hashtag — Seoul, Korea
Image credit: SOM via e-architect; Media Funnel
De Young Museum inspired by a Jawa Sandcrawler — San Francisco, California
Image credit: Abe Kleinfeld; Light Speed Gaming
Apartment building inspired by a strip of film — Malaga, Spain
Image credit: Tracy Benjamin
Piano Violin House — Huainan, China
Image credit: Marijn van den Brink ; Buy A Piano
AT&T Building inspired by Batman — Nashville, Tennessee
Image credit: Dorothy Thayer; Muddy Colors
Namba Park Tower inspired by a Sony Playstation 3 — Osaka, Japan
Image credit: engadget; crazy-frankenstein
Zayed National Museum inspired by a pair of wings — Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Image credit: Fabiano Friedrich; Rachel Snack