Around the world, there are endless amazing skyscrapers and iconic landmarks, but some are famous for more than their impressive designs or record-breaking credentials. From historic buildings that have tilted and shifted over time, to carefully crafted modern masterpieces balancing in mid-air, these are the world's wonkiest structures – and you'll be amazed they're still standing!
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Located in Suzhou city in China, the Tiger Hill Pagoda, also known as the Yunyan Pagoda, has a history that goes back over 1,000 years. Construction began in 907 CE and was completed in 961 CE, during the Song Dynasty. As the oldest and largest pagoda in the region, it is an important symbol of Chinese architecture, history and art.
The eight-sided tower is 154 feet (47m) tall and was built entirely from bricks. Weighing an estimated 1,039,322 stone (6,600t), the pagoda leans to the north by about 3.5 degrees, or 7.5 feet (2.3m). It's thought this is due to the cracking of supporting columns and the "forces of nature," travel blog 7Wonders.org suggests.
In 1957, efforts were made to stabilise the tower by pumping concrete into the soil to strengthen the foundations. It was partially repaired again in 1981, when concrete piles were driven into the ground around the pagoda. No doubt further work will be needed in the future.
The Dutch city of Amsterdam is renowned for its elaborate series of canals (around 200 in total) and beautiful, skinny townhouses with unique gabled façades. The majority were built during the city’s Golden Age in the 17th century by wealthy merchants. They served as family homes, as well as workshops or warehouses.
While the houses are impressive and perfectly symmetrical, many of them are now leaning or significantly lopsided. That's because the city was built on "wooden piles on soft and marshy ground, which is not the most stable foundation," Netherlands tourism blog AboutNL explains.
To combat instability, builders used wooden piles to support the homes. However, over time, these piles sink or shift, causing buildings to bow or tilt. The tilting can also be put down to the changing water levels in the city. When the water level drops, the wooden piles are exposed to oxygen, leading to rotting.
This decay affects the foundations, causing the entire house to lean to one side. Luckily though, since the houses are positioned so close together, they hold each other up and prevent collapsing. The properties have fondly been nicknamed the "Dancing Houses" in honour of their constant movement.
The idyllic English village of Lavenham, Suffolk, is full to bursting with gorgeous, half-timbered medieval cottages, painted in rainbow hues. Historic and undoubtedly charming, many of the structures in the village are wonky – and not by design.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, Lavenham was one of the richest places in the country, thanks to the wool trade. Wealthy merchants began building houses quickly, often using green wood that hadn't properly dried.
As the timber frame of the houses dried, they began to warp. By the time this happened, Lavenham’s wool industry was in decline. The merchants were left with no money to rebuild the houses and soon abandoned them. Today, they are beloved family homes and it isn't hard to see their appeal, but no doubt they require a lot of maintenance work!
The village acted as Godric’s Hollow in the blockbuster movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 and De Vere House (pictured) starred as Harry's birthplace – and the spot where his first encounter with Lord Voldemort went down.
However, The Crooked House is by far the most famous leaning structure in Lavenham. As iconic as it is historic, the property is one of the world’s most photographed homes and was built in 1395, as part of a grand hall house for a wealthy wool merchant.
It's thought that it was the inspiration for the old English nursery rhyme ‘There was a Crooked Man’ and over the past 600 years, has hosted various VIPs, including Queen Elizabeth I and John Lennon.
Much like the other leaning homes in the village, The Crooked House is lopsided due to the materials used to construct it and the speed with which it was built. The iconic structure was bought by Alex and Oli, AKA the Crooked Men, in 2020. The pair had visited the building in 2018 when it was a tea room and immediately fell in love.
Two years later, the house was listed for sale and the couple snapped it up, spending the next 18 months restoring it. Today, they host black tie dinners and immersive tours of the property, using the money to preserve and protect the important British building.
When you think about wonky buildings, the Leaning Tower of Pisa might be the very first thing you imagine. Perhaps the most famous askew structure in the world, the tower is part of the Campo dei Miracoli cathedral complex in Pisa, Italy, and was constructed between 1173 and 1372, meaning it took around 200 years to be finished, mainly thanks to various wars.
Although it was designed to be straight, the tower started to lean before it was even finished, due to soft ground that couldn't support the structure's weight.
The 187-foot (57m) tower has eight floors and features impressive marble arches. A 251-step spiral staircase leads up to the top, where a bell chamber can be found. Amazingly, the top of the tower is about "17 feet (5m) off the vertical," according to the official website, and is slightly curved “from the attempts by various architects to keep it from leaning more or falling over."
In the 1920s, the foundations were injected with cement grouting that stabilised the tower to some extent and due to the structure's instability, today, only 30 people are allowed inside at any one time.
While the Leaning Tower of Pisa might be the world's most famous slanted tower, another which (accidentally) leans almost as far is the one that's attached to Suurhusen Church in Hinte, Germany. The tower is just under 90 feet (27m) tall and has an overhang of eight feet (2.4m). That’s equivalent to an angle of almost 5.2 degrees, according to the Niedersachsen tourism website.
The church was built in the middle of the 13th century and the tower was added in 1450. Constructed on wooden foundations laid on unstable and wet soil, the tower slowly began to lean to one side.
Several attempts were made to stop the tower from moving any further but it was closed to the public in 1975 for safety reasons. It reopened a decade later after it was stabilised and today, the tower is open for free guided tours, but visitors are asked to donate a little to help with its preservation. The church leaders even have a monthly newsletter they call "The Crooked Church Leaf".
Guinness World Records declared the tower the furthest-leaning manmade building in the world in 2007 but it was soon knocked off the top spot by a brand-new skyscraper, which we'll discover later on...
According to The Guinness World Book of Records, the farthest-leaning church tower, verified in 2022, is the Gau-Weinheim Bell Tower with a tilt of 5.4 degrees.
Originally part of a fortress built around the cemetery and village church, the tower was converted to a bell tower and given a baroque roof in the 18th century and received a significant renovation in 1991.
According to UK newspaper The Times, the village crowdfunded the money to enter the tower into the famed records, hoping that it would put the place on the map and encourage tourists to “taste our wonderful wine”.
Despite its dramatic lean, the Gau-Weinheim belltower still plays an active part in village life: the bell peals at 11am, 1pm and 6pm each day.
Upon seeing the tumbling architecture of Little Moreton Hall for the first time in 1990, reports claim engineers "could not believe their eyes" and it isn’t hard to see why! Described by UK preservation organisation the National Trust as a “topsy-turvy Tudor house,” the building's crooked walls and sloping floors have defied logic for over 500 years.
Located in the English town of Congleton in Cheshire, the historic home was constructed from a timber frame and there is also an Elizabethan-style knot garden, enclosed by a scenic moat.
It’s long been suggested that the building’s uneven form is due to the marshy ground upon which the property was built. However, the National Trust confirmed that trial hole excavations proved the grounds to be dry and instead, suggest that the movement of the building is probably the result of late extensions, added without provision being made to support the additional load. The distortion of the interior ceilings can be put down to rotting oak beams.
The National Trust is committed to the building's preservation and invites visitors to explore the hall's lopsided walls, floors and ceilings for themselves.
Nestled in the heart of Ulm, a German city filled with early Renaissance and Gothic architecture, this impressive building is aptly named. Schiefes Haus translates to 'crooked house' and dates all the way back to the year 1406. Today, it's a popular hotel and is also the most photographed structure in the city. It isn't difficult to understand why!
In 1443, the house was extended in the late Gothic style. While the north wall sat on steady gravel, the south wall was positioned on less firm ground, so as the foundations on this side of the house slowly gave way, the property moved with it, sinking into a tilted shape. To save it from further decline, the house was supported by three additional pillars and the wooden south wall was replaced by stone in the mid-17th century.
Despite these efforts, the house has continued to tilt and turn on the south side, likely due to moisture issues in the roof and the extreme weight of the first floor that had been filled up to counterbalance the tilt. The property was last restored in 1995, but no doubt more maintenance will be needed in the future.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa isn't the only off-kilter landmark in Italy. In fact, the city of Bologna is home to two rather impressive leaning towers. The Two Towers were constructed during the Middle Ages, between 1109 and 1119, by rival families. They were even named after them, Garisenda and Asinelli. It's believed they were constructed to showcase the status, wealth and power of the families.
Surprisingly, 157-foot-tall (48m) Garisenda is leaning by around four degrees, more than Pisa's famous tower, while the taller 318-foot-tall (97m) Asinelli is off-centre by 1.3 degrees. The leaning is caused by unstable grounds and the earth below the towers gave way soon after construction.
Now, city officials have closed Garisenda in an attempt to prevent the ancient tower from collapsing. It's thought that reinforcement works could take as many as 10 years and cost the city €20 million, or £16.7 million ($21.8m).
Imagine paying millions of dollars for a luxurious apartment in a brand-new skyscraper, only for the building to start sinking into the ground. Well, that's exactly what the residents of San Francisco's Millennium Tower have faced. The glitzy, 58-storey, 646-foot (197m) condominium building was designed by Gary Handel of Handel Architects and opened its doors in 2009.
VIPs including elite athletes and tech magnets began snapping up the tower's 400 pricey apartments. But less than 10 years after the £577 million ($750m) building was finished, it began to sink into the “soft soil and landfill of San Francisco’s dense financial district,” according to UK newspaper The Guardian.
In fact, it’s thought to have dropped by 16 inches (40cm) so far and is now tilting a staggering 29 inches (74cm) at the northwest corner of Fremont and Mission streets. Despite a £77 million ($100m) effort to embed 52 support piles in the surrounding bedrock to bolster the towering skyscraper on two sides, it continued to move during the repair works, sinking a further inch in a matter of months.
The building's engineer, Ron Hamburger, claimed that it continues to "settle at a rate of about one-half inch (1.3cm) per year" and to tilt about three inches (7.6cm) per year. The unhappy residents of the wonky tower are said to have issued a lawsuit against the building’s developers.
Prague's Dancing House, or Tančící dům in the Czech language, is just one of the city's incredible pieces of architecture. It was designed by Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunić and construction began in September 1994.
A fine example of deconstructivism, a postmodern architectural movement, the non-traditional property caused a fair amount of controversy when it first opened since it was so different to the Gothic, Baroque and Art Nouveau buildings found across the rest of Prague.
The building was originally named Fred and Ginger, after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and was designed to resemble a pair of dancers. Its unusual, sloping shape is supported by 99 concrete panels of various shapes and dimensions.
The nine-storey structure is home to a hotel, several public spaces, a modern French restaurant and an art gallery that supports young Czech artists. Love it or hate it, there's no denying it's distinctive!
In 1976, Montreal hosted the Summer Olympic Games and for the job, the Canadian city needed a brand-new stadium. French architect, Roger Taillibert, was tasked with designing the structure and what he came up with ended up being truly iconic.
Described as an "elliptical structure of precast concrete components" by design website Architectural Record, it features a retractable Kevlar roof, hanging on cables from a leaning, 541-foot-tall (165m) tower. Leaning 45 degrees, the unusual tower is the ultimate cantilever and remains firmly in place thanks to precision engineering and complex geometry.
Despite its intended purpose, the tower wasn't finished until 1987, more than a decade after the Games had finished, due to construction problems and enormous cost overruns. With an original budget of CA$113 million (£63m/$82m), it ballooned to an estimated CA$770 million (£430m/$559m), earning the stadium the nickname 'the Big Owe.'
In 1987, Guinness World Records named the structure the tallest manmade leaning tower in the world. Sadly, the tower sat vacant for 30 years but has now been transformed into an observatory, offering jaw-dropping views of the city. Now, the stadium's roof is in need of repair – a project estimated to cost CA$870 million (£485m/$631m).
The Ettamogah Pub is located in the Australian city of Albury, New South Wales, and was built by businessman, Lindsay Cooper, between 1986 and 1987. He aimed to create a fun, themed family restaurant that would become an iconic tourist attraction.
Cooper was inspired by the work of Ken Maynard, who started drawing the fictional Ettamogah Pub in 1959, for his regular cartoon column in the Australasian Post.
Unlike most of the wonky structures on our list, the Ettamogah Pub was designed to be off-kilter. The timber building has a distinctive architectural style, with sloping walls and a quirky interior, true to the original cartoon.
A great success, the restaurant was soon franchised and now exists in various parts of Australia, including Sydney and Cunderdin in Western Australia. In May 2019, the original building landed on the market, with a guide price of AUD$3 million, which is £1.5 million ($2m).
A modern marvel, Capital Gate in Abu Dhabi has been nicknamed the "leaning tower of the Middle East". The skyscraper was designed by RMJM and construction started in 2007 and was completed four years later.
Set at an inclination of 18 degrees, about five times the angle of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the building is almost 525 feet (160m) high, has 35 storeys and features 728 custom-made glass panels, designed to fit its unusual shape.
In 2010, Guinness World Records declared Capital Gate the world's farthest manmade leaning building, knocking the church tower of Suurhusen off the top spot.
The original aim of the engineers and architects wasn't to build the tallest building in the world, but to “challenge the rules of architecture and to build a structure that would put Abu Dhabi on the world map,” a lead engineer for Capital Gate told global news outlet CNN.
Defined by its striking, organic form, Capital Gate is the centrepiece of the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre's development. The sculptural stainless steel building curves and leans, as if flowing like water. To support the "gravitational, wind and seismic forces caused by the distinctive lean of the building," it was positioned on 490 piles, drilled 98 feet (30m) underground.
While most of the world's wonkiest buildings have gradually moved over the centuries, or are the result of poor engineering on unstable grounds, Krzywy Domek – which literally means Crooked House in Polish – was designed to be comically off-kilter. The weird and wonderful building was constructed in 2004 and was designed by architects Szotynscy & Zaleski, who took inspiration from the children's book illustrations of Jan Szancer.
Standing proud at 43,000 square feet (4,000sqm), the building is home to shops, offices and restaurants. Unsurprisingly, it has become a popular tourist attraction, with its warped walls, asymmetrical windows, curved architectural stained-glass elements and lopsided roof giving the impression that the structure is melting into the ground. But, of course, it's all just an optical illusion!
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