Kaleidoscrapers

Because of my loves for architecture and photography, not to mention my assorted social phobias (phobiae?), I take a lot of pictures of buildings. Older cities like Syracuse or Buffalo have a rich collection of amazing buildings both old and, if not exactly new, at least a bit less old. But regardless of the age or architectural style of a building the basic shapes are usually pretty much the same: rectangles, circles and triangles (there aren't any Frank Gehry buildings in Buffalo or Syracuse). While waiting for my laundry to dry one night I was playing around with my photo editing software, and I discovered a feature that turns photos into kaleidoscope-style compositions. There's a certain amount of control - you select the photo and plug in the number of sides the shape should have, but the result is largely random and that's a lot of fun. It's also fun to see the usual building materials - bricks, glass, terra cotta - in shapes more complex than a rectangle. Above is a "kaleidoscraper" of the beautiful Guaranty Building, designed by Louis Sullivan.