Waterfall (click for a larger image) Impossible Architecture From a distance, this building seems entirely natural. A stream of water courses back and forth along a trough to power a water wheel. The trough is supported by 2 towers. Upon closer examination, several impossibilities can be found. First, the top crook or bend in the trough appears to be a right angle, and yet it ends directly under the point where it begins, in the left hand tower. Likewise for th second an third bends in the trough. This is a structural impossibility. The second is a natural impossibility: the water is flowing up, defying gravity. There are a few more problems with this print; can you spot them? The answers are at the bottom of this page.   Back to Index of Trends

Answer (other impossibilities)
The four posts in each of the two towers make impossible joints with the trough. The two square posts next to the water wheel appear to be co-linear in one dimension, but when viewed from another, not. The corner in the staircase on the right up to where the woman is working tucks itself away into the black hole of a window.