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this picture and the next three courtesy of Tipeek Photos |
Outsider Environments Europe
an inventory and documentary of art environments in Europe created by non-professionals
February 28, 2025
Auguste Léger, Maison aux coquillages / House of shells
February 21, 2025
Bernard Rein, Maison décorée / Decorated house
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front of the house pictures are from Google Streetview, May 2023 |
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the decorations as in 2008 on Streetview |
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top of the front facade |
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decorations on the right side wall |
Other items with a background that may not be immediately clear to everyone, originate from a collaboration between Bernard Rein and a magician and friends, who were involved in a circus in Switzerland and whom he assisted in performances or other activities.
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the house as situated along the road |
Decorated house
14, rue des Jardins
68680 Kembs, dept Haut-Rhin, region Grand Est, France
February 14, 2025
Lino Corradi, Giardino e interno decorati / Decorated garden and interior
the tower of the church La Ghirlandina in Modena, Italy all images as published on the website "Lino Corradi" compiled by his family in his memory |
The tower pictured above is a replica of the tower of the La Ghirlandina, the tower next to the main cathedral of the city of Modena, located in the province with the same name in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna
Life and works
This replica was constructed by Lino Corradi (1935-2023), who was born in the municipality of Bastiglia. He worked his whole life in the marble sector, where he gained a lot of experience and skill in manually processing pieces of hard rock.
He married Bassoli Osvalda in 1962, and in 1973, when he was 37 years old, he and his wife decided to build a house in a small village in the Apennine area of the province of Modena..
With his manual skills he also made parts of the furnishings himself, such as tables and cabinets.
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a marble seagull |
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canon |
February 07, 2025
Pentti Kangasaho & Mervi Rintala, Polttopuista tehdyt rakennukset / Buildings made from firewood
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this photo and the next four courtesy of Minna Haveri |
A recent post in this weblog, published on January 24, 2025, was dedicated to Veikko Salo from Padasjoki, Finland, who in 2017 began building small-scale houses and other buildings from stacked firewood, which he situated in a wooded area along road 24.
From the responses to the article it became clear that there is at least one other art environment in Finland that focuses on creations made with wooden materials collected in the forests as firewood.
Life and works
This refers to an art environment created by Pentti Kangasaho and Mervi Rintala, living in a hamlet that is part of the municipality of Urjala in the Finnish region of Western and Central Finland.
This hamlet, called Pertunkulma, is located some 5 km east of the built-up area of Urjala and is situated in a very wooded area.
Pentti Kangasaho and his wife Mervi Rintala live here in a rural home, which means that there is plenty of space around the house to situate piles of firewood, a fuel that in Finland is widely used for heating homes, especially in rural wooded areas.
This was also the case at Pentti and Mervi's house, and so it happened that Pentti, who always found it very attractive to make something with his hands, came up with the idea of transforming piles of firewood into small buildings.
After more than ten years of creative construction and partly also the burning of some creations, in the summer of 2017 a cozy village had been established, comprising a church, a rectory and several residential buildings.
The church, depicted below, named Ketunaho Chapel, occupies a special place amidst all other creations.
Fifteen cubic meters of birch and spruce wood were used for its construction.
Hamlet of Pertunkulma, municipality of Urjala, dept Pirkanmaa, region Western and Central Finland, Finland
January 31, 2025
Viktor Kompaniichenko, Прикрашений будинок / Decorated house
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Documentation
* Article (May 2019) by Olga Stenko in newspaper Gazeta
Decorated house Dykanska street Yakovtsi district, city of Poltava, region Poltava, Ukraine can be seen from the street
January 24, 2025
Veikko Salo, Pinottu polttopuun luomukset / Creations of stacked firewood
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photo (2021) by Juho Haaviko on Google Streetview |
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photo (2021) by Marja Leena-Kounia on Google Streetview |
photo (2022) by Merja Kukkonen as on Google Streetview |
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this image (August 2022) and the next two from Facebook |
this image published in October 2018 |
this image published in April 2017 |
Quarter Likoniementie, city of Padasjoki, region Päijät-Häme, dept Southern Finland, Finland
can be seen from the road
January 17, 2025
François Alix, Magic Hortus
this image and the next four (2024) courtesy of the editors of the website tipeek photos |
In this rural and wooded area François Alix in 2018 started to create his art environment Magic Hortus.
Life and works
François Alix was born in 1964 in Chinon, a commune about 40 kilometers north of Verrue.
There is virtually no information available on the internet about his early years and education.
His life story begins with the report that he had gone to live in Switzerland, where he sold antiquarian books. He returned to France in 2018, when he was 54. Earlier, in 2010, he had bought the four-hectare site in Foreil.
Francois Alix moved into a house situated on the area he had bought in 2010. Pictures from that time show that this terrain provided space to store caravans and was covered with a variety of small stone structures.
The smaller metal creations also include a group of 365 sculptures of women who dance, spread out across the terrain.
There are also small metal creations in specific shapes that decorate fences situated in various places in the art environment.
And then, they are also used to decorate stand alone metal elements, such as the large round wheel, shown below and a metal bridge that covers kind of a a water feature surrounded by upright yellow colored side walls
Near this bridge rises a tall rusty metal tower, its top marked by a large amount of metal strings hanging down, all together a paraphrase on a tree. Such trees also adorn the site elsewhere.
François Alix’s favorite spot is the "high line" pictured below. It is a large, walkable metal structure, kind of a bridge, made from arches that came from a train station. From this bridge one has a beautiful view of the art environment.
In March 2024 something completely unexpected happened. A representative of DREAL (Regional Directorate for the Environment, Planning and Housing) came along, accompanied by a few police officers, to report that the site was considered an unlicensed iron waste heap that had to be cleared within a few months.