Disney learned at Hong Kong Disneyland, which opened in 2005, that the Chinese love to take pictures of themselves in front of whimsical facades.
As you wander the grid of streets, your eyes fall upon the splendid and whimsical facades of the countless buildings that Modernista architects raised in a few short decades around the turn of the 20th Century.
For some of the finest azulejos, visit the Viuva Lamego Ceramic Factory, 25 Largo do Intendente, (351) 21-885-2408, with its whimsical tile facade, or its branch in downtown Lisbon at Calcada do Sacramento, 29, telephone (351) 21-351-9692.
Nestled on the slopes of Table Mountain, with sunset views over the Atlantic Ocean and a coastal panorama of Lion's Head and the Twelve Apostles mountains, this creamy stucco eight-bedroom contemporary in the Camps Bay section of Cape Town has a whimsical wave to its facade.
Constitution Museum, whose stalwart granite facade belies the whimsical displays inside, provides the history lesson.
The 1913 facade has a whimsical quality, with dramatic triangular dormers and Tudor-style leaded-glass windows, and it is possible MacBride designed it himself.
Whether it is the whimsical touches like gargoyles on building facades based on longtime faculty members' features, or practical considerations like placing classrooms on only one side of the middle school so students do not have to carry backpacks from room to room, the point was to make the premises enhance how students learn.
References to the old Fulton Fish Market (moved to the Bronx in 2005) and the fishing fleet that once docked here appear at 142 Beekman Street, where whimsical starfish tie-rod washers punctuate the facade of an 1885 building by George B. Post, who later designed the New York Stock Exchange, and where terra-cotta fish swim at the top of the arched windows.
In the mid-1980s Mr. Niemeyer altered the shape of the arches that frame the main facade of his Ministry of Justice building, sacrificing the elegance of their symmetry in favor of something more whimsical.
