This photograph, taken at the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany, shows a very strange set of columns.  They look like they could be pieces for a very large chess set.  These particular columns are unique because they also have an alternate meaning – the spaces between the columns appear to resemble human figures. This […]

This grouping of impossibly-connected hexagons was created by tee shirt designer Flying Mouse (aka Chow Hon Lam).  This design was originally submitted for a tee shirt design on the Threadless community in 2007.  Flying Mouse’s tees have proven to be tremendously popular and have won many prestigious awards. Nearly 100,000 people have purchased a tee […]

If you tried to walk up or down these stairs to get to the top or the bottom, you would find yourself walking for a very long time. This is a variation of the Penrose Stairs created by Lionel and Roger Penrose in 1959. More of Andreas Aronsson’s impossible figures can be viewed on his […]

Oscar Reutersvärd, born in Sweden in 1915, is often referred to as “the father of the impossible figure”.  He earned this title by being the first artist to explore impossible figures.  Over his lifetime, he literally drew thousands of impossible figures.  Today, artists are still learning from his works, creating derivatives of his creations and […]