A fire station in Northern Italy has gone viral for its unique façade as people compare it to the headquarters of a movie villain.
Although it was built a decade ago, Margreid fire station has shot to internet fame after a Reddit user posted a picture of the station highlighting its similarity to something one might see in a James Bond movie.
However, the imposing fire station wasn’t built simply for the badass aesthetic. In fact, it was to save land!
In this alpine area, the land is scarce, so the local community decided that the station should be built into the 300-foot cliff.
The station was designed by northern Italian architect Bergermeisterwolf who have completed a number of unconventional projects such as the Belvedere Hotel in Riccione.
The fire station is not just impressive because of its exterior but is also completely ergonomic as the mountain provides natural insulation for the building so only one of the caverns had to insulated manually.
If you thought the exterior was cool, inside the building, there is a curving concrete wall connecting the three caves, to protect the firefighters from falling rocks. While they made black concrete by mixing beech coal dust into the aggregate to create the impression of burnt wood.
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Featured image credit: Richard Allway on Flickr
