Archinect - News

Hidden rooms, from 16th century England to a current-day New York city apartment

2021-03-17T19:14:00-04:00

The mystery of something hidden always brings curiosity to us. In the movies, we can surely reminisce about hidden rooms and passageways behind bookshelf walls or behind a classic Impressionist masterpiece. During the 16th century in England, Roman Catholic priests were feared of persecution due to state restrictions. “Priest holes” were built in wealthy homes for hiding and allowed a passageway to exit, if needed. Several still exist today, behind bathrooms and inside chimneys, as mysterious tourist attractions.

Harvington Hall

Another mysterious destination on travelers’ bucket lists, is Chicago’s speakeasies of the 1920s Prohibition era. Hidden taverns and basement bars were the scene for gangsters and bootleggers gracing with flair and dancing with illegal alcohol.

Chicago Prohibition Bust 1931. Photograph by Daniel Hagerman

As we shift from 16th century England to 1920s Chicago, next, we look into the mysterious history of New York City’s buildings. Buildings built prior to Wor...

Hidden well discovered in home built in 1800s; man falls through floor

2020-07-08T12:14:00-04:00

According to The New York Times' Allyson Waller, "Chris Town was assembling a bed frame for a friend's son in a 19th century house in Guilford, Connecticut....when the floor gave out beneath him." Town had fallen into a fieldstone cistern well that was concealed beneath the floor boards, Waller reports. The well was 20 feet deep and was filled with about seven feet of water.

Firefighters were called to come and rescue Town from the well, a feat Capt. Chris Gode said he has never had to execute in his 26 years of service. According to Waller, the house was built in 1843 and the floorboards over the well was likely a later addition.

"Sometimes homes had wells in their basements in order to protect them from freezing,” Dennis Johnson, director of health for the town of Guilford told The New York Times. "Then, with really historic homes, sometimes we occasionally find them in an addition on a house, or in a basement or right next to the house. Occasionally you do find them, but it’s not...

Miniature manhole rooms highlight reality of Bucharest's underground dwellers

2016-04-15T13:30:00-04:00

Borderlife is a street art intervention by Biancoshock in which three abandoned manholes in Milan’s Lodi district have been transformed into miniature dwellings. [...] With Borderlife the street artist wants to make us aware about the distressing living conditions of many fellow humans who are forced to live in confined spaces, especially manholes. He got his inspiration from the reportedly hundreds of people that are occupying manholes and sewer systems in the Romanian capital Bucharest.

Images of the BORDERLIFE street art intervention via Biancoshock's website.

London's hidden interiors – in pictures

2012-10-29T17:37:00-04:00

From the grandeur of Whitehall to an unremarkable high street in south London, a peek behind the capital's less well-known facades reveals an amazing architectural heritage that rivals some of its most visited and celebrated sites, as these images from a new English Heritage book illustrate

Your One-Stop Shop for Hidden Stairways and Secret Crypts

2011-05-04T17:28:22-04:00

If you want to lace your house with cool hidden passages, you can’t simply add hinges to a bookcase and shout, “To the Batmobile!” You have to account for shelf sag, and you have to build something sturdy enough to work hundreds of thousands of times. “My history in robotics helps,” says Steve Humble, founder of Creative Home Engineering—the only company dedicated to making hidden rooms and secret doors.