Monument - in the broadest sense - an object that is part of the cultural heritage of the country, people and humanity.
; Monument - in the narrow sense - a work of art created to perpetuate the memory of certain events and people.
Monuments - in fact, are an integral feature, the face of the city, along with classical palaces and churches. That word "classic" arises in our mind at the mention of the word memorial. However, what is disconcerting bring us things that we do not expect to see in the usual places! Over the past hundred years the world has a huge number, so to speak, the monuments of the new generation.
It seems that the memorial was already around - a monument to a kiss, a zebra, Rocky Balboa, skull, trash, a chair, a submarine, women's slipper ... the list is endless. Just recently, a monument was erected shoes, which launched one of the journalists in the former U.S. president George Bush.
We decided to choose a few examples of such monuments and show them to you, but we do not we dare to interpret the meaning of some of them. Some of them are already quite well known, some not so.

Let's start:

This monument was installed in Rio de Janeiro. Unusual sculpture commemorates the famous Volkswagen Beetle, which was designed before World War II and for a long time, manufactured not only in Europe but also in South America.
The monument is just two cars that are "crossed" and have the common wheel and the bottom.
In Japan and China recently appeared monuments, which will surely have a national flavor. This is a monument to the heroes of comics or transformer. In Tokyo, at the railway station Kamiigusa monument was unveiled in the form of a bronze statue of the popular hero of a series of manga and anime Gundam robot height of 3 meters. The ceremony was attended by creator Yoshiyuki Tomino Gundam world, the president of animation studio Sunrise Takayuki Yoshi and those engaged in a crowd of people.
Installation of the statue in 2400 was the result of petitions from various associations of fans of the series and two years training. The cost of the statue - 20 million yen, of which 2 million allocated state, the rest were private donations.
Not only cars, and fictional characters have become monuments, sometimes they become the whole house. On a street in Prague is a modern building of unusual design, officially known as "Dancing House", and popularly dubbed "drunk". "Dancing House" - the fruit of imagination of the great architect Frank Gehry (Frank Gehry) from California.
One of its attractions - located on the roof of an expensive French restaurant La Perle de Prague with a beautiful overlooking the city.
Building Museum Ripley's Believe It Or Not in Branson, Missouri, USA. Curves ramshackle walls, crack, split the building in half gives the impression that the house miraculously survived the earthquake. The building was constructed to simulate an earthquake, which occurred in 1812, in force 8 points near the town of New Madrid, Missouri. Now the House Ripley "- is a unique museum, filled with a fantastic collection of the strangest wonders of the world, whose name can be translated into Russian -" Believe it - no - it is a museum of paradoxes. Here you can begin to wonder even without going to a museum, standing in the street. On the roof of the building settled ancient dinosaur that eats clock, the arrows are going in the opposite direction - but! Always at the same time show the correct time.
Robert Ripley - a reporter, artist, traveler and collector of strange and unusual creatures. He visited 198 countries and in life has been called "the modern Marco Polo. In our time, in 26 countries opened a museum of fun activities and paradoxical phenomena. Museum in Los Angeles - one of the youngest in his collection of more than 300 exhibits. Among them: "Bread," a portrait of the Mona Lisa of the 65 types of bread, a sculpture of Marilyn Monroe, created from 264 thousand-dollar bills, etc.
house with the shark was built 1860 . in Headington, Oxford. It was no different from their neighbors, while more than 100 years later, in 1986, Bill Hein (Bill Heine) installed on its roof a huge shark's body. Now this is a place of pilgrimage for tourists from around the world.
Monument radioactive decay in the Netherlands is in a building called Habog Facility. Inside the building are kept real radioactive waste from two nuclear reactors. According to local law they must be kept 100 years. The creator of this project William Ver decorate the building in an orange color, and has written on the walls of the well-known formula of Einstein and Planck. Every twenty years, the building will be repainted in a pale color that symbolizes the gradual extinction of the radioactivity in the waste.
The last example shows that there are contemporary monuments that are dedicated to very serious things. So, on the waterfront in Budapest, you can see many people's shoes. This monument to the people of Budapest, which during the war were shot right on the waterfront. Say, shoes were ordered to withdraw. For the sake of economy.
And at the foot of Petrin, though not the highest, just 327 meters, but the most famous hill in Prague, on the stairs you will see a figure prostrate people. This is a monument to victims of communist repression, symbolizing the suffering of the doomed man to death.
Say that means a monument to a man hung by one arm over the roof of a store in the Czech capital - Prague is very difficult. This sculpture of David Black (David Cerne). According to eyewitnesses, the figure of a castaway on Lenin, apparently because of the characteristic cap.
Cow suit - this is not the most amazing monument, which can be found in Stockholm, Sweden .
With one of the embankments in Stockholm in the water you can see the very looks like a real hand and the nose of a giant man.
Hand which always points to Jupiter, the first set, and a year later added a nose.
cow theme continued in Budapest and set on a street monument blue cow that melts, and the rear She sticks out like a spoon wooden spoon from the Eskimo.
In France, too, there are many interesting monuments, such as a monument to the thumb "Le pouce" in a quarter of Defense in Paris, the author Cysar Baldaccini or grandiose, and the world's only monument to "Tete au carre" in the form of a huge head-Rubik's Cube with the filling of the books of the municipal library in Nice.
Krakow in major markets also appeared own head. This is a monument of Igor Mitorayya - artist of world renown. The sculpture is called Eros Bendato ("Eros Bound") and is a gift to the city. The monument is a young man's head 3,7 m wide and 2,25 m tall. Some guides say that it is a monument not to Eros, and the man who has lost his head out of love.
And here in Los Angeles is a monument without a head, or rather head is usually an employee is fully immersed in a brick wall of a building company Ernst & Young.
in Melbourne, Australia, there is an inverted monument to Charles La Troubu, who first stood at the center of the city, and then in 2006 it was transferred to the University. Trouba. The monument is absolutely standard, just standing on his head.
Returning to Europe, at the entrance to the Music Theatre in Amsterdam, we still stumble on one's head, cracking the tile floor - is a monument to the violinist.
At Aqualand, Cadi, is a monument to "The Magic Crane, who simply hung in the air without any visible support. Secret is very simple - a water pipe hidden inside a powerful stream of water.
And in Holland there is a monument to "Extreme Parking. The artist simply painted marks on the wall of the building adjacent to this parking lot. As well fastened to the wall real car whose headlights even light up at night. So this work can be admired by day and night.
Monuments of our time doing any of the materials at hand. In Taiwan, for example, at the main headquarters of the company Asus installed copy of the painting "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci, completely made of computer chips.
And finally, the monument, so to say, human excrement, is set in Ponta Grossa, Brazil. The aesthetic and artistic side of this building everybody is free to judge for himself.