'Private eyes, they're watching you...'

Mayor's Suite/City Council Chamber windows, Boston City Hall (1969, Kallmann-McKinnell-Knowles). Photo: Epicgenius.

Boston City Hall (1969, Kallmann-McKinnell-Knowles). Photo by Daderot.

...and they could indeed see your every move, if someone does happen to be watching you from the privacy of whatever room lurks behind those eyelike twin windows, while you transfix your eyes onto them in awe at their in-your-face stare at your lowly self.

City Council Chamber, Boston City Hall, in 1981. Photo by Bill Lebovich.

That classic Hall & Oates song from 1981 flashed in my mind as I noticed an online image of the two watchful windows of the City Council Chamber (left) in Boston's City Hall, which were clearly designed to enable city councilors to keep vigil on the city they're leading, reassure us that they're watching over us like angels, or remind us that "Big Brother is watching you," in George Orwell's words of warning from 1984. 

Victorian blast furnace, Shropshire, UK. Photo by David Humphreys.

That is but one example of the "two eyes" effect in worldwide architecture, as designers integrated the semblance of faces or ogling eyeballs into their buildings, whether deliberately or accidentally. They were either calculated attention-getters as business pitches for the structures, or simply sources of sunlight that just happened to have facial features. This Victorian blast furnace (right) was probably not meant to be facially comical, but we can't help seeing its elongated windows as eyes, its circular vent as a nose, its arched entry as a mouth, its chimney as a raised arm, and its gabled roof as a peaked hat.

Photo courtesy of Build Green New Homes.

In fact, I was taught to recognize eyes and faces in houses as early as third grade, courtesy of the following poem:

HOUSES

by Aileen Fisher

               Houses are faces

               (haven't you found?)

               with their hats in the air

               and their necks in the ground.

               Windows are noses,

               windows are eyes,

               and doors are the mouths

               of a suitable size.

               And the porch – or the place

               where porches begin –

               is just like a mustache

               shading the chin.

One of greater Boston's most instantly recognizable "faces" is the rounded, oddly detailed front entrance façade of the famous Harvard Lampoon Castle in Cambridge. Built in 1909 from a composite design of Dutch Gable, Flemish Renaissance, Elizabethan, Jacobethan and English Medieval styles by Edmund March Wheelwright (who embellished it with real imported 17th-century Delft tiles, Belgian leaded windows and a genuine Elizabethan mantelpiece), this oddball mashup of sometimes incongruous architectural details bespeaks the humor of its interior publication with a comical face, comprising a crowned bowler hat, porthole eyes with lozenge frames, a cast-iron lantern nose, a lintel-lipped (or mustached) vertical window mouth, a front door like a sideways bowtie, a front-stoop beard, and a cylindrical brick façade suggesting the contours of a ruddy, sunburned or drunkenly flushed human face. 

The façade seems to have the bug-eyed stare of someone shocked or startled in a comedy sketch, in line with the humorous slant of the stomping grounds for such pioneering humorists as Robert Benchley, Christopher Cerf, Fred Gwynne, B.J. Novak, and Conan O'Brien.

Harvard Lampoon Castle (1909, Edmund March Wheelwright), Cambridge, Massachusetts. Courtesy of Google Maps.

"Shocked" castle, Iceland. Photo by Ingvild Sommer.

"Shocked" stone house, Gordes, Provence, France. Photo by Celli07.

Similarly "shocked" and "startled" faces abound the world around. 

On this Icelandic castle (above), half-moon transoms, a mouth-like arched window, and "hands up" crenellations create the castle's "shock value." 

Likewise, on this stone house (left) in Gordes, Provence, France, the leaded vertical window-eyes, the off-center chimney nose, and the agape elongated window-opening mouth create a shocked expression on that façade, with the gable on the lower section adding the comical effect of a "mustache." 

"Shocked" or "glum" stone ruin, Skiathos, Greece.

"Surprised" stone house, Cyprus. Photo by Nikta Nikta.

In this stone ruin in Skiathos, Greece (above), over centuries the elements appear to have carved a shocked or glum expression out of the remains of its arched window "eyebrowed" eyes and its agape Moorish-arched doorway mouth. The dome makes a good bald head.

This stone castle in Cyprus (right) is given a "surprised" expression by its curving plaster "eyebrow" lintels and wide-open squarish grilled "eyes," its arrowslit "nose," and its grilled window "mouth" surrounded by the "lips" of a black frame and a "chin" sill.

The white house in Heidelberg, Germany (below) has a "shocked" or "sad" expression, depending on which of its window pairs you see as "eyes." The shuttered larger casement windows with the agape archway "mouth" have a look of shock, whereas the small oval windows with the arch's "pout" seem sadder.

"Shocked" or "Sad" house, Heidelberg, Germany. Photo by Luftschiffhafen.

Cartoon-face shop, Kyoto, Japan.
Photo by Didier Zylberyng. 

Scary robot-faced diner, Tokyo, Japan.
Photo by Steven L. Johnson.

Of course, some commercial buildings are deliberately built with "faces" calculated to grab your attention and attract your business to the enterprises within, such as these Japanese oddities: at left, a Kyoto clothing shop with bulging eye-windows, a sharp ventilator nose (with nostrils!) and a wide-mouthed entry; at right, a Chikara Meshi Tokyo diner with robotically staring square eyes (complete with eyeballs!), a bridged nose that appears to be an extension of a broken "hat" pediment, a toothed mouth display/message window, and a a sign and entrance in the form of a multicolored beard.

Happy house, Belarus. Photo by Tumar.

Other buildings put on a happy face — with decoration, of course, since it's harder to eke a smile than a shocked, sad or sober visage out of ordinary exterior details. An example is this charmer from Belarus, with square windows and a cosmetic smile, as if it's watching you with the intent of brightening your day as you pass by.

Smiley-face turret, Switzerland. Photo by Djenev.

Here's another smiley, this time in Switzerland: a pop-out turret with all the ingredients of a quick cheerer-upper: wide-open oval lookout windows, arched panels for raised eyebrows, acorn-like reliefs and a meniscus-like line for a smiling mouth, and a polygonal roof for a hat. How optimistic can a building get?

"Big Teeth" house, location unknown. Photo by Hydebrink.

Yes, a few houses can become accidentally happy, such as this one from parts unknown. Here, two curtained square window "eyes" and a Belgian stone-bordered planter "mouth" planted with large shrubbery "teeth" make up a rather jovial welcome home or see-you-soon.

Cuibul de Lemn hotel, Râşnov, Romania, courtesy of Google Earth.

Buildings can be sleepy, too, as the Cuibul de Lemn hotel in Râşnov, Romania, shows. No doubt a promotion of the hotel as a quiet place to get some shut-eye, it makes the most of its "closing eyebrow" windows, "nose" ventilator, and flat closed "mouth" below to visually communicate its message. Furthermore, it is a variation on...

The Eyes of Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania.

...the Eyes of Sibiu (Ochii Sibiului), a Romanian tourist attraction of houses with eyebrow dormers in Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania. Originating from the 15th century as an element of Baroque architecture, the dormers give the impression of the half-shut eyes associated with the upstairs sleeping quarters behind them.

The Eyes of Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania.

According to popular legend, the Eyes of Sibiu were intended to scare the general public into thinking they were being watched from above – like true "private eyes" – though in reality these eyebrow dormers were designed as a ventilation system for attics. And with good reason: who would want to sleep in a stuffy attic or feel faint after poking around up there?

Trödel & Antik antique shop, Friedrich-Wieck-Straße, Dresden, Germany.

Especially if the attic belongs to an antique shop, like Trödel & Antik in Dresden, Germany, which certainly needs its eyebrow dormers to ventilate the fragile inventory stored up there. And these "Eyes of Sibiu" do have a way of staring you right in the face, enticing you inward to browse the collection.

Photo courtesy of Brick & Batten, Atlanta, Georgia.

Hospice de Beaune, France.

Here are a couple of eyefuls: a house showing its "shocked" reaction with arched dormers for "eyes," an arrowslit window "nose" and a wide window "mouth" (above); and L'Hospice de Beaune, France, forming eyes and nose (with nostrils) from pointed dormers and mouth from the window opening below the "nose" (right).

Now, see if you can identify the location (or at least the type of house) the following sets of "eyes" belong to:

Buford-Ward-Riches House (1875), Indianapolis.

These "eyes" are gazing down at you from atop the Buford-Ward-Riches House in Indianapolis, Indiana. Built in 1875 in the French Second Empire style with a Mansard roof, it is known as one of only five such houses left in the city. Those "lookout" eyes certainly came in handy for watching for approaching (or encroaching) visitors, expected or not.

Horner-Terrill House (c.1875), Indianapolis, in 1932.

These "eyes" are among the extant dormers of the Horner-Terrill House, also located in Indianapolis, another of its five remaining French Second Empire homes. Built c.1875, the house is a hybrid of the asymmetrical massing, floor plan, and cornice brackets of the Italian Villa style and the French Second Empire Mansard roofs and landmark corner tower with corner porch. The tower, supplying a few other sets of lookout "eyes" (in fact, there are "eyes" all around the house – so watch out), was once crowned by a Mansard roof with ornate metal cresting, from which approachers and intruders could certainly be watched from above and afar.

Horner-Terrill House (c.1875), Indianapolis, in May 2013.

Sadly, the Horner-Terrill House is in disrepair, a victim of deferred maintenance and two aborted attempts at restoration. This isn't even the most recent image of it; it was taken 13 years ago, and recent reports indicate that the house is still standing, but it continues to deteriorate, and its rear wing has partially collapsed. Hopefully it can be restored soon, "eyes" and all.

6-8 W. 95th St. (1894, H.E.P. Hartwell), New York City.

These porthole "eyes" with astonished brows mark the twin entrances of 6-8 W. 95th St. in Manhattan, one "eye" per entry. Built in 1894 from a design by Horace Edgar Poe Hartwell for his real estate speculator brother Luther Francis Hartwell, these mirror-image townhouses blend Renaissance Revival and Spanish Baroque styles, enriched with foliate carvings around their oculi and on the railings of their stoops, making these "eyes" irresistible to stare at. (The interiors were just as irresistible, promoted in 1893 as "Artistic Boston Houses" with "marble walls, mosaic floors, fine cabinet work, Louis XVI parlors, old English foyer halls, First Empire dining rooms, nothing like them in the market.") And look: each house has its own "private eyes" at attic level, so if you pay a visit here, you can be sure that, in the words of another classic '80s number, "Somebody's watching me."

Log house, Arkhangelsk, Russia. Photo by Sergey Yakovlev.

Portholes make good door windows, too, providing a broader range of vision of who's on the other side than "magic eye" peepholes – especially with one porthole per eye! These "eyes" are on a double entry to a log house in Arkhangelsk, Russia, a splendid example of Nordic log construction that makes sure you can watch who's coming.

Carpenter Gothic house with window nose and eyes, door mouth, porch mustache.

This is but a sampling of the thousands of houses and buildings with "eyes" and "faces" that can be seen all over the world. And I'm sure you can spot some in your neighborhood, on your travels, or even in your home, if you eye – make that 'ogle' – your surroundings more prudently. 

But pay heed – somebody may be watching you!

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!

Sources:

Baker, Matthew Reed, "What's the Story Behind the Harvard Lampoon Building?", Boston Magazine, May 7, 2017, https://www.bostonmagazine.com/property/2017/05/07/harvard-lampoon-building/

"Boston City Hall," Wikipedia, last edited on 20 September 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_City_Hall

"Buford-Riches House, 5031 English Avenue, 1975 (Indianapolis, Ind.)," Indiana Landmarks Historic Architecture Collection, University Library, Indianapolis, Digital Collections, https://iuidigital.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/IHAS/id/3752

Dickey, Matthew, "Harvard Lampoon Castle," Accidentally Wes Anderson, 2017, https://accidentallywesanderson.com/places/harvard-lampoon-castle/

"Eyes of Sibiu," Wikipedia, last edited on 18 October 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyes_of_Sibiu

Fisher, Aileen, "Houses," in Andrew Schiller et al., Language and How to Use It, Book 3, Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1969, https://archive.org/details/languagehowtouse0000andr/mode/2up

Grimble, Jen, "25 Hilarious Homes that Look Like Human Faces," Love Exploring, July 10, 2024, https://www.loveexploring.com/galleries/228100/25-hilarious-homes-that-look-like-human-faces?page=1

"Harvard Lampoon Building," Wikipedia, last edited on 8 October 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Lampoon_Building

"Horner-Terrill House," Wikipedia, last edited on 5 September 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horner%E2%80%93Terrill_House

Miller, Tom, "Horace Edgar Poe Hartwell's 1899 Twins – 6 and 8 West 95th Street," Daytonian in Manhattan, April 27, 2021, https://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2021/04/horace-edgar-poe-hartwells-1899-twins-6.html

Olsen, Dawn, "Sunday Prayers: Horner-Terrill Home," HistoricIndianapolis.com, December 15, 2013, https://historicindianapolis.com/sunday-prayers-horner-terrill-home/

Radeska, Tijana, "Blists Hill Victorian Town – the open-air museum of an industrial site from the 18th century," The Vintage News, November 26, 2016, https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/11/26/blists-hill-victorian-town-the-open-air-museum-of-an-industrial-site-from-the-18th-century/

Saati, Shaza, "The Eyes of Sibiu: Unique Medieval Baroque Architecture in Romania," Archaeology & Civilizations, Facebook, March 13, 2025, https://www.facebook.com/groups/archeologyandcivilizations/posts/9438899362870170/

"Second Empire Architecture Beyond Haunted Houses," Indiana Landmarks, Facebook, October 29, 2022, https://www.facebook.com/IndianaLandmarks/posts/in-honor-of-halloween-and-mansardmonday-falling-on-the-same-day-were-bringing-ba/493728582793600/

"The Eyes of Sibiu: Pictures of the Houses Have Eyes in Romania," Vintage Everyday, February 7, 2024, https://www.vintag.es/2024/02/eyes-of-sibiu.html

Williams, Ione, "Our Old Houses," Facebook, July 26, 2024, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1263397433817758/posts/2961190297371788/

An imperial imprint

Of the 532 buildings Frank Lloyd Wright realized over his 70-odd years as an architect — "including houses, offices, churches, schools, libraries, bridges, museums, and many other building types," quoth the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation — what could be called his masterpiece? What is the supreme summit and synthesis of his endless efforts to burst the box of blah and rip open the business-as-usual building envelope to create a truly truthful architecture that extols the nature of its materials and the culture, psyche and spirit of the people that live in and around it?

My answer would be the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Though this rightful King of the Franks was ultimately dethroned and decapitated, it has left an imprint in the memory as the highest attainment — despite its low scale, which ultimately sealed its fate — of Wright's goals to revive ancient architectural traditions with modern building techniques and materials, to revere the nature that produced those materials and inspired the local populace, and to revivify the lives of those people with all of the above.

Imperial inspiration

Photos containing Ninomaro reception rooms at Nijo Castle, Kyoto.
Photo by Keith Poumakis, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

As an avid collector of Japanese prints, Wright was inspired by the linear simplicity, the spatial fluidity and the natural reverence of Japan's architecture, from the intimate human scale of its houses to the imperial grandeur of its temples and palaces. 

The houses hugged the earth with their low-lying horizontality and one-level living, while the palaces mimicked the mountains with their soaring clay-tiled roofs and paid homage to a Buddha, ancestor or god with their profundity of adornment.

Frank Lloyd Wright, c.1926.
Photo courtesy of the U.S. Library of Congress.

Simplicity of structure contrasted with opulence of ornament, but the latter did not obscure structural expression as traditional Western norms did. For Wright, Japanese architecture was the perfect union of opposing yin-yang forces he was seeking in an expressive yet livable style of architecture that was of, by and for its people, rather than imposing itself on its people the Western way.

Thus he eagerly accepted his 1916 commission from the Imperial Household of Japan to design a new hotel in downtown Tokyo — a city whose newest construction greatly displeased Wright. He said: 

"The time of awakening must come sooner or later. And then the country will be face to face with the costly necessity of getting rid of all these architectural monstrosities and evolving a style more in consonance with Japanese traditions and really characteristic of the people."

Imperial initiation

Surely Tokyo's first Imperial Hotel was among Wright's peeves for its foppish, haughty hybrid of French Second Empire and Italian Renaissance styles. Built in 1890 from a design by a Japanese student of the Rokumeikan's architect, Englishman Josiah Condor, it was as un-Japanese as a hotel could be, despite being locally known as Teikoku Hoteru (Imperial Hotel). On April 16, 1922, it was destroyed by fire, giving Wright a wider opening to combat that imported white elephant with the native touch of the ancients.

Imperial integration

“But in its scale, and in its play with surprise elements, the Imperial Hotel is completely Japanese…
There were little terraces and little courts, infinitely narrow passages suddenly opening into large
two- or three-storey spaces… And there were many different levels, both inside the rooms and out-
side the buildings, including connecting bridges between the two long, parallel wings of guest-rooms.”

— Peter Blake, Frank Lloyd Wright: Architecture and Space

The new Imperial Hotel was also to represent Japan's emergence from an isolated island of primitive folkways into the modern nation it had become since U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry had opened it up to American trade in 1854. To these ends, Wright conceived the hotel as an east-west hybrid that adapted...

Maya pyramid at Tikal, Guatemala – photo by Peter Andersen

...the stepped, setback ziggurat form of the ancient
Mexican and Central American Mayan shrines...

Photo by Lykantrop, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
...the level, earth-bound horizontality of Wright's own American
Prairie Style homes such as the Robie House in Chicago (1910)...

Byodo in Phoenix Hall, Uji (1059), Kyoto, Japan, courtesy of Japanese Wikipedia

...and the projecting clay-tiled roofs, tripartite headhouse-wing
compositions and water-landscaped forecourts of Japanese palaces.

Imperial impression

With the creative playfulness of the Froebel block-building child he once had been, Wright arranged these elements in the form of a vast, extensive oriental temple of interconnected buildings of Roman brick, poured concrete and concrete block, green-carpeted with a lily-padded koi pond. 

In this way he elevated all three of the above styles to a primitive yet prim imperial dignity high enough to feel reverent yet low enough to feel at home.

Imperial imperviousness

Remembering the 1894 earthquake's damage of Tokyo's first Imperial Hotel, Wright placed the new one on a floating concrete foundation he devised to withstand seismic activity...

...and on the very day of the hotel's dedication on Sept. 1, 1923, the great Kanto earthquake struck Tokyo and Yokohama, destroying more than 570,000 homes and claiming more than 100,000 lives, but leaving the Imperial Hotel (pictured, right) intact with minimal damage. The floating foundation assured its salvation.

Imperial impenetrability

Wright retrofit the roof perimeter with copper rain gutters that drained stormwater through elaborately patterned grills, shaping it into 50 to 70-foot-high patterns as it fell into the courtyard below — a cascade of fountains drawing on the powers of nature to achieve their ceremonial dignity at no water-bill expense.

Imperial introduction

Arriving guests were cooled by the pond and received under the porte-cochère, which reminded some of Chichen Itza's Mayan ruins on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. A soft Japanese lava stone called Oya enabled Wright to proliferate the hotel with Mayan-style carving, including geometric abstractions of scarabs, turtles and peacocks.

Guests — who included Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner and General Douglas MacArthur — were awestruck by the three-story lobby's palatial extravaganza of Mayan and Japanese embellishment, executed in green volcanic rock, pierced terra cotta grillwork and golden Roman brick.

The lobby's beige and turquoise Native American carpets, woven in Peking, led guests through a labyrinth of quirky staircases and passages (such as "Peacock Alley," right) into a double-height dining room, theater, lounge and ballroom, all full of geometric whimsy and ancient spirit...

Imperial interiors

Dining Room

Theater

Guest Lounge

Peacock Room

Imperial intercultural

To some, the lavish, poignant, intricate carvings, moldings and panelings recalled the richly patterned stonework, woodwork and earthwork of Egyptian, Mayan, Incan, Aztec, Native American, Indian, or Asian cultural traditions, depending on where in the world they were coming from and what they had seen before on their world travels.


Imperial in style

To others, this dynamic décor was "Wright" in step with the Art Deco jazz age of the '20s and '30s — particularly the quirky angles, explosive excess and free-form fancy of the Peacock Room, which blended with the blue-note brassiness of the jazz that rocked the room while crowds danced the Black Bottom, the Boogie-Woogie, the Charleston, the Foxtrot, the Jitterbug, the Lindy Hop, the Swing, the Tango...

Imperial intimacy

For respite from the jazz-ma-tazz, the thick-walled guestroom wings lined up along the reflecting pool, veiling Tokyo's congestion and muffling its clamor in the peace of a garden oasis of lily pads, koi carp and bonsai trees, aided by soft light filtered through the thin windows and perforated overhangs.

Photo by Stephane d'Alu, courtesy of Japanese Wikipedia

The courtyard took cues from Japanese gardens such as the Ryoan-ji Zen temple's kare-sansui in Kyoto, where stones were revered for their natural shape and placed to induce a meditative state in the onlooker. Garden walls were high enough to screen off civilization yet low enough to expose trees, for a calming continuum between nature within and nature without.

Imperial invasion

The U.S. Army used and greatly altered the Imperial Hotel as a barracks during the American Occupation of Japan after World War II, during which General Douglas MacArthur paid a visit to the troops at the hotel. It is said that Wright was requested to redesign his masterpiece for this purpose, but he refused.

Imperial inevitability

But against his will, rising operating costs and increasing tourism necessitated expansion of the Imperial Hotel. The yellowish modern annexes, opened December 1, 1952, and August 1, 1958, epitomized those "architectural monstrosities" Wright abhorred — which foreshadowed the fate of his creation.

Imperial immolation

By 1968, floods, earthquakes, pollution and wartime bombing had critically damaged the hotel's structural foundations, which a team of seismic specialist declared unsafe to endure future tremors. Besides, the hotel's low scale and vast greenspace didn't stand a chance against Tokyo's rising land values.

Despite a plea from Wright's widow Ogilvanna to save and restore the building, the hotel management decided it was more cost-effective to tear it down. And so they did, along with its annexes.

Imperial imperiousness

Photo courtesy of Japanese Wikipedia

Yet another architectural monstrosity replaced it in 1970: a monolithic gray 17-story hotel comprising a pair of vertical cross-slabs with more than double the old hotel's number of rooms — which certainly reflected Tokyo's rising land values, both architecturally and numerically. The new digs sparsely preserved the old hotel's memory by primping up common areas with Wrightian designs and motifs.

Imperial immortality

Photo by Manuel Anastácio, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

But the memory is more faithfully preserved near Nagoya, Japan, at Meiji Mura, an open-air museum of architecture from Emperor Meiji Tenno's reign, where the original entrance pavilion, lobby and reflecting pool let you experience a portion of the imperial power of Frank Lloyd Wright's Asian-American masterpiece.

Imperial invitation

Photo by Dani Rubio Perez, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

 For a seven-minute filmed tour of the Imperial Hotel's reconstructed grounds at Meiji Mura, visit:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QUz_zIJqB8

For a 10-minute presentation by architect Edgar Tafel of slides he had taken of the Imperial Hotel's demolition in 1968, visit:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNAbFyp78Ho&feature=related

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!