Because it's too expensive for common mortal we are, and also because such architecture is not good for real life all days usage... 

http://pruned.blogspot.com
Haven't really understood the purpose yet. But there are interesting things (some rather NWS). Inspiring? For sure! 

sometimes it's a blessing:
http://www.hohpe.com/Gregor/Travel/2002/Seattle/emp.jpg 

This one is confusing. I have a photo if this in a book I have at home and it looks really cool with a huge suspension roof and everything sort of curved and stuff. But all my google searches turned up a boring open air soccer stadium.

Turns out they must have removed the roof, though I've seen no mention of it anywhere. The wikipedia entry is notable silent on the fact that there used to be a roof, and that the roof was the fucking NOTABLE part of the building.

Anyway, here's a page with photos of the original structures:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/gsapp/BT/DOMES/TIMELN/tkyo_gym/tkyo_gym.html

And here's a google maps image of the same site -- notice the roof is missing on the big one, and all new on the small one:
http://maps.google.com/maps?om=1&ie=UTF8&z=17&ll=35.678834,139.713746&spn=0.005055,0.008669&t=k

And here are some typical photos: (where's the roof???)
http://www.fussballtempel.net/afc/JPN/Tokyo_Olympic.html

Wikipedia page: (not very informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Stadium_(Tokyo)

----
Totally unrelated, here's a cool stadium in montreal built for the 76 olympics:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/gsapp/BT/DOMES/TIMELN/montreal/montreal.html 

Here's a page with good color photos of the stadium with roof from various angles...

http://www.archiplanet.org/wiki/Olympic_Arena 

Very interesting metlslime, thanks for posting. 

when someone actually gets paid for something like that

http://www.hohpe.com/Gregor/Travel/2002/Seattle/emp.jpg

I'm reminded of the Bloom County strip where an idea for a protective shield is built around the Earth using 40 billion dollar bills laid end to end is pitched to Congressmen, and a head line caption reads: They Bought It! 

can't proofread for shit 

Wrong area on the map, it's a bit under than the stadium, right under Yoyogi park, kick ass place to spend your sunday afternoon (various animations every weekend, lots of amateur musicians and stuff).
http://maps.google.com/maps?om=1&ie=UTF8&z=17&ll=35.667661,139.701161&spn=0.006494,0.010042&t=k
My camera was out of battery when we got to it though... =( 

ah, that explains it... but considering how many photos of an open-air stadium when searching for "olympic stadium tokyo" i wonder... what is that other stadium that everyone seems to think is the olympic stadium?

Wikipedia's page is completely off the mark in this case, it seems. 

it's the Yoyogi National Gymnasium it seems, it was also built for the Olympics, so not surprising it can be confused.
Wikipedia has it right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoyogi_National_Gymnasium 

Would that be "Contemporary Japanese Architecture", by Botond Bognar (one of the coolest names evar), by chance? If so urok 'cause I got the same one =D 

actually it's "Annotated Architecture" by Neil Stevenson (no, not the Snow Crash guy, that's Stephenson.)

And apparently Neil didn't do his research, becuase as Bal says, it's actually called Yoyogi National Gymnasium or something like that. 

I do have Stephenson's Cryptonomicon -- need to get further into that one. 

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.thecoolhunter.net/ 

http://knuttz.net/hosted_pages/Miniature-Park-20070121

It's a lot of buildings we've seen before, but the pictures show a good aerial view and there is a nice variety of architectural styles. (3 pages of images) 

Indeed, nice photos of various famous site of the world.. 

There's something like that not far from where I live, it's only silly french buildings though... =(
It's a shame they don't have the names of the buildings, some of those are nice and I'd be interested into looking into them a bit more. 

in case you were interested in that one and didn't know the name, it's Neuschwanstein. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein

I'd like to know these:
1* http://media.knuttz.net/0701/miniature_world/mini_world_015.jpg
2* http://media.knuttz.net/0701/miniature_world/mini_world_027.jpg (reminds me of a painkiller level)
3* http://media.knuttz.net/0701/miniature_world/mini_world_040.jpg
4* http://media.knuttz.net/0701/miniature_world/mini_world_042.jpg
5* http://media.knuttz.net/0701/miniature_world/mini_world_077.jpg
6* http://media.knuttz.net/0701/miniature_world/mini_world_078.jpg

Anyone know those? 

fairly certain that's the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.
Don't know about the rest though... 

#2 is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque or "Blue Mosque" in Turkey:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_Ahmed_Mosque 

#1 Castle Chenonceau at the river Loire (France)
http://www.chenonceau.com/media/fr/index_fr.php

#3 Einstein Tower, Potsdam (near Berlin, Germany)
http://www.aip.de/einsteinturm/

#4 looks like a building in Sanaa, the Capital of Jemen
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sana'a

- the other ? 

http://www.arbeitundleben.de/memory/fotos/pl16.htm 

#4 is not in Sanaa, it is in the
Wadi Dhar in Yemen and it is named
Dar al-Hajar (the Rock Palace)
http://www.flat3.co.uk/yemen/pages/index_wadi_dhar.htm

http://www.pervan.de/reiseberichte/Bild*Dar_al_Hadschar*34099
scroll down at this site, there you can start a slideshow, with very impressive images of Yemen! 

wadi freakin dhar