Originally a cheeky, if titanic, piece of art, the one-room Hotel Casanus is a giant intestinal model that allows guests to spend a cozy night inside a massive colon.
Resting in the Verbeke Foundation Art Park near Antwerp, Belgium, the cozy anatomical model was the work of Dutch designer Joep van Lieshout. The slim, curved interior of the furnished anus features a double bed, windows, heating, and of course, working plumbing. The exterior of the room is sculpted with bulging veins and a giant puckered sphincter (non-functional) on one end, and painted the visceral red of exposed organs. The colossal muscle tube almost seems out of place in the idyllic art park, near a placid pond, yet it is composed of soft, natural angles, no matter how gross.
Despite the stomach-churning imagery, visitors still flock to the site to spend the night in the big colon which is also surrounded by such wondrous sites as black swans and an unobstructed view of the night sky. Hotel Casanus is somewhere between theme bed and breakfast and gross-out stunt tourism, but whatever the draw, guests can't help butt visit.
