Bannerman Castle, New York

Sometimes you live for five years in New York and you can’t see anything around you. Can you tell me, without thinking, what color is the front door to your house? Not to your apartment. What are the names of at least three or four of your neighbors? Sometimes these questions are unexpectedly hard to answer because today we live like fish in the information ocean.

It was the dream of a very successful Scottish businessman. The arms dealer Francis Bannerman built a pompous castle at the beginning of the 20th century on an island in the Hudson River. This did not serve as a residence, but as ammunition stores – until it flew into the air.