From amongst the dusty roads, bleak concrete and iron fences of the Watts suburb, these 17 bizarre looking towers rise up from the ground in all their weird and wacky glory. At first glance, they appear to just be strangely glittering conical spires formed by a complex framework, but on closer inspection, you’ll realize that the towers are studded with a multitude of colourful shards of glass, mirrors, seashells, fragments of tiles and broken crockery, arranged in a fascinatingly vibrant and eye-catching mosaic.

Simon Rodia, an Italian immigrant, is the mind behind the magic. All by himself, he toiled away for 33 years, equipped with only his hands and his innovation, building this impressive compound from the ground up. He made use of old 7-up and beer bottles, crockery from the local children and tiles from the factory he worked in to bring his imagination to life. When he wanted to shape his metal, he would position it on the nearby railway track for passing trains to flatten. Despite the towers seemingly being a rag-tag bunch of old materials thrown together by someone with utterly no experience, they proved to be incredibly strong when locals fought to save it from demolition by proving how cranes could not tear it down. It has since gone on to be a symbol of pride for the rundown neighbourhood, added to the National Register of Historic Places and even a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

A mercurial and cantankerous man, he has never explained the motive behind his artwork. But then again, do we really need an explanation for this indescribable manifestation of creative genius? It seems that, in this case, the artwork speaks for itself.