In the backyard of a single-story home in Austin, Texas, a 35-foot structure known as the "Cathedral of Junk" rises from 60 tons of metal, rubber, concrete and glass. It is built from old tires, light fixtures and whirlybirds fashioned into a pyramid-like shape.
"Skis, crutches — I think I've got enough shopping carts finally," the artist and homeowner Vince Hannemann, 63, told The Independent.
Hannemann began building the structure in 1988, when he was in his mid-twenties, and has been slowly adding scrap-yard objects ever since, with help from visitors who donate their own junk. It started as a grouping of individual sculptures that "over time they kind of grew together," he said.
He became a full-time artist in 2008 after Bank of America filmed a nationwide commercial that included a clip of his sculpture, giving him residual payments for a year. His mother started calling it the Cathedral of Junk, and the name stuck.
In 2010, the city of Austin made him get a building permit following a complaint from a neighbour. Hannemann said "times have changed," and for the last four years his neighbourhood association has held its annual party at the Cathedral of Junk.
Admission is free, and Hannemann accepts cash donations as well as junk donations. "That's where I pretty much get it all from," he said. Visitors from every country and every state have stepped inside, according to Hannemann.