This Made My Day (12 Photos)
By Vidar
Some days the city just hands you a high five. A sleepy cat the size of an apartment. A wall that turns into a joke. A drain that sprouts tentacles. Here are 12 pieces of street magic that can rescue a bad mood in seconds.
More: Made Me Smile Instantly (8 Photos)
🦛 Wall Hippo — Cape Town, South Africa 🇿🇦
Plot twist: the wall has a hippo. It’s painted so clean it looks like it’s leaning over the edge, casually people-watching with the mountains behind it. Simple gag. Perfect execution.
More: See more feel-good street art
🔗 Follow Falko One on Instagram ↗
💤 Deep Sleep — Jack Lack in Grenoble, France 🇫🇷
Nothing projects calm quite like a sleeping cat. Jack Lack painted this gigantic feline resting peacefully across an entire apartment building. Looking up at this massive, cozy beast on your way to work has to lower your blood pressure.
More: See more from Jack Lack
🔗 Follow Jack Lack on Instagram ↗
🎣 The Rooftop Fisherman — Chur, Switzerland 🇨🇭
Meet the most relaxed giant in town: a fisherman perched on the roofline, rod hanging out over the street. The scale is ridiculous, and that’s the point — you can’t not look up.
More: More reality-bending street moments
🐱 Lamp Post Cats — Woskerski in Larne, Northern Ireland 🇬🇧
Two ginger cats. One street lamp. Instant chaos. Their paws line up with the real pole so well it feels like the wall is mid-pounce. Street meets mural — clean, funny, and impossible to ignore.
More: See more from Woskerski
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🐹 Tiny Breakthrough — David Zinn in Michigan, USA 🇺🇸
A crack in the pavement becomes a tiny stage. Out pops a little character, arms up like it just won something. That’s David Zinn’s superpower: turning boring sidewalk damage into a quick laugh.
More: See more from David Zinn
🔗 Follow David Zinn on Instagram ↗
🤐 Unzipped Building — Alex Chinneck in Milan, Italy 🇮🇹
Alex Chinneck is a master of architectural illusions. He took a historic stone building in Milan and attached a giant zipper to it, making it look like the facade was being casually unzipped to reveal glowing light inside. Pure genius.
More: See more from Alex Chinneck
🔗 Follow Alex Chinneck on Instagram ↗
🎺 Trombone Player — Tom Bob in New York, USA 🇺🇸
Tom Bob refuses to let urban hardware be boring. He transformed a series of clunky gas meters and pipes into a lively trombone player. The way he sees musical instruments in industrial clutter is absolutely unmatched.
More: See more from Tom Bob
🔗 Follow Tom Bob on Instagram ↗
🦆 Silo Platypus — Jimmy Dvate in Rochester, Australia 🇦🇺
Jimmy Dvate specializes in painting Australia’s threatened species on a colossal scale. This platypus wrapping around a massive grain silo is not just visually stunning; it’s a giant, friendly reminder of the local wildlife.
More: See more from Jimmy Dvate
🔗 Follow Jimmy Dvate on Instagram ↗
🧠 Drain Monster — Marles-les-Mines, France 🇫🇷
This storm drain got promoted to creature feature. Big eyes up top, then red tentacles spilling out of the grate like it’s trying to escape the curb. Low effort to spot. High reward.
More: More clever street illusions
🔗 Follow Sandrine Boulet on Instagram ↗
🌳 Legend about Giants — Natalia Rak in Bialystok, Poland 🇵🇱
Natalia Rak created a piece so perfect it looks like a scene from a fairy tale. A massive, brightly painted girl uses a watering can to nourish an actual, physical tree growing on the sidewalk below. The interaction with the real world is flawless.
More: See more from Natalia Rak
🔗 Follow Natalia Rak on Instagram ↗
☀️ Summer Light — Antonino Perrotta in Belsito, Italy 🇮🇹
Antonino Perrotta captures the absolute joy of a warm summer evening with this beautiful mural. A child on a swing is painted perfectly against the stone wall, blending the artwork with the real environment. It is a piece that instantly brings back memories of carefree days.
More: See more from Antonino Perrotta
🔗 Follow Antonino Perrotta on Instagram
🐊 Sidewalk Gator Ride — David Zinn in Michigan, USA 🇺🇸
David Zinn spotted a crack in the pavement and turned it into a little green gator… complete with a tiny rider hanging on for dear life. It’s the kind of blink-and-you-miss-it street magic that makes walking feel like a treasure hunt.
More: See more from David Zinn
Which one is your favorite?
Did the trombone pipes or the unzipped building make you smile the most?
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Alex Chinneck’s Milan zipper façade was a site-specific Milan Design Week 2019 installation often titled ‘IQOS World Revealed’, mounted on a building on Via Tortona. It fits his broader practice of making everyday architecture ‘misbehave’ in public space—he previously made part of Covent Garden’s market building appear to levitate in 2014 (‘Take My Lightning But Don’t Steal My Thunder’). These are engineered, temporary architectural interventions designed to read as impossible from street level.
So sleepy! 🐱💤