Somewhere on Sullivan’s Island near Charleston, there’s a lighthouse that looks like it was designed by someone who’d never actually seen a lighthouse before but had it described to them by a modernist architect.
The result is a 140-foot triangular tower that’s been guiding ships since 1962 while simultaneously making everyone who sees it ask, “Is that really a lighthouse?”
The Sullivan’s Island Lighthouse, officially called Charleston Light, is what happens when you take centuries of lighthouse tradition and decide that none of it applies to you.
It’s concrete, it’s angular, it’s painted in vertical black and white stripes, and it looks like it could double as a launch pad for a very small rocket…