In 2008 the Olympian Quarter, a new 900-unit residential neighborhood, was under construction in Amsterdam. Seeking something special to distinguish the neighborhood, the Amsterdam Foundation for the Arts commissioned Dutch artist Reinoud Oudshoorn to create the house numbers.

Oudshoorn was something like a graphic designer who transitions into industrial design: He originally trained as a painter, but grew dissatisfied with the limitations of 2D and started pushing into sculptural 3D works. In short, he was the perfect guy to render boring 2D characters interesting:

Oudshoorn's take on house numbers was inspired by the early-20th-century architecture movement known as the Amsterdam School; that movement's Expressionist style slotted in between Art Noveau and Art Deco, which you can see in Oudshoorn's cast aluminum numbers.

"[The numbers] hold a middle ground between house number and sculpture, and are intended to evoke a strong sense of expression — touchable and shining, like huge drops of rain," writes artistic hardware company Petra.

Petra manufactures the numbers today, still in cast aluminum, and reckons they have a 200-year lifespan. They'd better—they're $625 a pop!