Cénotaphe à Newton
Architect: Étienne-Louis Boullée / Date: 1748
Boullée promoted the idea of making architecture expressive of its purpose, a doctrine that his detractors termed architecture parlante (“talking architecture”), which was an essential element in Beaux-Arts architectural training in the later 19th century. His style was most notably exemplified in his proposal for a cenotaph for the English scientist Isaac Newton, which would have taken the form of a sphere 150 m (490 ft) high embedded in a circular base topped with cypress trees. Though the structure was never built, its design was engraved and circulated widely in professional circles. Boullee’s Cenotaph for Issac Newton is a funerary monument celebrating a figure interred elsewhere; the hollow sphere foreshadows the death of Newtonian Physics. The Newton cenotaph, designed in 1748, for all its apparent originality, it actually derives from contemporary archaeology. The small sarcophagus for Newton is placed at the lower pole of the sphere. The design of the memorial creates the effect of day and night. The effect by night, when the sarcophagus is illuminated by the starlight coming through the holes in the vaulting. The effect by day is an armillary sphere hanging in the center that gives off a mysterious glow. For Boullée symmetry and variety were the golden rules of architecture.
(words from wikipedia)
Kowloon Walled City
Architect: Various / Date 1945 - 1992 / Location: Hong Kong
Kowloon Walled City was for a while, one of the most densely populated places on earth - during the 80’s it was estimated that around 33,000 people were living in the 200m x 200m block.
The entire thing was demolished in 1992 and replaced with a park, however, since 1945 it had been growing with mostly unregulated building and at such a density that sunlight never reached a lot of the lower levels.
The whole thing started as a military outpost, and when the British decided to have Hong Kong island during the Treaty of Nanking, the Quing authorities decided to build a wall around the outpost in order to minimise any further British influence in the area. Nobody really told that to the British though, and instead they decided to rent everything except the Walled City for 100 years.
For a while it became a bit of a curiosity, for colonialists and tourists untill 1933 when they decided to knock most of it down. The Wall survived untill 1940 when the occupying Japanese forces tore it down to extend the airport next door.
Once the Japanese left there was a bit of an ownership vacuum and the Chinese announced their intention to reclaim the city, with that news some 2000 refugees flooded into the city which the British then tried to remove, until they decided that it was all a bit too hard and they probably had better things to do.
At that point, things got interesting - with neither the British or Chinese governments willing to intervene, the locals described it as ‘unregulated for three’ and it became a haven for drugs dealing, prostitution, unlicensed dentistry and opium dens. Triad groups ruled the city during the 50’s and 60’s, and Police would only venture into the city in large groups. Eventually, after something like 3500 raids during the early 70’s, the police regained control and by the early 80’s the crime rate was apparently under control.
During that time however, the city had grown considerably. Here’s the Fort in 1898, Then here’s the city in 1973 where individual buildings are still identifiable, and the here it is a few years before demolition, seemingly at saturation point.
The network of stairs walkways were apparently so extensive that it was possible to traverse the entire city from north to south without actually touching ground level. Sunlight rarely touched the ground level and as one former resident recalls “At other times right at noon, daylight would leak in, and people would read the paper by the light and kids would play in it. It was rather fascinating.”. Meanwhile, at roof level, the antenna strewn rooftops served as regular meating spot for residence, where children could play and fly kites.
Eventually, both the Chinese and British agreed that the city had to go (it’s also possible that it was their disagreement that had allowed the city to get to the point that it did) and in 1992 it was entirely demolished and replaced with a park.
To give you an idea of what life was like inside, I recommend watching this clip from this brilliant and informative documentary featuring Jean Claude Van Damme.
The Melbourne Arts Centre Spire
Compromised.
Architect: Roy Grounds / Date: 1960 / Location: Melbourne.
While not strictly ‘unbuilt’, the original 127m spire was proposed to be clad in copper, however this was dropped for the lattice design, which was supposed to stand at 137 meters, however this to was cut back and the spire was built at an awkward 115m. This was rectified in 1994, when the top of the spire needed to be replaced for structural reasons. The replacement was a taller section that coincided with Roy Grounds original more slender and elegant design and so now the spire stands at 162m.
The Federal Hotel and Coffee Palace
Demolished
Architect: Ellerker & Kilburn / Date: 1890 - 1970 / Location: Marvellous Melbourne.
When it was completed in 1888 for James Mirams and James Munro on the corner of King and Collins streets, the Federal coffee palace was the largest hotel in Australia. Architects Ellerker & Kilburn won the competition to design the hotel, which eventually cost £90 000 to build and some £20 000 to furnish. They teamed up with runner-up William Pitt to create a vast ornate temperance hotel of nearly 500 rooms, including 370 bedrooms, two dining rooms, a café, shops, two drawing rooms, reading, writing and reception rooms, and two billiard rooms. It was entered through a magnificent arcaded lobby running through four floors with a glass roof and an ornately balustraded white and red marble staircase. One hundred and sixty-five feet above it rose a four-storey domed tower that in 1967 became the home of touring car driver and Melbourne social identity Peter Janson.
Temperance having proved a financial failure, the hotel was eventually granted a licence. In 1897 it became the Federal Palace Hotel and in 1923 the Federal Hotel. For many years it was a focal point of Melbourne society gatherings and business conventions. Ships coming up Port Phillip Bay were guided by the blue star light that shone from the truck of the flagstaff on the dome. In 1972 the hotel was sold and, sadly, demolished to make way for commercial development.
(words from here)
(+ Many thanks for submission by Deaf&Dumb)
THE GLOBE TOWER
Proposal / scam
Architect: Samuel Friede / Date: 1906 / Location: Coney Island.
The most spectacular project of Coney island was the “Globe Tower”. On May 6, 1906, it was announced in the New York Herald, inviting people to invest in a 700 feet high tower. The design, of which at least two versions exist, is a structure which wants to suggest progress by reminding on the Eiffel Tower at its base and at the same time tries to appear serious by means of a metal version of the dome of the US Congress on top. In its center, it contains a globe with 11 floors, each 50 feet high. These floors would be filled with four circuses, gigantic animal cages, a miniature train, the largest ballroom in the world, a moving, glass-enclosed restaurant, a hotel, and a palm garden at its highest level, topped by giant telescopes and searchlights. With the Globe Tower, the entertainment village would become an entertainment planet, an enclosed other world which assumes the shape of a planet on stilts. It is a self-contained space for naive imaginations of excitement non-stop, for sleeping, eating and playing in the same space, trying to impress with superlatives of size. It was same idea which would drive the entertainment parks, multiplexes and casino-hotels of the late 20th century, the same idea which drives places such as Las Vegas or Dubai. The Globe Tower itself was also prophetic in a financial sense: It turned out as a financial scam and was never built.
(words from here)
The Palace of the Soviets
Uncompleted.
Architect: Boris Iofan / Date 1937 - 1958 / Location: Moscow
The Palace of the Soviets (Russian: Дворец Советов, Dvorets Sovetov) was a project to construct an administrative center and a congress hall in Moscow, Russia, near the Kremlin, on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The architectural contest for the Palace of the Soviets (1931–1933) was won by Boris Iofan’s neoclassical concept, subsequently revised by Iofan, Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Gelfreikh into a supertall skyscraper. If built, it would have become the world’s tallest structure. Construction started in 1937, and was terminated by the German invasion in 1941. In 1941-1942, its steel frame was disassembled for use in fortifications and bridges. Construction was never resumed. In 1958, the foundations of the Palace were converted into what would become (at the time) the world’s largest open-air swimming pool. The Cathedral was rebuilt in 1995-2000.
(Words from Wikipedia.)
The Wolkenbugel
Proposal
Architect: El Lissitzky / Date: 1925 / Location: Moscow
- If anyone’s got more info/links on this one other than the above - feel free to comment!. -
WALKING CITY
Proposal
Architect: Ron Herron - Archigram / Date: 1964 / Location: no fixed address.
Walking City imagines a future in which borders and boundaries are abandoned in favour of a nomadic lifestyle among groups of people worldwide. Inspired by NASA’s towering, mobile launch pads, hovercraft, and science fiction comics, Archigram envisioned parties of itinerant buildings that travel on land and sea. Like so many of Archigram’s projects, Walking City anticipated the fast-paced urban lifestyle of a technologically advanced society in which one need not be tied down to a permanent location. The structures are conceived to plug into utilities and information networks at different locations to support the needs and desires of people who work and play, travel and stay put, simultaneously. By means of this nomadic existence, different cultures and information is shared, creating a global information market that anticipates later Archigram projects, such as Instant City and Ideas Circus.
(Words from here)
THE MILE HIGH ILLINOIS
Proposal.
Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright / Date: 1956 / Location: Chicago.
When asked to design a hypothetical television tower a mile high, Wright opted to turn a mere antenna into a building, proposing a 528-floor structure that would house all Illinois state government offices and consolidate commercial, governmental, and civic functions.
The facade tapers as the building rises, exposing the elevator cores to offer landscape views to those racing to the top, a trip designed to take only sixty seconds.
Given Wright’s disdain for crowded cities, an enormous skyscraper might seem like an odd project for the architect. But he viewed the idea as “a necessary step” toward the decentralization that his Broadacre City plan would bring.
He explained, “The Mile High would absorb, justify, and legitimatize the gregarious instinct of humanity … and would mop up what now remains of urbanism.” Employees working in the Mile High are surrounded by green space rather than the typical mob of towers and are freed from overcrowding, pollution, and traffic as cars and helicopters transport them easily into the natural landscape.
Wright’s colossus, which reflects an ambition to build higher and higher that’s as old as the Tower of Babel, continues to challenge architects contemplating high-rise buildings in urban environments.
(Words from here)
HOTEL ATTRACTION
Proposal.
Architect: Antoni Gaudi / Date: 1908 / Location: New York City.
This interesting project, never carried out, remained completely unknown till 1956, after many years of indifference -even hostility- towards Gaudi’s works. First of all it is necessary to dwell on the figure of the sculptor and gaudinist Juan Matamala Flotats (1893-1977), who divulged this project, the son of the sculptor Lorenzo Matamala Piñol (1856-1927), who married the daughter of the sculptor Juan Flotats.
Juan Matamala started working in the Sagrada Familia workshop in his youth an made the well known Gaudí bust in 1925 and also made his death mask. He gave valuable first hand data for Gaudí’s scholars. Matamala tells how, in may 1908, two North American businessmen visited the Sagrada Familia workshop (and also the works at Casa Milà, Park Güell, apart from the Güell Palace, and, previously to their trip to Barcelona, the Mallorca cathedral) to commission him a singular building: the Attraction Hotel. Gaudí had even planned to travel regularly to New York to survey the works, just what he did with the restoration of Mallorca cathedral. Unfortunately we don’t know two capital things: the two commissioners names and the reason why the hotel was never built. A reasonable answer for the second question may be that the fact of erecting a building 360 metres high in 1908!, when there weren’t in New York any buildings with those dimensions, it should have been a very expensive enterprise. The hotel consisted in a higher central core with the shape of a revolving paraboloid crowned by a star, that was flanked at the cardinal points by four lesser buildings intended to be museums, art galleries and concert halls, and being very similar to the Milá House façade, that was being built at that time. Five large superimposed dining rooms were intended, some 70-85 metres high, that would represent the five Continents. The first one, in the first floor, was dedicated to America. The building was crowned by the Homage to America room, that was 125 metres high, namely one third of the total height of the hotel.
(words from Here)
