for every gargantuan stadium or stratospheric skyscraper that makes it off the architect's
drawing board onto the real world skyline hundreds never see the light of day perhaps
they're too expensive or impractical to build with the available technology of the day
some were always insane while others could deserve a second hearing join us now as we rummage through
the architect's waste paper bin for a look at some incredible mega projects that never happened
one hyper building the timeline of human habitation can broadly be characterized as
nomadic hunter-gatherers settled down discovered agriculture and built towns which eventually
grew into cities so what's the next step cities that are all made in one go starchitect rem cool
house certainly thinks these integrated cities are the way forward as seen in this so-called
hyperbuilding concept the proposed site chosen by cool house's firm oma for its speculative
hyper-building was an unused green reserve located on the west bank of the chaofreya river in bangkok
bangkok was chosen says cool house's pitch because bangkok is a city of crisis from its traffic to
its haphazard development to its politics instead 120 000 people would live work and play in one
uber-organized utopian megastructure the hyper building would have six main internal streets
with conventional and high-speed elevators linking the upper levels and a 12-kilometer
pedestrian promenade that snakes from the base of the building to its summit there's
a generous five and a half million square meters of residential space with an additional 120 000
square meters set aside for restaurants museums and galleries would occupy 80 000 square meters
for now alas this ambitious hyper building looks set to remain hyperbole 2. crystal island another
city in microcosm this futuristic pointy ice palace from architects foster and partners is
named crystal island and already technically has planning permission if crystal island ever does
go ahead occupying a peninsula on the moscow river just miles from the kremlin it'll be by some way
the largest building on earth by volume and floor space crystal island's spiraling form creates a
tent-like outer structure that's designed to keep out the russian cold but can open up to provide
natural ventilation in summer it'll incorporate 3 000 hotel rooms and 900 service departments
plus offices and shops a 500 student international school and two viewing platforms at different
stages up the 450 metre tall pinnacle it'll have at least one imac cinema a theater museums and 14
000 underground car parking spaces in addition to its 2.5 million square feet of floor space
the lines of those natty spirals extend out into a broad landscaped park where inhabitants can play
football boat on a lake and cross country ski in wintertime what's holding it up financial
backing evaporated after the 2008 financial crisis never to return three shimizu mega city pyramid
japan is a challenging environment to build mountainous and prone to earthquakes with an
already outsized population virgin sites are practically non-existent enter the shimizu
megacity pyramid a proposed 2000 metre high monster capable of housing three-quarters of a
million people out on the water of tokyo bay solar panels and algae on the outside would power the
many skyscrapers inside this modern day cigarettes which itself will be made of carbon nanotubes
capable of withstanding intense tectonic stresses and tsunamis oh and it'll be built by autonomous
robots the name shimizu comes from the company that first floated the idea a civil engineering
firm more noted for its bridges and airport terminals so this is most likely a clever pr stunt
or perhaps some manner of pyramid scheme 4. the illinois frank lloyd wright that titan of american
architecture was 89 years old when he proposed this mile-high 528-storey chicago skyscraper in
the mid 50s its only contemporary rival the empire state building has just 102 stories by the way
and even now wright's tower would be twice as tall as the burj khalifa when he unveiled his plans to
an ored press conference in october 1956 even his schematic drawing was 25 feet tall despite
its city center location the mixed use tower would offer 15 000 parking spaces and 100 helipads not
to mention 76 elevators each five stories high traveling at 60 miles per hour and all
atomic powered steel as opposed to reinforced concrete was the proposed material it would have
moved around in high winds and caused great discomfort to inhabitants of higher stories
wright thought his tripod style structure would have combated this he would have been
wrong 5. the metropolitan sepulcher popularly known as the death pyramid which itself sounds
like a banging grunge band this mooted victorian monolith was dreamt up to solve a problem that
has long bedeviled city planners basically where do we put all the dead people in 100
years from the mid-18th century to the mid-19th century london's population surged from less than
a million to nearly three and a half million this was thanks to increased prosperity in the wake of
the industrial revolution and improved sanitation and healthcare initiatives and the empire probably
anyway london's graveyards were already bursting since the time of the medieval plagues so drastic
action to deal with the cemetery crisis was needed entrepreneurial architect thomas wilson galvanized
britain's contemporary infatuation with all things egyptian and proposed a gigantic pyramid-shaped
mausoleum that could hold 5 million dead londoners it would have occupied 18 acres in primrose hill
and risen to a then unprecedented 94 stories a businessman through and through wilson reckoned
londoners would pony up 50 pounds per volt and at the going rate of 40 000 burials a year his
pyramid general cemetery company could rake in about 10 million alas nobody else saw his point
6. india tower mumbai has undergone many radical changes over the past few decades but despite
its meteoric rise in wealth and prominence on the global stage mumbai laksa coherent architectural
symbol or at least one that looks forward rather than backwards at its colonial past
rem cool house him again hopes to combat mumbai's inevitable boom in dubai-style identicate towers
with india tower a striking tubular structure with a gap which is actually the lobby halfway
up the sky lobby is an intersection of all paths within the tower gush is the architect's website
and a panoramic platform for any possible activity to unfold sadly this visionary tower looks set to
remain a disjointed fantasy 7. hotel attraction antoni gaudi was a catalan architect most
famous for his work in barcelona in particular the soaring majestic church of the sagrada family
his distinctively trippy colorful and above all organic brand of modernism
almost made it to the skyline of lower manhattan according to these tantalizing sketches from 1908
taller than the empire state gowdy's hotel attraction was impractical
as its designer's vision was uncompromising to this day due to its scale and complexity his
sagrada familia is still not completed despite having broken ground in 1882 what do you think
which of these unbuilt megastructures would you most like to see irl let us know in the
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