#BUILDINGS LOST TO TIME FULL#

The foundation was used as a public swimming pool from 1958 to 1994, and today the site supports the rebuilt Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Steel from the building’s frame was repurposed for wartime infrastructure projects, and the palace scheme was officially abandoned by the Soviet government in 1957. Construction began on the project in 1938 but was quickly interrupted by the eruption of World War II. If completed, the 100-meter (328-foot) statue of Vladimir Lenin planned for the top of the palace would have projected higher than the spire of the Empire State building. The winning design detailed an ambitious 415-meter (1,362-foot) neoclassical pyramid build of seven increasingly-narrow concentric cylinders, with the bottom ring’s footprint covering 140 meters (460 feet) in diameter. Save this picture! Image by Ilya Ilusenko via Wikimedia (public domain)ĭuring the height of Stalin’s rule of the Soviet Union, a design contest yielded plans for a massive new building that would house the nation’s government in Moscow.

#BUILDINGS LOST TO TIME FULL#

With current construction funded by entrance fees from visitors to the unfinished masterpiece, the structure and all 18 of the church’s towers are expected to be complete by 2026, and all its decorative elements should finally be in place by 2032, a full 150 years after groundbreaking. Now in late stages of construction, the design is based on reconstructed versions and contemporary adaptations of Gaudí’s plans. Progress was interrupted in the 1930s by the Spanish Civil War, and much of the architect’s documentation was lost when combatants destroyed his workshop during the conflict. Gaudí took control of the project a year into the church’s construction, reshaping the evocative design that he would see only partially realized by his death in 1926. Save this picture! © Expiatory Temple of the Sagrada FamíliaĪ work in progress since 1882, Antoni Gaudí’s monumental Roman Catholic Church stands amongst the most well-known examples of unfinished architecture. Initiated by civilizations across the globe, the following list details just a few examples of history’s most interesting and infamous unfinished construction projects. Whether partially completed and left as ruins or still under construction decades (or centuries) after initial groundbreaking, unfinished buildings offer an alternative history of our built environment, promising long-delayed gratification or examples of design so ambitious that they prove impossible to realize. Economic factors are the most common cause of unfinished construction, but buildings have also been stranded in limbo by wars, geopolitical shifts, epidemics of disease and other unpredictable obstacles, leaving partial structures as haunting reminders of what might have been. Unfortunately, these failed projects have an extensive history. Financial issues or unrealistic timetables can complicate a building’s construction but, while usually the final result eventually meets the initial expectations, other times the worst-case scenario of a building being abandoned during construction becomes a nightmare come true.

Sustainability and Performance in Architectureīoth today and in centuries past, it is a reality of building that not every project is destined for success. The Future of Architectural Visualization

Buildings lost to time