The most grandiose buildings in the world. The most ambitious unrealized architectural projects

culture

Great architectural buildings, which have successfully stood the test of time, despite destructive warriors and natural disasters, often hide many secrets and secrets.

The construction of many of them is overgrown legends and myths that remain in history and through the centuries reach us. We invite you to dispel various myths about the most famous great buildings of mankind with us.

Blind architects of St. Basil's Cathedral?

Located on Red Square in Moscow, the world-famous St. Basil's Cathedral, also known as Cathedral of the Intercession Holy Mother of God , strikes with its beauty even contemporaries. The temple with brightly decorated domes resembles a fairy-tale palace.

Cathedral included in the list of monuments world heritage UNESCO, He was built in 1555-1561 by order of Ivan the Terrible. According to legend, the king ordered the architects to be blinded after the work was completed so that they could never build something more beautiful than this cathedral.

However, this is all just a legend. There is written evidence that 25 years after the construction of the cathedral and 4 years after the death of Ivan the Terrible, the same architects were hired to expand the cathedral. If they were blind, they certainly would not have been able to make a revision.

Where does the Queen of England live?

Queen Elizabeth II of England lives in Buckingham Palace, which can be read in any textbook in English or English modern history. Her Royal Highness acknowledges that considers another place as official place of residence, namely St. James's Palace on Pall Mall in London, where the royal family lived for 400 years.

Buckingham Palace

This old palace was built between 1531 and 1536 and was official seat of the British Monarchy until 1837 until Queen Victoria built the more modern Buckingham Palace.

St. James's Palace

Moreover, the third official residence of queens, at least in summer, is Windsor castle, beautiful castle in the city of Windsor.

Windsor castle

New York skyscraper and coin

There is a myth that if you throw a coin from the last floor skyscraper Empire State Building then she might kill someone downstairs. That is, the skyscraper is so huge that a coin, having flown all its floors, will reach such a speed that, having landed on the head of a passerby, can instantly take his life.

Fortunately for New Yorkers and visitors who decide to take a walk next to the skyscraper, there is no danger of being killed by a coin. The flat surface of a flying coin will meet air resistance. If the environment were a vacuum, then the coin would reach its top speed. But even with such incredible speed, it is only would cause a little pain but couldn't kill.

What is Big Ben?

The world famous clock tower Palace of Westminster often referred to as Big Ben, although in reality Big Ben is a bell, not a tower. Until September 2012, it was just Clock tower but today she wears official name Elizabeth Tower in honor of the 60th anniversary of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.

In reality, Big Ben is a bell

Big Ben is the largest of the 6 bells in the palace. Its weight is 13.7 tons, and according to one of the versions, it received its name in honor of Benjamin Hall who worked on its casting.

Sunset over the Thames. View of the Palace of Westminster and Elizabeth Tower

When did the White House become white?

Legend has it that after construction in the period between 1792 and 1800 The White House was gray, and it became white a little later. In 1814 when the Anglo-American war, which has remained in history as War of 1812, was still in full swing, the British troops did something that was not at all in their spirit - set fire to the White House. After the war, the building was restored and repainted white, hence the name.

Part of this story is true: the British did set the White House on fire in 1814. However, part of the house was really white even before the fire. He became white 1798 when it was painted white to protect it from the winter weather. Name "The White house" the building received in 1811, three years before the fire.

The official residence of the President of the United States The White House today, Washington, DC

Why is there nothing higher than the Capitol?

It may seem strange that there are no skyscrapers in the US capital Washington DC. In almost all capitals of the world today you can find very tall buildings, some hundreds of stories high. It is believed that local laws prohibit the construction of skyscrapers because neither one building must not be taller than the Capitol- the building of the US Congress, since nothing in this city should be above politics.

Capital of the United States, Washington, D.C.

Actually this is not true. The reason why Washington doesn't have skyscrapers is something else. According to Building Heights Act of 1910, all city buildings should be no more than 6 meters above than the width of the streets. The founders of the city believed that the capital should be "low and comfortable".

Capitol - US Congress Building, Washington DC

Are Galileo's Experiments a Fiction?

Galileo Galilei- a famous Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, who conducted dozens of experiments for the purposes of science. One of his most famous experiments, when he threw leaning tower of pisa two cannonballs to demonstrate that two bodies of different masses but the same shape will reach the earth with the same speed.

However, historians doubt that Galileo ever made such experiments, since in none of his writings did he leave descriptions of these experiments.

Who built Stonehenge?

Many believe that stonehenge – one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world, was built by the Druids - poets and priests of the ancient Celts. The connection between the druids and Stonehenge was found by an archaeologist John Aubrey as early as 1640, and up until the 19th century, this theory prevailed.

However, modern archaeological methods prove that Stonehenge could have been built by anyone but the druids. The design of this structure was not built immediately, construction stretched for many centuries.

Construction of Stonehenge has begun at the end of the 2nd - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC and then other phases of construction followed. It began to be built by representatives of local Neolithic cultures who lived on British Isles at that time and were somewhat isolated from the rest of Europe

Where are the victims of the Gever dam?

Gever Dam in the USA on the Colorado River is one of the largest dams in the world. Its construction, which took more than 5 years between 1931 and 1936, required a titanic effort, resulting in the death of 96 people. According to legend, many workers were buried in the concrete of the dam, and their remains are still buried there.

The fact that the dam had 96 victims is true, but that one of them was buried in concrete is a pure fiction. The dam was built of thousands of tightly fitting slabs, each of which was cast independently of the other and brought into place.

Another interesting fact connected to the Gever Dam. The first person to die in preparation for the construction of the dam J. G. Tierney, and the last victim of the dam was his son Patrick W. Tierney, who died on the same day as his father, but 13 years later.

Is the Great Wall of China visible from space?

The great Wall of China represents the largest building project in history. Moreover, this is the longest wall in the world, and some are convinced that it can even be seen from space. This myth has become so popular that appeared even in Chinese school textbooks.

However, the wall cannot be seen from space at all, contrary to popular belief. This was proven in 2003 Yang Liwei, one of the Chinese astronauts, a man who knew exactly where to look and where to look for the wall.

Former NASA astronaut Geoffrey Hoffman also said that although he could not see from space Chinese Wall, saw major highways, desert roads and irrigation canals as they simply different in color from the environment.

This article contains 20 engineering wonders of the world.

The Large Hadron Collider, abbreviated TANK(English) Large Hadron Collider, abbreviated LHC) is an accelerator of charged particles in colliding beams, designed to accelerate protons and heavy ions (lead ions) and study the products of their collisions. The collider was built in CERN e (European Council for Nuclear Research), located near Geneva, on the border of Switzerland and France. TANK is the largest experimental facility in the world. More than 10,000 scientists and engineers from more than 100 countries have participated and are participating in construction and research.

It is named large because of its size: the length of the main ring of the accelerator is 26,659 m; hadronic - due to the fact that it accelerates hadrons, that is, heavy particles consisting of quarks; collider (English collider - collider) - due to the fact that particle beams are accelerated in opposite directions and collide at special collision points.

Abbr. ISS(English) International Space Station, abbr. ISS) is a manned orbital station used as a multi-purpose space research complex. ISS is a joint international project involving 15 countries (in alphabetical order): Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Canada, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, USA, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Japan.

Control ISS carried out: by the Russian segment - from the Space Flight Control Center in Korolev, by the American segment - from the Mission Control Center in Houston. There is a daily exchange of information between the Centers.

three gorges- the world's largest operating hydroelectric power plant, built in China on the Yangtze River, the third longest river in the world. Located near Sandouping City in Yichang City, Hubei Province. The world's largest power plant in terms of installed capacity. The gravity concrete dam of this reservoir is one of the largest in the world. When the reservoir was filled, 1.3 million people were resettled.

Petronas- 88-storey skyscraper. Height - 451.9 meters. Located in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. The Prime Minister of Malaysia participated in the design of the skyscraper Mahathir Mohamad , who proposed to build buildings in the "Islamic" style. Therefore, in terms of the complex, it consists of two eight-pointed stars, and the architect added semicircular ledges for stability.

6 years were allotted for construction (1992-1998). The towers were built by two different companies to create competition and increase productivity. In the course of geological surveys, it turned out that the proposed site for construction is located in one part on the edge of the rock, and the other on soft limestone. After building on this place such heavy towers, one of them would inevitably sink. As a result, the buildings were completely transferred to soft ground, shifted by 60 meters, and piles were driven to a depth of more than 100 meters. It is currently the largest concrete foundation in the world.

It differs not only in its colossal size, but also in the complexity of its design. The area of ​​all premises of the building is 213,750 m2, which corresponds to the area of ​​48 football fields. The towers themselves occupy 40 hectares in the city. The Petronas Towers houses offices, exhibition and conference rooms, and an art gallery.

Space X-ray Observatory "Chandra"(space telescope "Chandra", English Chandra) is a space observatory launched NASA July 23, 1999 (via shuttle "Colombia") for space exploration in the X-ray range. Named after an American physicist and astrophysicist of Indian origin Chandrasekara , who taught at the University of Chicago from 1937 until his death in 1995 and was best known for his work on white dwarfs.

Chandra- the third observatory of the four launched NASA at the end of the 20th beginning of the 21st century. The telescope was first Hubble, second Compton and fourth Spitzer.

The observatory was conceived and proposed NASA in 1976 Riccardo Giacconi And Harvey Tananbaum as a development of the observatory being launched at that time HEAO-2(Einstein). In 1992, due to reduced funding, the design of the observatory was significantly changed - 4 out of 12 planned X-ray mirrors and 2 out of 6 planned focal instruments were removed.

Takeoff weight AXAF/Chandra was 22,753 kg, which is the absolute record for the mass ever launched into space by space shuttles. The bulk of the complex "Chandra" was the rocket that made it possible to put the satellite into orbit, the apogee of which is about a third of the distance to the moon.

The station was designed for a period of operation equal to 5 years, but on September 4, 2001 NASA it was decided to extend the service life by 10 years, thanks to the outstanding results of the work.

6. Palm Deira - an artificial island in Dubai

The Palm Islands are an archipelago of artificial islands. Located in the United United Arab Emirates, in the emirate of Dubai. The archipelago consists of three large islands, each having the shape of a palm tree:

• Palm Jumeirah,
• Palm Jebel Ali,
• Palm Deira.

Between the islands there are also artificial archipelagos "Mir" and "Universe" of small islands.

The Siduhe Bridge is a suspension bridge across the Siduhe River Valley in Hubei Province, China. The maximum height above ground level is 496 meters, which makes it the most high bridge in the world. The bridge is part of the G50 highway connecting Shanghai and Chongqing. The bridge has 4 working lanes for traffic and 2 reserve lanes.

The Beijing National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, is a multifunctional sports complex designed for summer Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing (China), located next to the swimming complex. This stadium, in addition to holding sports, hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games. The construction of the stadium began in December 2003 according to the project of the bureau Herzog and de Meuron . The opening of the stadium took place in March 2008.

The cost of building the stadium is estimated at 3.5 billion yuan, which is approximately 325 million euros.

9. Five-star hotel JW Marriott Marquis in Dubai

JW Marriott Marquis Dubai- it's high-rise hotel in Dubai, UAE, currently, according to Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat , which is the tallest hotel in the world. It consists of two buildings 355 meters high.

Initially the company The Emirates Group planned to build only one 77-storey tower with a height of 350 meters. Construction was supposed to be completed in 2008. However, then the architecture of the building has undergone significant changes. A new design for the twin towers was approved in 2006. At first it was planned to build towers with a height of 395 meters, then changes were made to the project, and the planned height of the buildings decreased to 355 meters.

The opening of the hotel was timed to coincide with the visit of the delegation of the International Exhibition Bureau to Dubai: the UAE has applied to host the World Expo in 2020 in Dubai.

The cost of the project amounted to about 1.8 billion UAE dirhams (approximately $432 million).

The hotel complex includes 1608 rooms and 15 restaurants, as well as a business center, conference rooms, meeting rooms, a spa center and shopping mall. In addition, on the 7th floor of one of the buildings there is a 32-meter bowl-pool with related infrastructure.

Kingda Ka- attraction, the highest and second fastest roller coaster in the world. Located in the park "Six Flags", New Jersey, USA.

The trolley with the help of a hydraulic mechanism accelerates to 206 km / h in 3.5 seconds. The train rises to the top of the tower, reaching a height of 139 meters, and then rolls down under its own weight.

May Day Stadium- a stadium located in Pyongyang (DPRK). It is the largest stadium in the world in terms of capacity, designed for 150,000 spectators, built in 1989 to host the XIII Festival of Youth and Students. Design feature May Day Stadium are sixteen arches forming a ring, because of this, the stadium is shaped like a magnolia flower. The arena is used for home matches of the DPRK national team, but its main purpose is the massive Arirang festival.

12. Akashi Kaikyo - the longest suspension bridge

Akashi-Kaikyo is a suspension bridge in Japan that crosses the Akashi Strait and connects the city of Kobe on the island of Honshu with the city of Awaji on the island of Awaji. It is part of one of the three highways connecting Honshu and Shikoku.

The bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the world: its total length is 3911 m, the central span is 1991 m long, and the side spans are 960 m each. The height of the pylons is 298 m.

The length of the main span was originally planned to be 1990 m, but it increased by one meter after the Kobe earthquake on January 17, 1995.

The structure of the bridge has a system of double-hinged stiffening beams, which makes it possible to withstand wind speeds up to 80 m/s, earthquakes with a magnitude of up to 8.5 and withstand strong sea ​​currents. To reduce the loads acting on the bridge, there is also a system of pendulums operating at the resonant frequency of the bridge structure.

13. Mid - the largest reservoir in the US

Mid (eng. Lake Mead) is the largest reservoir in the United States. It is located on the Colorado River 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada, on the border between Nevada and Arizona. Formed during the construction of the Hoover Dam, it extends 110 miles (180 km) beyond the dam. The total volume of water is 35 km3. The water stored in the reservoir is transported by aqueducts to communities in southern California and Nevada.

14. Project Genesis - the world's largest cruise ship

Company Luxury Vessel Royal Caribbean entitled "Project Genesis" is the biggest cruise ship, which the world has ever known, and is worth 1.24 billion dollars.

The liner is 1180 feet long (16 decks) and is capable of accommodating 5400 passengers in 2700 cabins. The finished ship houses Central Park (just like one of the parks in New York), luxury hotels, restaurants 150 Central Park, Central Park Cafe, Giovanni's Table, bars Canopy Bar, Rising Tide, wine cellar Vintages, public places, picnic areas. IN Central Park similar to the city center, guests will be provided with balcony rooms - great places for social gatherings throughout the day and night. The liner also has six other sections.

The Hangzhou Bay Bridge, or the Great Transoceanic Hangzhou Bay Bridge, is a cable-stayed bridge in the Hangzhou Bay off the east coast of China. Connects the cities of Shanghai and Ningbo (Zhejiang Province) and is the longest transoceanic bridge in the world.

Opened to traffic on May 1, 2008, although it was assumed that the bridge would not be completed until Expo 2010. Construction of the bridge began on June 8, 2003 and continued until 2007, after which closed testing of the bridge was carried out for several months.

The length of the bridge is about 36 km, traffic is carried out in three lanes in each direction. It is the third longest bridge across bodies of water. Estimated speed on the bridge is 100 km/h, service life is more than 100 years. The total cost of investment in construction was 11.8 billion yuan (about 1.4 billion US dollars in December 2004). 35% of investments were made by private enterprises in Ningbo, who are highly interested in quick access to the financial center and largest port countries in Shanghai. Another 59% are loans provided by China's central and regional banks.

Eurotunnel, tunnel under the English Channel (French tunnel sous la Manche, English Channel Tunnel, also sometimes just Euro Tunnel) is a double-track railway tunnel, about 51 km long, of which 39 km is under the English Channel. Connects continental Europe with the UK by rail. Thanks to the tunnel, it became possible to visit London from Paris in just 2 hours and 15 minutes; in the tunnel itself, the trains are from 20 to 35 minutes. It was solemnly opened on May 6, 1994.

The Singapore Flyer is a giant Ferris wheel located in Singapore built between 2005-2008. It reaches the height of a 55-storey building, having overall height at 165 m (541 ft), making it the tallest Ferris wheel in the world, 5 m (16 ft) taller than the Nanchang Star and 30 m (98 ft) taller than the London Eye.

Each of the 28 air-conditioned capsules can accommodate 28 passengers. A full rotation of the wheel takes about 30 minutes. Initially, the wheel rotated in a counterclockwise direction, as viewed from Maritime Center, but its direction of rotation was changed on August 4, 2008 on the advice of feng shui experts.

Pan-STARRS(English) Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System Panoramic and Rapid Response Telescope System) is an implementable automatic system of 4 telescopes that will see objects a hundred times less bright (up to 24th magnitude) than those available to today's automatic surveys. This will make it possible to detect 99% of asteroids crossing the Earth's orbit with a diameter of more than 300 m.

Telescope system Pan-STARRS will be located on top of the Mauna Kea volcano on the island of Hawaii. She will have access to 3/4 of the entire sky, or 30,000 square degrees. The entire available area of ​​the sky will be scanned three times a month. A single frame will have a shutter speed of 30 seconds. The same region of the sky will be repeatedly taken at intervals of several tens of minutes. After each scan, several terabytes of data will be obtained for analysis: from the variety of astronomical objects, those that move or change their brightness will be selected.

telescopes Pan-STARRS will have a large viewing angle (large field of view) - 7 square degrees (a square with a side of 2.6 °), which will allow you to cover the sky with a relatively small number of images.

The project includes four telescopes with mirrors 1.8 m in diameter each and 1.4 gigapixel CCD cameras.

This program is the University of Hawaii's most important telescopic project in the last 30 years.

19. Tianhe-2 (MilkyWay-2) - the most powerful computer in the world

Tianhe-2(literally: "Milky Way-2") is a supercomputer designed Defense Science and Technology University Chinese People's Liberation Army People's Republic and company Inspur .

While the supercomputer is in Defense Science and Technology University PLA, but later it will be installed in National supercomputer center in Guangzhou. At first it was planned to finish the project in 2015, but it was launched ahead of schedule. Expected that Tianhe-2 will be finalized by the end of 2013.

Tianhe-2 consists of 16 thousand nodes, each of which includes 2 processors Intel Xeon E5-2692 on architecture Ivy Bridge with 12 cores each (frequency 2.2 GHz) and 3 dedicated coprocessors Intel Xeon Phi 31S1P(on architecture Intel MIC, 57 cores per accelerator, frequency 1.1 GHz, passive cooling). Each node has 64 GB DDR3 ECC memory (16 modules) and an additional 8 GB GDDR5 each Xeon Phi(total 88 GB). In total, the total number of computing cores reaches 3.12 million (384 thousand Ivy Bridge and 2736 thousand Xeon Phi), which is the largest public installation of such processors.

20. Alfonso del Mar - the largest artificial reservoir in the world

Private hotel swimming pool San Alfonso del Mar in Chile is 1 km long and covers an area of ​​8 hectares. Max Depth- 35 m. It contains 250,000,000 liters of water, which is filtered and pumped from the Pacific Ocean.

Publication prepared by staff CompMechLab® based on site materials

10 wonders of modern buildings

On this page - the 10 most grandiose buildings of the 20-21st century.
The choice of objects is quite subjective, it reflects not only the objects of the last decade, but rather the sensation that this object caused in its time.

The skyscraper was erected in 1931 in New York City. The height of the building is 381 meters from the base. Until 1972, when the first tower of the World Trade Center was built, this building remained the tallest in the world. After the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, the building again became the tallest in New York.

Built by Brazil and Paraguay, the dam (Itaipu) is the world's largest operating hydroelectric power plant. The construction ended in 1991. The construction of the dam lasted 16 years, the total length of the dam is 7,744 m.

CN Tower (CN Tower)

From 1976 to 2007, this TV tower was the most tall building in the world. The tower is located in Toronto, Canada and is a symbol and landmark of the city. The height of the tower from the base is 553 meters. At the level of 342 meters is Observation deck. It is also noteworthy that the structure was erected in record time: from February 12, 1973, to April 2, 1975.

The canal was built for 34 years, the length of the canal is 81.6 km. The channel is the most expensive building in American history. It should be noted that more than 80,000 people died during the construction of the canal, mainly from diseases.

The tunnel under the English Channel connects France and England. The total length of the tunnel is 51 km, of which 31 km is located directly under the English Channel. The tunnel went into operation in 1994.

North Sea Protection Works

Since the Netherlands is located below sea level, a series of dams and locks were built to prevent flooding during storms.
The most most of structures under the name: Netherlands North Sea Protection Works, was mobile and long, amounted to 1800 meters. The construction of the dam began in 1923 and was completed in 1984.

Golden Gate Bridge

Bridge from the city of San Francisco and Marin County, built in 1937, many years. Until 1964, the structure was the largest suspension bridge in the world. The length of the bridge is 1.9 km.
The bridge is suspended on special ropes that hang from a steel cable stretched between two towers. The total length of all ropes is 128,747 kilometers.
The thickness of the steel ropes between the towers is 92.7 cm, which is a record today.

Tower - Burj Khalifa building

Located in Dubai, built (opened) in January 2010. It is currently the tallest building in the world. The height of the structure is 828 meters, the number of floors is 163. In fairness, it must be said that the topmost floor is located at a height of 624 meters - the remaining 204 meters are the spire.

In China, in Hangzhou, the most long bridge in the world. Bridge construction began in 2003 and completed in 2008. The opening of the bridge for traffic took place in 2009. The length of the bridge is 36 km.

HPP "Three Gorges"

Construction began in 1992. In 2010, the first stage of the Three Gorges HPP was launched, located on the Yangtze River, China. The power plant includes a concrete dam with a volume of 27 million m 3 , a hydroelectric power station building - 26 units. The discharge volume at the dam is approximately 116,000 m3/s. Before construction began, 1,000,000 people were resettled. The HPP's design capacity of 18,200 MW is the most powerful hydroelectric power plant in the world.

Do you think it’s only in our country that they build grandiosely and expensively, and then they don’t know what to adapt for? Where there!

Is there some more North Korea, Canada, Côte d'Ivoire, Spain, Greece, Romania with their examples of multibillions buried in the ground and poured into concrete.
Here are just a few expensive and in many ways unique construction projects, whose content flies a pretty penny to the owners, but neither the creators nor the visitors need them.

Mirabel airport
Montreal, Canada

The first stage of the airport was put into operation in 1975, but the plans of its creators did not come true. Erroneous planning of traffic flows, the decrease in the attractiveness of Montreal as an economic center, a change in the policy of the government of Quebec and other factors led to the fact that even 3 million passengers did not pass through Mirabel during its entire existence.

In 2004, due to unprofitability, the airport ceased to serve regular commercial flights, turning into a cargo air harbor. Races began to be held on the vast runways, and films were made in the terminal building. And in 2014, they decided to demolish the terminal building, because it was too expensive to operate and no one really needed it. The construction of the Mirabell airport was recognized as a mistake, and the honorary title " white elephant He was assigned in the first decade of its existence. This is often the case with airports. So, the new main Berlin Harbour Air- Berlin-Brandenburg Airport named after Willy Brandt - was planned to open back in 2011, but it still does not accept either aircraft or passengers due to errors in the project.

Basilica of Notre Dame de la Paix
Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast

Two years later, Houphouet-Boigny laid the foundation stone for the largest church in the world, Notre Dame de la Paix, or of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the World. Construction was carried out for four years and cost the country's budget, according to various estimates, in the amount of 175 to 600 million dollars. And this is not surprising: hundreds of tons of marble were brought from Italy, stained-glass windows - from France, the building turned out to be 30 thousand square meters in area. m and a height of 158 meters (higher than St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, although Notre Dame de la Paix accommodates about 18 thousand people, which is three times less than the same St. Peter's Cathedral). On the square paved with granite and marble in front of the basilica, another 200 thousand people can fit, that is, approximately the entire population of Yamoussoukro, of which 19% are Catholics.

By the way, about the population: about 42% of the population of Côte d'Ivoire lives below the poverty line, that is, on less than $1.25 a day. Services in the basilica gather today, at best, hundreds of people.

Ryugyong Hotel
Pyongyang, DPRK
In 1987, the North Korean government, led by President Kim Il Sung, announced the start of construction of the tallest building in the country - the 105-story, 330-meter Ryugyong Hotel with 3,000 (according to other sources - 7,700) rooms and with revolving restaurants on top.

Construction resumed in 2008, and over the next three years, the concrete structure was covered with glass, new date The opening year was 2013, and the first photos of the interiors of the future hotel appeared on the Web. The opening, however, did not take place to this day, and experts around the world doubt that North Korea is even capable of completing construction and that the building is usable. It is noteworthy that the tallest London skyscraper, The Shard, which has a similar shape, is also half empty - buyers are in no hurry to purchase apartments worth 30-50 million pounds.

South China New Mall Shopping Mall
Dongguan, PRC

In the first years after the opening, tenants occupied only 1% of the center's area. Ten years later, this figure increased tenfold, but even today the complex is mostly empty. The reason is that local population does not make enough money to make the complex attractive to sellers, and developers' hopes that Dongguan residents will get rich have not materialized.

City of Galician culture
Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Construction lasted more than ten years, cost at least twice as much as planned (Eisenman indicated the figure of 400 million euros in the project) and was finally stopped by the decision of the regional government. Two of the six buildings remained unfinished, and most importantly, the vast complex did not attract the expected number of tourists and local residents, while its maintenance is very expensive for the local budget.

Clem Jones Tunnel
Brisbane, Australia

In 2005, when construction began, the tunnel was supposed to be the longest tunnel in Australia. Its construction cost 3.2 billion Australian dollars (approximately 2.5 billion US dollars) and was not an easy task: the builders had to make their way through a very hard rock - Brisbane tuff, for which they used the largest roadheaders in the world at that time, costing 50 million Australian dollars each.

Eventually the tunnel and access roads were opened on February 28, 2010 with a large gathering of people. But it soon became clear that citizens use the tunnel much less frequently than the city council had planned: for example, officials expected that 60,000 cars would pass through the tunnel daily, but in reality, about 20,000 drivers use it every day, and besides, it saves only eight minutes on the road and unloads other highways of the city by only 5-10%. The passage through the tunnel is paid, but even discounts and a radical price reduction (to the detriment of the project's payback) do not help increase the attractiveness of the structure among city residents. The operator's losses in 2010 amounted to A$1.6 billion.

Objects of the 2004 Olympics
Athens and surroundings, Greece

At the same time, the cost of maintaining sports facilities in good condition was estimated at 500 million euros annually, and these facilities themselves turned out to be useless. So, the center for rowing competitions has turned into a fetid swamp and a place of comfortable living for hordes of mosquitoes, the shooting stadium is overgrown, and the Olympic village is gradually being destroyed. Interestingly, the same thing happens with Olympic venues in Rio de Janeiro and Beijing, as well as with sports facilities built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

Palace of Parliament
Bucharest, Romania

Now in the premises of the palace with a total area of ​​365 thousand square meters. meters (this is about one and a half Red Squares in Moscow) both houses of the Romanian Parliament, three museums and a conference center are located. Together they occupy about 30% of the palace. The cost of the construction is estimated at 3 billion euros, while its lighting and heating costs about 6 million euros annually - about the same amount a medium-sized Romanian city spends per year on the same needs.

Reconstruction of Ground Zero

LOCATION

New York, USA

opening date

2017

Price

$25 billion

international space station

LOCATION

Earth orbit

opening date

2024

Price

$150 billion

The most expensive international scientific project: since its launch in 1998, the assembly and maintenance of the ISS has already cost $150 billion. Consisting of 14 modules, the station is a hundred meters long and can accommodate 6 astronauts. This is not the last configuration of the ISS: in the coming years, two more research modules should be attached to it. Recently it became known that Russia will not participate in the project until 2024, as previously assumed: instead, Roscosmos will focus on new projects.

City of Masdar

LOCATION

Abu Dhabi, UAE

opening date

2020

Price

$20 billion

Science parks that connect business and cutting-edge research are being built all over the world - high technology can become the basis of the economy for the economies of developing countries. However, even among the lagging behind there are already obvious winners: the rich countries of the Persian Gulf, investing in the creation of future infrastructure windfall profits from the sale of hydrocarbons. Such, for example, is the Masdar project in Abu Dhabi - not a technopark, but a whole city worth $20 billion, designed by the British bureau Norman Foster. The job in the post-industrial city of 50,000 will be built around a new Institute of Science and Technology that works closely with MIT. The first research buildings in Masdar appeared in 2010, and by the time it is completed in 2020, the city will become the epitome of all modern technologies. The city will implement an innovative system of personal automatic transport, and all the necessary energy will come from renewable sources.

Dubailand Amusement Park

LOCATION

Dubai, UAE

opening date

2015

Price

$65 billion

The $51 billion Winter Olympics in Sochi are the most expensive sports games in history, but hardly the biggest entertainment mega-project. In just a year, the Dubailand complex is due to open in the UAE: on an area of ​​300 square kilometers there will be 45 theme parks, amusement parks, sports complexes, shopping and leisure centers and hotels. Dubailand will be twice the size of Walt Disney World in Florida and will be the largest great place entertainment on the planet.

Songdo city

LOCATION

South Korea

opening date

2015

Price

$40 billion

Founded only ten years ago, the South Korean Songdo is at the same time an analogue of the Al Maktoum airpolis and the scientific city of Masdar. It is a compact business city located close to international airport Incheon and connected with it by a spectacular suspension bridge. In a couple of years, about 65 thousand people will live here - mostly entrepreneurs and scientists working in one of the four local universities. Songdo was created from scratch as a "green" and "smart" city. It will become a platform for experiments in the field of the Internet of things.