The most grandiose unrealized architectural projects. Who is bigger: the largest buildings in the world. But not high

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 of its completion in 2020, the city will become the embodiment 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 as big" world center Walt Disney Holidays in Florida and will become the most 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 both an analogue of the Al Maktoum airpolis and science city Masdar. It is a compact business city located near the Incheon International Airport and connected to 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.

Talented engineers from year to year develop ambitious projects designed to make the life of the Earth's population more comfortable and safer. Billions of dollars are being spent building power plants, bridges, tunnels and even artificial islands.
Today we invite you to take a look at Top 10 most expensive buildings in the world. Naturally, we included only modern objects in the top ten, since it is not worth even trying to estimate the cost of such structures as the Great Wall of China, the Kremlin and the Pyramids of Giza.

This bridge has already been "marked" in ours. The characteristics of this grand structure are as follows: length 42 km and six traffic lanes. More than 30,000 vehicles cross the bridge every day.

9 Large Hadron Collider, Switzerland ($6 billion)

The charged particle accelerator was designed and built by specialists from 3 dozen countries. The construction has impressive dimensions - the length of the main ring of the famous accelerator is 26 thousand meters. By the way, the name collider comes from the English verb "collide", which means "to collide". After all, particle beams are accelerated inside the collider in opposite directions and collide at designated points.

8. Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline (TAN), USA ($8 billion)

The 1288 km oil pipeline crosses the state of Alaska from north to south. TAN is one of the world's largest oil pipelines and is owned by Alyeska Pipeline Service Company. The facility includes the pipeline itself, 12 pumping stations and a terminal in American city Valdiz.

7 Palm Jumeirah Artificial Island, UAE ($14 billion)

The construction of the island in the form of a palm tree was carried out from 2001 to 2006. The dimensions of the artificial "Palm" are 5x5 km, and the area is more than 800 football fields. Grandiose creation human hands can be seen from Earth's orbit with the naked eye. Today on artificial island there are residential areas, private villas, hotels and a water park.

6. Great Boston Tunnel, USA ($14.8 billion)

Most expensive building in US history, it is an 8-lane highway, in the construction of which 5,000 workers participated. By the way, the tunnel does not work mobile connection, since the epoxy resin used to join the walls may not be able to support the additional weight of the base stations.

5. Three Gorges Hydroelectric Plant, China ($25 billion)

The world's largest operating power plant is located on the Yangtze River near the city of Sandouping. In order to make room for huge reservoir, created at the hydroelectric dam, the Chinese government resettled 1.3 million people in other parts of the country.

4. Itaipu Hydroelectric Plant, Brazil/Paraguay ($27 billion)

The huge hydroelectric power plant on the Parana River is the world leader in generating electricity per year. The power plant supplies more than 20% of Brazil's electricity needs and about half of Paraguay's. By the way, in 2009, due to the accident at Itaipu, more than 50 million Brazilians and almost the entire population of Paraguay remained without electricity for a day.

3. Al Maktoum International Airport, UAE ($33 billion)

Dubai Air Gateway tops our recently published . Currently, the airport is only partially operational, but after the completion of all work, this huge complex will handle almost 160 million passengers a year.

2. Chek Lap Kok Airport, Hong Kong ($20 billion)

Most of this airport is located on an artificial island, which explains the rather high cost of construction. Three airport terminals handle almost 50 million passengers and 4 million tons of cargo a year.

1 International Space Station ($157 billion)

15 countries of the world took part in the creation of the ISS. The preliminary design of the station was approved in 1995, and in November 1998 Russia launched its first element into orbit - the Zarya functional cargo block. To date, the ISS is the most expensive structure created by mankind in modern history.

By volume

Here the undisputed leader is the plant of the company Boeing in Everett, pc. Washington (USA). Its volume is 13,385,378 cubic meters. m, and the area - 399,480 sq. m (number three in the world in terms of base area). This giant, almost a kilometer long, 500 meters wide and five-story building c high (to accommodate more than 20-meter keels of airliners and still have room) was built in 1966–1968, when Boeing started producing Boeing 747. Even today they collect the most large aircraft companies, and at the same time many pieces. Up to 30 thousand people work at the plant under the light of one million lamps.

“This building is so large that clouds gather under the roof and rain comes out of them,” they say on the Internet. It's a myth that the building is well ventilated, and despite Washington State's humid and cool climate, advanced modern airliners assemble in dry and fairly comfortable conditions.

Number two in the world in terms of volume is the Al-Haram Mosque in Mecca: almost half that in volume, about 8 million cubic meters. But number three (5.6 million cubic meters) is also an aircraft plant, and it belongs to the main competitor Boeing, companies Airbus. At the factory named after Jean-Luc Lagardaire in Toulouse (France) they assemble the largest airliner in the world - A380.

Al-Haram Mosque can hold up to 4 million people during Hajj

Worthy of special mention Aereum- a hangar built in the mid-1990s by a German company Cargolifter AG 50 km south of Berlin for the construction of airships. This dome, 360 × 210 meters in size and up to 107 m high (it will easily fit St. Basil's Cathedral from Red Square - with all the turrets, domes and basement, and there will still be room) covers the world's largest undivided space - a volume of 5.2 million cubic meters. Business Cargolifter AG did not go, so in 2004 a year-round tropical theme park with groves, ponds and waterfalls. It is called Tropical Island Resort.

The park is open around the clock - you can stay there even for the night

By area on a piece of land

Here we are talking about exactly how much land the building occupies. According to this indicator, number one - Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer, a building in the Dutch city of Aalsmeer, where a flower auction is held every morning from Monday to Friday. Millions of flowers from all over the world are brought annually to this 700 x 750 m structure with an area (on the surface) of half a million square meters, most resembling a warehouse about two stories high. Here they are sold, bought and immediately set off again, since the Amsterdam airport is nearby and seaports near.

About 20 million flowers pass through this building every day.

Number two - with a slight lag - the automaker's factory Tesla in Fremont, pcs. California: about 427 thousand square meters m. In general, among the largest buildings in terms of area on the surface there are a lot of logistics centers and warehouses. The top ten largest facilities in the world by this indicator, in addition to those mentioned, also include logistics centers Michelin, Nike And John Deere(all in USA). This is logical: products that are ready to be shipped around the world are easiest to place just in such long and flat spaces.

By total floor area

Unlike the previous paragraph, this takes into account the area of ​​\u200b\u200ball the premises of the structure. And Asia is the leader here: the largest building in the world by this indicator is located in China, in the city of Chengdu. This is the Global Center New Age» with an area of ​​about 1.76 million sq. m. For comparison: the total area of ​​​​the premises of the Aviapark shopping center, one of the largest in Moscow, is about 460 thousand square meters. m. The length of the "New Age" is 500 meters, the width is 400 meters, the height is 100 meters, and inside, in addition to cinema and hotel shops, there are also offices, a contemporary art center and a water park with an artificial beach (giant screens depict sunrises and sunsets) .

The cyclopean complex in the new area of ​​Chengdu was built in three years - from 2010 to 2013

The main competitors of such complexes around the world are airports. Yes, number two total area premises - terminal 3 International Airport Dubai in the UAE with 1.71 million sq. m. It was built with the expectation of serving up to 43 million people (this is more than the entire Sheremetyevo Airport in 2017), despite the fact that only two airlines use the terminal - the local Emirates and Australian Qantas. Another top ten (in sixth position) is Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3 (also known as Beijing Capital ). It is noteworthy that the leader in the previous category is the building flower auction in Aalsmeer - entered the top five in this one: the useful area of ​​​​the building is almost twice as large as the area on the surface - 990,000 thousand square meters. m.

Special categories

Speaking of the largest buildings and structures in the world, one cannot but mention a few more. Let's say - the largest structure ever built on the planet, stretching for 9 thousand kilometers through China (its total length - with all branches - is even more: 21 thousand kilometers).

The tallest building on the planet today is the 828-meter Burj Khalifa in Dubai (UAE).

Apparently, the Burj Khalifa skyscraper does not have long to carry the honorary title of the tallest building in the world: in 2020, in the same emirate of Dubai, it is planned to open a building 100 meters higher. And if everything goes according to plan, then at the other end Arabian Peninsula, in Jeddah ( Saudi Arabia) in the same year, a tower with a height of 1004 meters will be completed

The heaviest building in the world - to readers Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest (Romania). It weighs over 4 billion kilograms. It was laid in 1984 by order of the dictator Ceausescu in the center of Bucharest, destroying a significant part of the historical buildings of the city and even tearing down the hill, and it took more than ten years to build. Today it houses, in addition to the Romanian Parliament, a museum of modern art, several government agencies. At the same time, the building is only 70% full and, apparently, will never be used in full.

Photo: Maurice King / en.wikipedia.org, julhandiarso / Getty Images, Tropical Islands Resort / en.wikipedia.org, Visions Of Our Land / Getty Images, Sino Images / Getty Images, Momentaryawe.com / Getty Images

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 environment was a vacuum, the coin would reach its terminal 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.

Architecture is a delicate matter. In order to build a banal block 12-storey house, you need to run through many instances, get a bunch of certificates and permits. And how many problems then arise with the implementation of the desired project! The search for specialists, builders, a possible location, coordination of all this with the local authorities ... Of course, the face of any city is precisely architectural structures different scale and scope. However, not all ideas and developments are carried out in real life. Below you can see various architectural projects which (fortunately or unfortunately) were not implemented.

History does not know such concepts: "what would happen if ...", however, the project of the Palace of Soviets was conceived as the construction of the big building on the ground. Its height was to reach 415 meters - higher than the most tall buildings of his time: eiffel tower and the Empire State Building. The pedestal building was to be crowned with a sculpture of Lenin 100 meters high. The construction of the Palace of Soviets has become an independent economic and research branch. Special laboratories for optics and acoustics functioned in this system, for the development of special materials: “D.S. steel”, “D.S. brick”, mechanical and expanded clay concrete plants operated, a separate railway line was connected to the construction site. By special resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Council of Labor and Defense, the construction of the Palace of Soviets was declared a shock construction site in 1934, by the end of 1939 the foundations of the high-rise part were ready. In 1941, due to the war, construction was suspended and never resumed. Work on the project of the Palace of Soviets continued until the end of the 1940s.
It's scary to even imagine how much space such a development would take! We could safely say goodbye to our current idea of ​​the architecture of Red Square. However, such an idea arose. And it arose in 1922, when the First Congress of Soviets met. Despite the fact that the building was never completed, the work on its project served as a powerful impetus for the development of domestic architecture, was born a new style, called "Stalin classicism". It was the Palace of Soviets that was prophesied as the title of the best building of all times and peoples, it was supposed to decorate Moscow by combining all high-rise buildings into a single complex.
However, habits are changing. What was once considered monstrous is now considered quite ubiquitous, and vice versa. After all, the French also resisted the erection of a real "monster" - the Eiffel Tower in their small romantic capital. Now they consider the tower a real national treasure. Probably got used to it.

Who knows, we may have lost a great monument.

In 1934, the whole world followed the dramatic fate of the crew of the Chelyuskin icebreaker, which drifted on an ice floe after the ship was lost in the Chukchi Sea. In the summer of the same year, Moscow met the brave Chelyuskinites and the pilots who saved them, who were the first to be awarded the title of Hero. Soviet Union. The new traditions of socialist life demanded the perpetuation of the glorious feat Soviet people in monumental form. Aeroflot building, which was planned to be erected on the square near Belorussky railway station, was conceived by the architect D. Chechulin as a monument to the heroic Soviet aviation. Hence the acute silhouette solution, the “aerodynamic” form of the high-rise building and the sculptural figures of the heroes-pilots: A. Lyapidevsky, S. Levanevsky, V. Molokov, N. Kamanin, I. Slepnev, I. Vodopyanov, I. Doronin, crowning seven openwork arches , turned perpendicular to the main facade and making up a kind of portal. The sculptor I. Shadr took part in the work on the project, sculpting the figures of the pilots. The project in its original form and purpose was not implemented. Almost half a century later, the general ideas of the project were embodied in the complex of the House of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment (now the Government House).

Having learned about such a project, one can understand how many residents of Moscow do not know about their city.

According to various sources, the height of the pyramid should be approximately from 700 to 2004 meters (by the way, another name for the project is TRY 2004). Although, according to the Discovery Channel, the first number is still real. But this is not so important. One way or another, Mega-City Pyramid will be several times higher Great Pyramid in Giza.

On spacious square kilometers pyramids can accommodate residential areas, offices, cultural centers and all other infrastructure typical of an ordinary city. Only in terms of the density of the "packing of the people" will this pyramid surpass an ordinary city - due to a significant upward expansion.

Why the Japanese are trying to surpass the Egyptian builders is not clear. However, the project still remains unfulfilled.

"The Hexagonal City of Paolo Soleri" - one of the first projects of the city-building, dates back to the 60s of the XX century.

Bionic Tower II - this is the name of a no less grandiose project, developed this time by the Chinese.
At the base of the tower is a "green circle" - a garden or park with a diameter of about 90 meters. ECE Tower sticks out of it - a 24-storey building with a height of about 100 meters with 25 thousand square meters usable area for housing (168 apartments with three bedrooms each) and offices.

The skyscraper is assembled from eight sections 12 meters high. Each section has three floors. From top to bottom, in a spiral, a vertical garden descends, through which a ladder runs for emergency evacuation (high-speed elevators are also provided, do not be alarmed).

most large area has an 11th floor, and the zero one under its dome should shelter shops, gyms, cinemas and so on. Somewhere below, parking for 208 cars is also provided.

The architect believes that one complex should be separated from the other at a distance of about 180 meters, which did not prevent him from connecting the "circles" of eight towers on the principle of the Olympic rings on one of the sketches.

Judging by the plan developed by the designers of the building, the colossal scale of construction exceeds all conceivable and unimaginable expectations. Despite the death of the American "Twins", architects are striving for ever greater grandiosity and pomposity of their designs. At this rate, you can come to a fantastic future from the movie "The Fifth Element", where the number of floors of high-rise buildings has long been uncountable.

Project: X-ceed 4000.

X-seed 4000- tallest building ever conceived.

Its height should be 4,000 meters above sea level. Thanks to a 600-meter foundation, the structure will be able to be placed directly above the sea. X-Seed 4000 is to accommodate between 700,000 and 1,000,000 residents.

The project is being developed for the capital of Japan by the construction company Tasai Corporation as a building of the future, where ultra-modern life and interaction with nature will be combined. Unlike conventional skyscrapers, the X-Seed 4000 will protect its occupants from pressure surges and shifts. weather conditions throughout the height of the building. Its design provides for the use of solar energy to power the entire building climate control system.

Elevators are designed for 200 passengers and deliver to the top floor in 30 minutes. In addition to thousands of apartments and offices, X-Seed 4000 will also entertainment centers and parks and forests.

It is estimated that the cost of building X-Seed 4000 will be 300-900 billion.

The construction of the project is designed for 8 years. I wonder if the calculations are correct?

The Spiral project, developed in 1998, has never been seen by the residents of the city of Tokyo. The two-hundred-story architectural development, 1000 meters high, remained in the developers' drawings.

The construction would consist of 14 floors-microdistricts, each of which contains multi-storey residential, office and retail buildings, sports and entertainment complexes, recreational areas with ponds and green spaces, as well as local transport hubs and many other infrastructure of an ordinary modern city.

For reference:
More than 35 thousand people could live in the skyscraper-city "Sky City 1000", more than 100 thousand people could work;

The diameter of the base of the tower is 400 meters.

Is fantasy becoming reality?

Project "Great Pyramid"

The pyramid is conceived as a huge tomb with several million seats. The project of the German non-profit organization Freunde der Großen Pyramide suggests that the process of burial will mean the process of building a pyramid, until the addition of more and more tomb blocks in a few decades completes the monumental image of a tetrahedral pyramid.

A literal parody of the legendary Egyptian monuments in the German version looks very ridiculous and unacceptable for modern society. The project was not implemented.

Thus, looking at all these developments, we can conclude that from year to year, humanity, creating one project after another, striking the mind with its tendencies to gigantism, strives to be closer to the sky, away from the earth, trying to locate huge territories inside striking in size buildings. The reasons for such desires of mankind can be different: either it is a cult of personality, or striving for excellence, or perhaps reaching new heights and the desire to "overtake" the past achievements of their colleagues. In a word: the best is the enemy of the good, and before undertaking grandiose projects, you need to think first of all about the real possibilities and consequences of the construction of such monuments.