Ebook: Phantom Architecture

A skyscraper one mile high, a dome covering most of downtown Manhattan, a triumphal arch in the form of an elephant: some of the most exciting buildings in the history of architecture are the ones that never got built. These are the projects in which architects took materials to the limits, explored challenging new ideas, defied conventions, and pointed the way towards the future. Some of them are architectural masterpieces, some simply delightful flights of fancy. It was not usually poor design that stymied them - politics, inadequate funding, or a client who chose a 'safe' option rather than a daring vision were all things that could stop a project leaving the drawing board. These unbuilt buildings include the grand projects that acted as architectural calling cards, experimental designs that stretch technology, visions for the future of the city, and articles of architectural faith. Structures likeBuckminster Fuller's dome over New York or Frank Lloyd Wright's mile-high tower can seem impossibly daring. But they also point to buildings that came decades later, to the Eden Project and the Shard. Some of those unbuilt wonders are buildings of great beauty and individual form like Etienne-Louis Boullee's enormous spherical monument to Isaac Newton; some, such as the city plans of Le Corbusier, seem to want to teach us how to live; some, like El Lissitsky's 'horizontal skyscrapers' and Gaudi's curvaceous New York hotel, turn architectural convention upside-down; some, such as Archigram's Walking City and Plug-in City, are bizarre and inspiring by turns. All are captured in this magnificently illustrated book.;Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 Ideal Worlds -- The Abbey of St Gall -- Beauvais Cathedral Nave -- Sforzinda -- Ideal City -- Split-Level City -- Christianopolis -- ch. 2 Enlightened Visions, Eccentric Spaces -- Whitehall Palace -- St Paul's Cathedral -- The Triumphal Elephant -- Royal Saltworks -- Cenotaph for Isaac Newton -- National Library -- Panopticon -- ch. 3 The Exploding City -- New Harmony -- Pyramidal Cemetery -- Palace on the Acropolis -- Three-Level Thames Embankment -- Great Victorian Way -- Lille Cathedral -- Watkin's Tower -- National Gallery of Art and History -- ch. 4 Build It New -- Concert Hall for the International Exhibition -- Hotel Attraction -- Maison Cubiste -- Citta Nuova -- Monument to the Third International -- Pleasure Pavilions -- Friedrichstrasse Skyscraper -- Tribune Tower by Eliel Saarinen -- Tribune Tower by Adolf Loos -- ch. 5 Radiant Cities -- Cloud Irons -- Glass House -- Ville Radieuse -- Apartments on Bridges -- Total Theatre.;Note continued: Aerial Restaurant -- Catholic Cathedral -- The Illinois -- New Norcia -- ch. 6 Moving On -- Tokyo Bay Plan -- Endless House -- Clusters in the Air -- Walking City -- Jersey Corridor -- National Shrine -- Dome Over Manhattan -- The Peak -- Tour Sans Fins -- Bangkok Hyperbuilding -- Asian Cairns.