Unbuilt Architecture and City Plans

[Michel Van]

that a Novum in this Forum
we talk allot about Aircraft, but not much about Airports

Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport was original planed as Aéroport de Paris Nord in 1966
with 4 runways of 4000 meter length and 6 big Terminals
like Terimal One, but with 6 floor multi-storey car park for 4000 cars on top
in full capacity Paris-Nord had take simultaneously 40 Boeing 747
so 60000 passengers can be handled per day
also was the Airport also planed for handling of Boeing 733 and Concorde SST
Paris-Nord had connected to Paris, as well as the rest of France by Highway A1 and Aerotrain (high-speed national Hovertrain)

Source
Paris Match Nr°952 - 8 july 1967
Online:
http://www.vision80ch13.org/
http://www.vision80ch13.org/Upload/album.asp?f=albumMatch2&t=VISION80%20%20CH13.ORG%20PARIS-MATCH%20n%B0952%20du%208%20juillet%201967,%20PARIS%20DANS%2020%20ANS%202/2

 

[The Artist]

Impressive, but would two towers be enough to handle that volume of movement through that tangle of taxiways and aprons? It seems to me that there would be blind spots caused by those parking towers.

 

[archipeppe]

The usual French "grandeur" in "Popular Mechanics" fashion....... no-nonsense anyway.

 

[Caravellarella]

This artist's impression was in my French text book at school; loving fabulous Boeing 2707-228 and Japan Air Lines Concorde zooming overhead! Sadly the Aérogare concept didn't work very well in practice

Terry (Caravellarella)

 

[Michel Van]

in 1970s Germany had very active R&D on Public transportation's system like Transrapid or Cabinentaxi


Cabintaxi in English, was a German people mover development project undertaken by Demag and Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm with funding and support
from the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie (BMFT, the German Ministry of Research and Development).
August 1973 by a 150 meter test track and three 3-passenger vehicles installed near German town of Hagen.
1976 the test track was expand to 1,9 km
in 1979 the financing of program was stop by new German government
in Juli 1981 the test track was demolished
English links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinentaxi
German links
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinentaxi
http://www.gleismann.de/15.cabinentaxi/c3.html
Youtube video

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERdF0FK-2io

 

[cluttonfred]

Wonderful stuff, thanks for sharing! It would be very interesting to see what could be one with this kind of technology today. I can think of many places that could benefit from this kind of service--I grew up in a city of less than 200,000 that anchors a metropolitan area of over 1.5 million but has only buses and taxis for public transport within that area.

 

[Nik]

Well, at least they had the wit to propose a *range* of cab sizes !!


Pushing a wheel-chair on a regular basis, and struggling from car to house with umpteen bags of shopping mean I am sensitized to proposals for 'phone-box' cabs that fit two (2) fit, unladen twenty-somethings at a pinch. How such urban transit systems are meant to cope with a family defies imagination...

 

[Grey Havoc]

Via the Daily Telegraph:

This is an artist's impression of an ambitious plan which suggests skyscrapers of the future may house an entire city. The Endless City project is an award-winning proposal by SURE Architecture, who propose turning skyscrapers into complete ecosystems. London is the proposed city for the mixed-use tower - which would feature huge ramps linking different sections of the structure. The company, whose design won the SkyScrapers and SuperSkyScrapers Competition, insist the structure would be a great space-saver in dense cities which have previously spread outwards rather than upwards.
Picture: SURE ARCHITECTURE / CATERS NEWS

http://architecturelab.net/the-endless-city-london-by-sure-architecture-company/

http://www.gizmag.com/endless-city-in-height/33274/

http://www.bustler.net/index.php/article/sure_architectures_winning_endless_city_skyscraper_proposal_for_the_streets/

http://www.sureaa.com/

 

[UpForce]

Lots of fuzzy terminology thrown about there - in true heroic architecture style. Granted, I haven't familiarized myself with the finer particulars of "Endless City" but for starters, what does a city make?

Design, intent, ideas? Hardly, at least not as such - "A city is not a tree" (as Christopher Alexander named one of his more influential papers), not merely a hierarchy of structures and functions. All buildings have ecosystems and are intertwined with like and the environment but what amount of human conscious intent can we ascribe to life and still consider it a true ecosystem? Artifice becomes humanity but herein we're dealing with evolution and I'm not at all convinced we can intellectualize ourselves on a vantage point somehow removed of it. Let alone bend it on a ramp.

I've seen buildings where, say, small parks are kept alive on various floors. While natural elements are proven to improve physical health through psychology alone, the overall effect remains somehow a (slightly, but pervasively melancholy) pastiche of a synthesis we currently have only a vague inkling about. Meanwhile, even wayward astrophysicists have constructed very credible models of how cities grow, every which way. It will likely be hard economics, anthropomorphism and technology that will continue to drive the essence of city form instead of aesthetics.

I'm not implying part of it couldn't end up like "Endless Cities", somewhere, but equally I can't see solid grounds why it should. Especially since this seems like a somewhat incorporeal, detached "anywhere" project that one "can" helicopter on a metropolis of a suitable size ("Well, let's put it in London!"). Part of it may even be down to chance distribution of shapes within the "architecture space" of humanity, another perspective where the design-like identity of our being is reframed. Globalization has all sorts of manifestations too and the juxtapositions and tensions of creating (or imposing) instances of physical permanency on almost entirely nonlocal grounds are part and parcel of it.

Unsurprisingly this involves a lot of visualizations most of which never surpass the virtual, floating on a market wherein a limited amount of enablers and environments willing or otherwise prone to be thus colonized meet. We should try to weigh the impacts of the sorts of randomnesses we encounter and perpetrate through building and urbanism very carefully. From the design side Keller Easterling has given this a lot of thought ("Extrastatecraft", to be published).

 

[Michel Van]

I found another Video about "Cabinentaxi" and some info about Krauss Maffei "Transurban"
german Language
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8DP50YQ-Tc

And a very Odd presentation of H-Bahn system from 1987
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibZR3Sqaf8Y&list=PL9qowYAix8TEM5HhXg4jH0hv4OUS_-2XH&index=3

 

[Graham1973]

An interesting find. But as commented back in 2011, there are space considerations relating to passengers that tend to trip these things up.

 

[Grey Havoc]

The SPF thread on the Aérotrain.

 

[uk 75]

As ever we Brits look at France with awe and envy before coming up with our own naffer version

Tories almost built 'Boris island' style airport 40 years ago

In the early 70s, Edward Heath's government planned a new airport off the Essex coast

www.google.com

 

[Foo Fighter]

Of course we know what is still parked just off that region of the UK coast. Could have and still could be REALLY nasty.

Masts to be cut from Thames Estuary wreck packed with explosives

A contractor is being sought for the £5m project to remove the masts from the World War Two wreck.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[uk 75]

Of course we know what is still parked just off that region of the UK coast. Could have and still could be REALLY nasty.

Masts to be cut from Thames Estuary wreck packed with explosives

A contractor is being sought for the £5m project to remove the masts from the World War Two wreck.

www.bbc.co.uk

A job for Chris Grayling if ever I saw one..

 

[Foo Fighter]

Perhaps we could give him a big hammer and ask him to tap the wreck to find out where the hazards are? "Perhaps a few Aspirin before you go, the migraine could well be a doozy"

 

[Hood]

It always seemed odd to me that they never recovered the explosives at the time, or even during the 1940s de-mining operations around the coast.
Still after all this time the chances of it suddenly going up seems remote.

 

[Jason Dykstra (Wyvern)]

Hi all,

As this site is a repository for things unbuilt, I feel that perhaps looking at the unbuilt architecture and city plans from the past may be an interesting thread for this forum. I am a big fan of both of these topics, and when I'm not researching something related to defence or aviation, I am often found browsing YouTube and Google for architectural content. I think that this would be an interesting thread, in order to provide a glimpse at the many unbuilt building projects of the past.

To start off, here is a video about an unbuilt city plan for Canberra, Australia:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD2r9R1tLAo&list=PLuag3ckI3eqfUbRpyTt9C69tto9D6eg-q&index=3

 

[Grey Havoc]

I have been long partial to the Aeropolis 2001 myself:

https://www.reddit.com/r/althistory/comments/k8ivle/aeropolis_2001_is_built

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/althistory/comments/k8ivle/aeropolis_2001_is_built/

Aeropolis 2001 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Grey Havoc]

Another interesting 'might have been' was the planned Alaskan domed city of Seward's Success (late 1960s / early 1970s), intended to support the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System project.

Popular Science

Popular Science gives our readers the information and tools to improve their technology and their world. The core belief that Popular Science and our readers share: The future is going to be better, and science and technology are the driving forces that will help make it better.

books.google.ie

Seward's Success, Alaska - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

EDIT:

Domes, tramways, and foothill highways: The history of Anchorage development proposals that never materialized

Histories of Anchorage: Dozens of odd or ambitious plans have been abandoned over the decades, but had any of them been completed, the city would have looked drastically different.

www.adn.com

Note that the author doesn't believe that it was to be a domed city despite other sources indicating otherwise. The article also includes other interesting projects in Alaska over the years.

 

[uk 75]

London had various madcap schemes but as this one involves Whitehall it merits a mention again.

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/whitehall-nightmare-from-1963.23575/

 

[uk 75]

The children's comic TV21 painted a grim picture of Britain in the 21st Century. It crops up in a number of different stories.
In all of them London is a city of boring office blocks much like Victoria Street and the now demolished Department of the Environment buildings in Marsham St.
Politically the place has been through hard times. The accidental use of a nuclear weapon based in Britain starts a European War in 2028. The military take over in Britain under "The Director" who lives in Buckingham.Palace. Democracy is restored by a group of Welsh resistance fighters and Agent 21 of the World Government. Their leader Dai (honest, I am not making this up) becomes Prime Minister. He helps 21 by letting him travel on a British Navy submarine BN7 (one can only assume the Monarchy didnt survive though elsewhere in TV21 we are still mentioned as the United Kingdom).
Lady Penelope, who appeared in TV21 before Thunderbirds aired on TV in Britain, gets arrested and taken to Whitehall in the attached clip. Fortunately the real life Secret Service in the UK cannot arrest people and get the Police to do it.

 

[Justo Miranda]

My two cents

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-2

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-3

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-4

 

[Rhinocrates]

Renders of some unbuilt projects by Frank Lloyd Wright.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-what-these-unbuilt-frank-lloyd-wright-masterpieces-would-look-like-180981532/?fbclid=IwAR2efjqA7lSIx

 

[Rhinocrates]

Vladimir Tatlin's Monument to the Third International is widely considered the most famous unbuilt building.

Tatlin's Tower - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A few modern renders, giving a sense of just how big it would have been. The slant aligns it with Polaris and the internal blocks would have rotated at different speeds - annually, weekly and daily.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4KbSxVs0dI

 

[Rhinocrates]

Norman Foster does get a lot built, but not everything. The debt these owe is obvious. The one with the sunflower-like plan is 'Crystal Island' a complex proposed for Moscow, and the other is Millennium Tower, proposed for Tokyo.

 

[Graham1973]

This video includes discussion of the 1960's idea of a 'Walking City'...

View: https://youtu.be/gdi5YAXTOlo?si=tz9l0K6b_vYk940x

 

[Michel Van]

The Architect Le Corbusier proposed in 1920s sever plans to "Improve" urbanism of Paris and Algiers city
They were radical proposals on problems of that Time in France:

He wanted to demolish seven city district in Paris, to make place for 16 Administration skyscraper,
with the luxurious residential area of civil servants in park landscape,
who are separate from standard housing of the workers near their factories.
all connected by streets Highways and metro lines.

View: https://youtu.be/BP2qaqojsEY


Plan Obus was similar approach on Algiers city
here a gigantic skyscraper line with Highway on top would barricade the old town
It would stretch along the coast line and end in Administration complex of skyscraper
its civil servants live on top of hills in luxurious residential complex nearby
While the locals Algerians would stare on gigantic skyscraper line that block view to sea,
Making them sure who rule over them, the French who live in this building...

View: https://youtu.be/o9sSawBTch0

 

[Hood]

Lots of unbuilt architecture in Dublin and Ireland can be found here:

Unbuilt Dublin @ Architecture @ Archiseek.com

Unbuilt Dublin

www.archiseek.com

 

[Michel Van]

In begin of 1960s made the Italian sculptor Marino Di Teana
A outrageous proposal for Urban future of France

He simply proposed to demolish every city, town and village in France!
and replace them by 400 Urban centres with each 20000 inhabitants,
each 20 km apart along transport axes in France.

Connected are those Urban centres with highways, high speed trains,
oddly i found no info about airports or helicopter pads for those Centres.

Each centre have average of three hundred meters in height and eight hundred meters in width.
designed with housing as well as areas for economic activity and public buildings.
with underground areas for communication and services, including nuclear fallout shelters in case of War !

 

[Graham1973]

A late 1940s, early 1950s proposal to completely reshape Chicago

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joF88l7-Dvk

 

[Archibald]

Le Corbusier dreams became Edgar P. Jacobs nightmare...

The Time Trap (comics) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Graham1973]

Stuart Hick's, the creator who covered the plan to reshape Chicago, also did a short series covering unbuilt house designs, here are a few examples.

View: https://youtu.be/z6NPxfdYcbQ?si=PDvNgxlfbCowO6Wo

View: https://youtu.be/vxiyoC9qNjk?si=4xkLEtntVnCW3yWG

View: https://youtu.be/TCT3Um-ozFE?si=vnONVbZW52aiFXim

View: https://youtu.be/f70UfPWo4eA?si=3-Bt79zIe_arazgQ

 

[sienar]

https://www.skyscrapercity.com/forums/proposed-skyscrapers.1728/

Never Built & Visionary Projects - SkyscraperPage Forum

 

[Rhinocrates]

The Architect Le Corbusier proposed in 1920s sever plans to "Improve" urbanism of Paris and Algiers city
They were radical proposals on problems of that Time in France:

Corb did like to troll. The specific Paris plans were designed to outrage, though certainly he was sincere about Modernism and mass housing. His manifestoes (everyone had manifestoes in those days) were designed to provoke and he had a gift for succinct and powerful rhetoric - 'A house is a machine for living' and so on. His book Vers Une Architecture was full of photos and drawings comparing modern engineering with 'outdated' architectural styles. He thought that the ocean liner was the epitome of what architecture could be and the Unite d'Habitation makes this clear.

Architecture Classics: Unite d' Habitation / Le Corbusier

Completed in 1952 in Marseille, France. After World War II, the need for housing was at an unprecedented high. The Unite d’Habitation in Marseille, France was the first large scale project...

www.archdaily.com

He was one of the first architects to deliberately create a 'brand' for himself to promote his ideas (you'll hear the term 'starchitect' these days). His real name was Charles-Édouard Jeanneret and 'Le Corbusier' is like a nickname, derived from 'corbeau' or raven. His spectacles were virtually his trademark (and much imitated ). He would leave a pair visible in published photos he took of his own work (presumably he was wearing another pair to focus the camera) and early on at least, drove a stylish Voisin car.

 

[Rhinocrates]

He designed a car too. It makes a 2CV look overcomplicated.

Voiture Minimum: Le Corbusier and the Automobile

A review of Voiture Minimum Le Corbusier and the Automobile

www.wallpaper.com

Concept Car of the Week: Le Corbusier’s Voiture Minimum (1936)

2015 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Le Corbusier, the famous Swiss-French architect who ranks among the great modern masters of the craft

www.cardesignnews.com

 

[Rhinocrates]

Just a point that may or may not be worth making here, I'm assuming that the 'unbuilt' in the thread's heading suggests, like many of the aircraft and so on discussed here, plans that were seriously proposed in order to be built and which weren't built due to some economic or other issue.

There's a whole genre of what's called 'paper architecture' which is intended to provoke thought about the ideas of architecture which is at the far end of a spectrum from merely unlucky projects.

During the 70s and 80s, a lot of architects who are big starchitects today would enter competitions with fanciful concepts that they had no expectation of seeing built but which attracted attention and help kickstart their careers. Zaha Hadid (now deceased, alas) is one of these. As le Corbusier used words, she used art and her early paintings of schemes consciously drew on the constructivist style (Tatlin gets included in that group). Eventually she was able to get commissions from clients who wanted something outrageous. Now the firm that bears her name is getting megaprojects commissioned by the Chinese government.

The graphics below are an early competition entry for a club on the peaks over Hong Kong and one photo is one of the last works in which she had a hand, a private residence and the starfish-like thing is Daxing International Airport, by her successors at the firm.