--- title: The Most Absurd Proposed Structures that Were Never Built description: "All throughout history, humanity has been fascinated with building the most impressive structures we can imagine. The Pyramids of Giza, the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal—in basically every corner of the world people have brought their best minds together to build some of the most extraordinary creations imaginable. However, for every epic skyscraper or gorgeous monastery that ended up being built, there have been plenty of designs and ideas that never made it to the real world despite being planned.\n\nSome of these designs ultimately failed to be constructed due to financing constraints, issues with city planning, or, in many cases, because the proposed structure was simply so insane that it never had a chance to get off the ground in the first place. Today we'll bring to you the most ridiculous of these proposed buildings, from skyscrapers to pyramids and everything in between.\n\n## Mega Mansions\n\nIn the 1930s, the Soviet Union had some ambitious ideas. Already the largest nation on earth, and well on their way to becoming one of the most powerful, the communist leaders wanted some way to commemorate their success. Of course, this wouldn't be anything for the benefit of the average citizen, because this was the USSR. Instead the idea was to create a gargantuan, epic building where the Soviet leadership could live and host their meetings. This would be called the Palace of the Soviets, and between 1931 and 1933, several architectural competitions were held to select its designer.\n\nThe winner of these competitions was Boris Iofan, whose vision was, well, extraordinary to say the least. You see, the rounds of competitions, as well as competitiveness with other projects at the time, had pushed the architects to make their designs bigger and bigger. Iofan's final design, approved by the Soviet government, envisioned a building that stretched 416 meters into the sky, or around 1,365 feet. This would make it taller than all but the largest modern skyscrapers, and would have even surpassed the recently completed Empire State Building, which was the tallest in the world at the time. Its internal volume would have also been immense, containing more space than the 6 largest American skyscrapers at the time.\n\nThe grand hall would seat more than 20,000 people, with various wings and sections dedicated to specific government branches. And the cherry on top: a massive, 30-meter statue of Lenin.\n\nOverall, it was quite an ambitious project for anyone in the early 1930s, but this wasn't some fairytale propaganda bit that would never be realized and later forgotten. No, the Soviets were actually determined to make it happen. The first step was to clear the land that had been chosen for it, which unfortunately contained the Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Savior. But by this point the Soviets had already demolished nearly 30,000 orthodox churches, and this one would not be spared. In fact, after its walls were stripped, it was publicly blown up and construction on the palace began soon after.\n\nDrilling, laying, and planning went on steadily for a few years, until everything came to a screeching halt. In June, 1941, Germany invaded the USSR, opening up one of the deadliest series of battles in all of human history. Consequently, projects like the palace were all but ignored, its workers were sent into military service, and then the metal used in the early stages of construction was taken and used for wartime production. After the war, Stalin seemingly had little interest in the project, and despite it being revised several times, the construction of the immense Palace of the Soviets never made it past its foundation.\n\nBut that's more than can be said for a massive proposed project in Japan. In the 1980s, Japan's property had become some of the most expensive on earth, due to their booming economy and skyrocketing population. This issue was especially apparent in Tokyo, where overpopulation was starting to become a hot topic.\n\nOne corporation thought of a grand solution to this: one of the largest buildings ever constructed, called the Shimizu Mega City Pyramid. Its base would be a massive 8 square kilometers, or 3 square miles, and its height would reach the absolutely ridiculous 2004 meters, or 6,575 feet. This mega structure would hypothetically house up to a million people, and could be built over the water of the Tokyo Bay in order to not take up extra space.\n\nThe creators envisioned the exterior walls being covered in solar panels to provide power, extensive use of robots for construction and maintenance, and even a personal transit system of pods that would launch people around the pyramid city.\n\nIn the early 1990s, the designers traveled around the globe, patenting the design in any office that they could get their hands on, and throwing the idea to as many potential investors as possible. However, as you can imagine, there are just more than a few problems with their vision.\n\nFirst of all, a mega city housing a million people is impressive, but as some critics have pointed out, isn't actually that significant for the region. The Tokyo Metropolitan Area is one of the most populated places on earth, with a current estimate of 40 million people, and so taking away just one million of these doesn't seem like it would immediately solve the deeper issue of affordable housing.\n\nSecond, Japan sits in a spot that is highly seismically active, meaning this superhuge structure would not only need to be able to support its own weight, but continue to do so during strong earthquakes. A collapse could mean hundreds of thousands of casualties, and simply isn't worth the risk.\n\nFinally, there's the construction materials and cost. The designers are banking on the idea that the right materials will be invented soon, preferably cheap versions as well, because the current cost estimates run as high as 600 billion dollars, and that doesn't include the billions annually to maintain it. The original plan from the Shimizu corporation was to start building in the year 2030, and finish by the year 2110. To be fair, Shimizu is already 220 years old, so they're no stranger to long-term planning, but this is one project that people are going to need to somehow see before they start believing.\n\n## Ultra Skyscrapers\n\nSkyscrapers are the ultimate symbol of a thriving city. Towers of metal and glass stretching into the clouds, they really are the epitome of a modern metropolis. And so, it comes as no surprise that some of the wildest construction proposals involve insane ideas for the tallest buildings on earth.\n\nWe'll start with what is probably the most ludicrous of all, the X-Seed 4000, and yes, that is its real name. Designed for Tokyo, this monster of a building was intended to be twice as tall as the giant pyramid we just mentioned, with a ludicrous height of 4 kilometers, or 2.5 miles. This would be by far the tallest construction project in human history, nearly 5 times as tall as the Burj Khalifa. Structural stability would be achieved naturally by its shape, which was modeled after Mount Fuji. In fact, the proposed design would be about 200 meters taller than the actual mountain.\n\nThe idea for the X-Seed 4000 was announced by Taisei Corporation in 1995, and the hope was that it could contain more than a million people and maglev train systems for rapid transportation. Of course, this project was never realized, and for quite a few reasons.\n\nFirst up are the environmental issues. Just like the Shimizu Pyramid, the X-Seed 4000 would need to handle earthquakes and tsunamis. And not only that, its immense height would require extensive technology to regulate air pressure throughout the building, and the slightest failure of this system could be catastrophic for its millions of inhabitants. On top of all this, the materials required would be at least 3 million tons of steel, and the whole thing would cost up to 1.7 trillion dollars, which would've been a significant portion of the entire GDP of Japan.\n\nOn a slightly smaller note, there is the proposed Ultima Tower, a skyscraper that would hypothetically transform the skyline of San Francisco with a height of 3.2 kilometers or 2 miles. The designer of the Ultima Tower claims to have drawn his inspiration from termite nests, as it would house a dense, self-sustaining population. He also envisions it to be the most environmentally friendly project in history, having mini ecosystems including forests, rivers, and lakes, and in his own words be \"open to the elements.\" Perhaps it's these ambitious plans that have put off the city of San Francisco from taking up his offer, or maybe it's the 150-billion-dollar price tag.\n\nOn the other side of the United States, New York City has had its fair share of proposed skyscrapers. For example, there's the 2017 proposal for The Big Bend, which would essentially be a huge arch in downtown Manhattan. Supposedly this curved shape is a way to circumvent height restrictions for skyscrapers, because it wouldn't technically be one, but the public reception to this building was terrible and so it doesn't seem like there's any current plans to build it. There was also the proposed New York Stock Exchange Tower, which was proposed by Donald Trump in the late 1990s, but this idea never made it off the ground.\n\nThese are some pretty wild ideas, but it's not like huge skyscrapers are a foreign concept to places like Tokyo or San Francisco. The same can't be said however, for Paris in the 1930s.\n\nIn 1937, the World Fair was coming to Paris, and a man named Eugene Freyssinet designed the ultimate destination for all the tourists that would soon be arriving: Phare Du Monde, or the Lighthouse of the World. This would be 700 meters, or 2,300 feet in height, which is a crazy proposal for the 1930s, because if it would have been built, it would still rank as the second tallest building on earth. But its most interesting feature was the spiral highway that twists all the way to the top, which was intended to be an easy way for cars to drive nearly all the way to the top, negating the need for elevators. One can only imagine how terrifying a traffic jam would be at such heights, and this is probably one of the many reasons why the project was abandoned.\n\n## Out of this World\n\nThe Azerbaijan Tower was a planned megatall skyscraper that would have reached 1000 meters in height, or around 3450 feet, which would make it the tallest on earth. This behemoth makes our list not only because it was actually approved and then later abandoned, but because it was also planned to be accompanied by no fewer than 41 artificial islands in the Caspian Sea, which would make up a new, 100-billion-dollar city to the south of Baku, Azerbaijan.\n\nThe ambitions for this city, called the Khazar Islands, were simply off the charts. The Avesta Group of Companies envisioned more than a million residents, which seems to be the standard for huge projects in this video, multiple universities, several airports, and a legitimate Formula 1 racetrack. Around 150 bridges would be built to connect these islands to the mainland, and the whole thing would be this massive, clean, hypermodern society. If it all sounds too good to be true, that's because it is. Construction on the islands began in 2011, and the skyscraper was supposed to begin construction a couple years later, but the CEO of the Avesta group was suddenly arrested in 2015 for his failure to pay over 50 million of dollars of debt that he owed to the International Bank of Azerbaijan.\n\nAfter his release, he insisted that the project would continue, and that the islands were scheduled to be finished by 2025, but funding seems to be scarce, and it doesn't seem like they'll be ready any time soon. This was a perfect example of an overly-ambitious project, as the cost of the city itself is more than double the GDP of its entire country and despite the CEO's claims, it doesn't appear that very many foreign investors want to get involved.\n\nBut as unrealistic as the Khazar Island scheme is, it seems like a walk in the park compared to our final project: the Analemma Tower.\n\nRealizing that cities like Tokyo, New York City, and Beijing don't really have a lot of space left in their busy centers, architects at Clouds AO thought of a solution. Instead of building a skyscraper up from the ground, they suggest hanging one upside down from an asteroid.\n\nThe idea is to tether a small asteroid and redirect it to earth, where it can be put in a geostationary orbit. From here, incredibly strong cables would suspend the new building hanging underneath it, which would presumably be an immensely tall skyscraper, or groundscraper, since we're working in reverse now.\n\nAs for the cost, well, where do we even begin. There aren't exactly good estimates for how much it costs to bring an asteroid to earth, since we've never done that, but for a starting point NASA once estimated that it would cost well over a billion dollars to bring a small asteroid into lunar orbit, so that's close. After solving the asteroid problem, it would then become the most expensive construction project in history, not just because of its scale, but because we would have to invent newer, stronger materials to support the dangling weight. The architects say that the best way to make this building affordable would be to build it in Dubai, as they've shown to be \"a specialist in tall building construction at one fifth the cost of New York City construction.\" But they plan to eventually have it hanging over New York, so apparently this means creating the thing over Dubai and then moving it across the world, which is a whole other expense.\n\nBut building and getting it in place is only the first set of issues. Being up so high would make the lower levels prone to birds strikes and all sorts of dangerous weather, like lightning and perhaps even solar storms.\n\nIf this monstrosity were somehow completed, the price for rent would be so absurdly high that one can only picture the richest of billionaires purchasing space in it, so all in all, the Analemma Tower is probably going to remain in the concept phase.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Throughout history, ambitious architectural projects have often failed due to financing, planning issues, or impractical designs.\n- The Soviet Union's Palace of the Soviets was halted by World War II and never completed despite initial progress.\n- Japan's Shimizu Mega City Pyramid faced criticism for its impracticality in addressing overpopulation and seismic risks.\n- The X-Seed 4000, proposed for Tokyo, was deemed unfeasible due to environmental concerns and astronomical costs.\n- The Analemma Tower, proposed to hang from an asteroid, remains a conceptual project due to immense technical and financial challenges.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What was the Palace of the Soviets?\n\nThe Palace of the Soviets was a proposed gargantuan building in the Soviet Union designed to house the Soviet leadership and host meetings. It was planned to be 416 meters tall and include a massive statue of Lenin.\n\n### Why was the Palace of the Soviets never built?\n\nConstruction on the Palace of the Soviets was halted due to World War II. After the war, Stalin lost interest in the project, and despite several revisions, it never progressed past its foundation.\n\n### What was the Shimizu Mega City Pyramid?\n\nThe Shimizu Mega City Pyramid was a proposed mega-structure in Japan designed to house up to a million people. It would have been 2,004 meters tall and built over Tokyo Bay.\n\n### What were some of the issues with the Shimizu Mega City Pyramid?\n\nCritics pointed out that housing a million people wouldn't significantly solve Tokyo's overpopulation issue. Additionally, Japan's seismic activity posed a risk, and the construction and maintenance costs were estimated to be extremely high.\n\n### What was the X-Seed 4000?\n\nThe X-Seed 4000 was a proposed skyscraper in Tokyo designed to be 4 kilometers tall, modeled after Mount Fuji. It was intended to house over a million people and include maglev train systems.\n\n### Why was the X-Seed 4000 never built?\n\nThe X-Seed 4000 faced environmental issues, including the need to handle earthquakes and tsunamis, and the immense cost of materials and construction. The project was estimated to cost up to 1.7 trillion dollars.\n\n### What was the Phare Du Monde?\n\nThe Phare Du Monde, or Lighthouse of the World, was a proposed 700-meter tall structure in Paris designed for the 1937 World Fair. It featured a spiral highway for cars to drive to the top.\n\n### What was the Azerbaijan Tower?\n\nThe Azerbaijan Tower was a planned 1,000-meter tall skyscraper in Baku, Azerbaijan, part of a larger project called the Khazar Islands. It was intended to be accompanied by 41 artificial islands forming a new city.\n\n### Why was the Azerbaijan Tower project abandoned?\n\nThe project was abandoned due to financial issues. The CEO of the Avesta Group was arrested for failing to pay debts, and funding for the project became scarce.\n\n### What is the Analemma Tower?\n\nThe Analemma Tower is a proposed skyscraper designed to be suspended from an asteroid in geostationary orbit. It aims to address space limitations in cities like Tokyo and New York.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Side Projects video: The Most Absurd Proposed Structures that Were Never Built](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq7jKUoSYFM)\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://sideprojects.pub/article/most-absurd-proposed-structures-never-built.md canonical: https://sideprojects.pub/article/most-absurd-proposed-structures-never-built datePublished: 2023-12-01 dateModified: 2026-07-28 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://sideprojects.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Side Projects image: "https://media.sideprojects.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/hq7jKUoSYFM/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: c72e7fa8ce7a828dadc8c76ae4c5d331343cf810226fcbd23e8c0be7cc735b1f tokens: 4359 summaryUrl: https://sideprojects.pub/article/most-absurd-proposed-structures-never-built.md.summary.md --- All throughout history, humanity has been fascinated with building the most impressive structures we can imagine. The Pyramids of Giza, the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal—in basically every corner of the world people have brought their best minds together to build some of the most extraordinary creations imaginable. However, for every epic skyscraper or gorgeous monastery that ended up being built, there have been plenty of designs and ideas that never made it to the real world despite being planned. Some of these designs ultimately failed to be constructed due to financing constraints, issues with city planning, or, in many cases, because the proposed structure was simply so insane that it never had a chance to get off the ground in the first place. Today we'll bring to you the most ridiculous of these proposed buildings, from skyscrapers to pyramids and everything in between. ## Mega Mansions In the 1930s, the Soviet Union had some ambitious ideas. Already the largest nation on earth, and well on their way to becoming one of the most powerful, the communist leaders wanted some way to commemorate their success. Of course, this wouldn't be anything for the benefit of the average citizen, because this was the USSR. Instead the idea was to create a gargantuan, epic building where the Soviet leadership could live and host their meetings. This would be called the Palace of the Soviets, and between 1931 and 1933, several architectural competitions were held to select its designer. The winner of these competitions was Boris Iofan, whose vision was, well, extraordinary to say the least. You see, the rounds of competitions, as well as competitiveness with other projects at the time, had pushed the architects to make their designs bigger and bigger. Iofan's final design, approved by the Soviet government, envisioned a building that stretched 416 meters into the sky, or around 1,365 feet. This would make it taller than all but the largest modern skyscrapers, and would have even surpassed the recently completed Empire State Building, which was the tallest in the world at the time. Its internal volume would have also been immense, containing more space than the 6 largest American skyscrapers at the time. The grand hall would seat more than 20,000 people, with various wings and sections dedicated to specific government branches. And the cherry on top: a massive, 30-meter statue of Lenin. Overall, it was quite an ambitious project for anyone in the early 1930s, but this wasn't some fairytale propaganda bit that would never be realized and later forgotten. No, the Soviets were actually determined to make it happen. The first step was to clear the land that had been chosen for it, which unfortunately contained the Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Savior. But by this point the Soviets had already demolished nearly 30,000 orthodox churches, and this one would not be spared. In fact, after its walls were stripped, it was publicly blown up and construction on the palace began soon after. Drilling, laying, and planning went on steadily for a few years, until everything came to a screeching halt. In June, 1941, Germany invaded the USSR, opening up one of the deadliest series of battles in all of human history. Consequently, projects like the palace were all but ignored, its workers were sent into military service, and then the metal used in the early stages of construction was taken and used for wartime production. After the war, Stalin seemingly had little interest in the project, and despite it being revised several times, the construction of the immense Palace of the Soviets never made it past its foundation. But that's more than can be said for a massive proposed project in Japan. In the 1980s, Japan's property had become some of the most expensive on earth, due to their booming economy and skyrocketing population. This issue was especially apparent in Tokyo, where overpopulation was starting to become a hot topic. One corporation thought of a grand solution to this: one of the largest buildings ever constructed, called the Shimizu Mega City Pyramid. Its base would be a massive 8 square kilometers, or 3 square miles, and its height would reach the absolutely ridiculous 2004 meters, or 6,575 feet. This mega structure would hypothetically house up to a million people, and could be built over the water of the Tokyo Bay in order to not take up extra space. The creators envisioned the exterior walls being covered in solar panels to provide power, extensive use of robots for construction and maintenance, and even a personal transit system of pods that would launch people around the pyramid city. In the early 1990s, the designers traveled around the globe, patenting the design in any office that they could get their hands on, and throwing the idea to as many potential investors as possible. However, as you can imagine, there are just more than a few problems with their vision. First of all, a mega city housing a million people is impressive, but as some critics have pointed out, isn't actually that significant for the region. The Tokyo Metropolitan Area is one of the most populated places on earth, with a current estimate of 40 million people, and so taking away just one million of these doesn't seem like it would immediately solve the deeper issue of affordable housing. Second, Japan sits in a spot that is highly seismically active, meaning this superhuge structure would not only need to be able to support its own weight, but continue to do so during strong earthquakes. A collapse could mean hundreds of thousands of casualties, and simply isn't worth the risk. Finally, there's the construction materials and cost. The designers are banking on the idea that the right materials will be invented soon, preferably cheap versions as well, because the current cost estimates run as high as 600 billion dollars, and that doesn't include the billions annually to maintain it. The original plan from the Shimizu corporation was to start building in the year 2030, and finish by the year 2110. To be fair, Shimizu is already 220 years old, so they're no stranger to long-term planning, but this is one project that people are going to need to somehow see before they start believing. ## Ultra Skyscrapers Skyscrapers are the ultimate symbol of a thriving city. Towers of metal and glass stretching into the clouds, they really are the epitome of a modern metropolis. And so, it comes as no surprise that some of the wildest construction proposals involve insane ideas for the tallest buildings on earth. We'll start with what is probably the most ludicrous of all, the X-Seed 4000, and yes, that is its real name. Designed for Tokyo, this monster of a building was intended to be twice as tall as the giant pyramid we just mentioned, with a ludicrous height of 4 kilometers, or 2.5 miles. This would be by far the tallest construction project in human history, nearly 5 times as tall as the Burj Khalifa. Structural stability would be achieved naturally by its shape, which was modeled after Mount Fuji. In fact, the proposed design would be about 200 meters taller than the actual mountain. The idea for the X-Seed 4000 was announced by Taisei Corporation in 1995, and the hope was that it could contain more than a million people and maglev train systems for rapid transportation. Of course, this project was never realized, and for quite a few reasons. First up are the environmental issues. Just like the Shimizu Pyramid, the X-Seed 4000 would need to handle earthquakes and tsunamis. And not only that, its immense height would require extensive technology to regulate air pressure throughout the building, and the slightest failure of this system could be catastrophic for its millions of inhabitants. On top of all this, the materials required would be at least 3 million tons of steel, and the whole thing would cost up to 1.7 trillion dollars, which would've been a significant portion of the entire GDP of Japan. On a slightly smaller note, there is the proposed Ultima Tower, a skyscraper that would hypothetically transform the skyline of San Francisco with a height of 3.2 kilometers or 2 miles. The designer of the Ultima Tower claims to have drawn his inspiration from termite nests, as it would house a dense, self-sustaining population. He also envisions it to be the most environmentally friendly project in history, having mini ecosystems including forests, rivers, and lakes, and in his own words be "open to the elements." Perhaps it's these ambitious plans that have put off the city of San Francisco from taking up his offer, or maybe it's the 150-billion-dollar price tag. On the other side of the United States, New York City has had its fair share of proposed skyscrapers. For example, there's the 2017 proposal for The Big Bend, which would essentially be a huge arch in downtown Manhattan. Supposedly this curved shape is a way to circumvent height restrictions for skyscrapers, because it wouldn't technically be one, but the public reception to this building was terrible and so it doesn't seem like there's any current plans to build it. There was also the proposed New York Stock Exchange Tower, which was proposed by Donald Trump in the late 1990s, but this idea never made it off the ground. These are some pretty wild ideas, but it's not like huge skyscrapers are a foreign concept to places like Tokyo or San Francisco. The same can't be said however, for Paris in the 1930s. In 1937, the World Fair was coming to Paris, and a man named Eugene Freyssinet designed the ultimate destination for all the tourists that would soon be arriving: Phare Du Monde, or the Lighthouse of the World. This would be 700 meters, or 2,300 feet in height, which is a crazy proposal for the 1930s, because if it would have been built, it would still rank as the second tallest building on earth. But its most interesting feature was the spiral highway that twists all the way to the top, which was intended to be an easy way for cars to drive nearly all the way to the top, negating the need for elevators. One can only imagine how terrifying a traffic jam would be at such heights, and this is probably one of the many reasons why the project was abandoned. ## Out of this World The Azerbaijan Tower was a planned megatall skyscraper that would have reached 1000 meters in height, or around 3450 feet, which would make it the tallest on earth. This behemoth makes our list not only because it was actually approved and then later abandoned, but because it was also planned to be accompanied by no fewer than 41 artificial islands in the Caspian Sea, which would make up a new, 100-billion-dollar city to the south of Baku, Azerbaijan. The ambitions for this city, called the Khazar Islands, were simply off the charts. The Avesta Group of Companies envisioned more than a million residents, which seems to be the standard for huge projects in this video, multiple universities, several airports, and a legitimate Formula 1 racetrack. Around 150 bridges would be built to connect these islands to the mainland, and the whole thing would be this massive, clean, hypermodern society. If it all sounds too good to be true, that's because it is. Construction on the islands began in 2011, and the skyscraper was supposed to begin construction a couple years later, but the CEO of the Avesta group was suddenly arrested in 2015 for his failure to pay over 50 million of dollars of debt that he owed to the International Bank of Azerbaijan. After his release, he insisted that the project would continue, and that the islands were scheduled to be finished by 2025, but funding seems to be scarce, and it doesn't seem like they'll be ready any time soon. This was a perfect example of an overly-ambitious project, as the cost of the city itself is more than double the GDP of its entire country and despite the CEO's claims, it doesn't appear that very many foreign investors want to get involved. But as unrealistic as the Khazar Island scheme is, it seems like a walk in the park compared to our final project: the Analemma Tower. Realizing that cities like Tokyo, New York City, and Beijing don't really have a lot of space left in their busy centers, architects at Clouds AO thought of a solution. Instead of building a skyscraper up from the ground, they suggest hanging one upside down from an asteroid. The idea is to tether a small asteroid and redirect it to earth, where it can be put in a geostationary orbit. From here, incredibly strong cables would suspend the new building hanging underneath it, which would presumably be an immensely tall skyscraper, or groundscraper, since we're working in reverse now. As for the cost, well, where do we even begin. There aren't exactly good estimates for how much it costs to bring an asteroid to earth, since we've never done that, but for a starting point NASA once estimated that it would cost well over a billion dollars to bring a small asteroid into lunar orbit, so that's close. After solving the asteroid problem, it would then become the most expensive construction project in history, not just because of its scale, but because we would have to invent newer, stronger materials to support the dangling weight. The architects say that the best way to make this building affordable would be to build it in Dubai, as they've shown to be "a specialist in tall building construction at one fifth the cost of New York City construction." But they plan to eventually have it hanging over New York, so apparently this means creating the thing over Dubai and then moving it across the world, which is a whole other expense. But building and getting it in place is only the first set of issues. Being up so high would make the lower levels prone to birds strikes and all sorts of dangerous weather, like lightning and perhaps even solar storms. If this monstrosity were somehow completed, the price for rent would be so absurdly high that one can only picture the richest of billionaires purchasing space in it, so all in all, the Analemma Tower is probably going to remain in the concept phase. ## Key Takeaways - Throughout history, ambitious architectural projects have often failed due to financing, planning issues, or impractical designs. - The Soviet Union's Palace of the Soviets was halted by World War II and never completed despite initial progress. - Japan's Shimizu Mega City Pyramid faced criticism for its impracticality in addressing overpopulation and seismic risks. - The X-Seed 4000, proposed for Tokyo, was deemed unfeasible due to environmental concerns and astronomical costs. - The Analemma Tower, proposed to hang from an asteroid, remains a conceptual project due to immense technical and financial challenges. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What was the Palace of the Soviets? The Palace of the Soviets was a proposed gargantuan building in the Soviet Union designed to house the Soviet leadership and host meetings. It was planned to be 416 meters tall and include a massive statue of Lenin. ### Why was the Palace of the Soviets never built? Construction on the Palace of the Soviets was halted due to World War II. After the war, Stalin lost interest in the project, and despite several revisions, it never progressed past its foundation. ### What was the Shimizu Mega City Pyramid? The Shimizu Mega City Pyramid was a proposed mega-structure in Japan designed to house up to a million people. It would have been 2,004 meters tall and built over Tokyo Bay. ### What were some of the issues with the Shimizu Mega City Pyramid? Critics pointed out that housing a million people wouldn't significantly solve Tokyo's overpopulation issue. Additionally, Japan's seismic activity posed a risk, and the construction and maintenance costs were estimated to be extremely high. ### What was the X-Seed 4000? The X-Seed 4000 was a proposed skyscraper in Tokyo designed to be 4 kilometers tall, modeled after Mount Fuji. It was intended to house over a million people and include maglev train systems. ### Why was the X-Seed 4000 never built? The X-Seed 4000 faced environmental issues, including the need to handle earthquakes and tsunamis, and the immense cost of materials and construction. The project was estimated to cost up to 1.7 trillion dollars. ### What was the Phare Du Monde? The Phare Du Monde, or Lighthouse of the World, was a proposed 700-meter tall structure in Paris designed for the 1937 World Fair. It featured a spiral highway for cars to drive to the top. ### What was the Azerbaijan Tower? The Azerbaijan Tower was a planned 1,000-meter tall skyscraper in Baku, Azerbaijan, part of a larger project called the Khazar Islands. It was intended to be accompanied by 41 artificial islands forming a new city. ### Why was the Azerbaijan Tower project abandoned? The project was abandoned due to financial issues. The CEO of the Avesta Group was arrested for failing to pay debts, and funding for the project became scarce. ### What is the Analemma Tower? The Analemma Tower is a proposed skyscraper designed to be suspended from an asteroid in geostationary orbit. It aims to address space limitations in cities like Tokyo and New York. ## Sources - [Original Side Projects video: The Most Absurd Proposed Structures that Were Never Built](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq7jKUoSYFM) ## Related Coverage