Futuristic construction projects that were never implemented

Last November, the City of London dismissed the Tulip Tower. The building was controversial because it didn’t remind many people of a tulip but rather of a penis. The building permit was not granted and the project failed. We’ll show you seven other projects that didn’t make it to implementation either – despite spectacular visualizations and construction work even started.

The Tulip Tower is not the first failed project by Foster + Partners, neither will the airport that the architecture firm designed for Mexico City. Construction work had already begun and the airport was half complete when the project was grounded in 2018. The reason: the newly elected President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – stopping this project was a large part of his election campaign. After his election, he had citizens vote on the construction in a referendum, and they did not want the airport, which cost 13.3 billion euros.

The New Tamayo Museum was to become a major art center in Mexico City. The well-known Danish architectural office BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) has teamed up with the local Rojkind Arquitectos and submitted this design. Although the duo won a competition with it in 2009, the museum has still not been built more than ten years later. The reasons are unclear.

Zaha Hadid Architects won the design competition for the Olympic stadium in Tokyo in 2012, but was then faced with a lot of criticism: Japanese architects criticized the size and cost of the project, the public made fun of the shape – that’s how it happened Stadium compared to a helmet or, less nicely, a toilet bowl. In 2015, the project was grounded by the Japanese prime minister.

In 2016, the Italian architect Carlo Ratti published plans for an observation tower that would be twice as high as the Burj Khalifa – i.e. over 1600 meters. The Mile was not planned for a specific location, but according to the architect, various larger cities had expressed interest. In the past almost six years, nothing has happened with this project, which also includes a planted terrace.

The RAK Convention and Exhibition Center was a particularly ambitious project that would have been part of a new city in Ras Al Khaimah, the northernmost of the United Arab Emirates. However, the building, which is somewhat reminiscent of the Death Star from “Star Wars”, never became reality: the plans for the city, which should house around 600,000 people by 2025, have not yet been implemented

OMA’s second project never materialized for the same reason that the RAK Convention and Exhibition Center failed: it is a tourist town near the new town at Ras Al Khaimah. The project included a (habitable) dam, a bridge and a hotel structure that should have been built directly into the cliff. Since the city project has not yet been implemented, this idea is also on hold.

This green bridge should have been built in the middle of London. It was designed by architect Thomas Heatherwick, who was well received by the British Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson. The ambitious prestige project was rejected again in 2017. The calculated construction costs had risen from £60m to over £200m and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was no longer willing to support such an expensive construction project.