Unfinished Structures and Ones Which Took Over a Century to Complete Around the world there are structural projects which for one reason or another were never finished. They range from the ancient to the relatively new. Some we know the reasons for, others we have no idea. One building was a Soviet monster which was to not only be huge but have a spire taller than the empire state building. It was being built in Moscow and was to be where the government would move to. The reason it was not finished was World War 2 had started. Today the site houses the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. There is a huge building in China called the Goldin Finance 117. It is an incredible 1959 feet tall and is unfinished and abandoned. Can you imagine a building which is over 700 feet taller than the empire state building being abandoned? I found it incredible, when the builder ran out of funds, no one else backed him or bought the uncompleted building and finished it. It certainly is not the only abandoned skyscraper in the world however. The Goldin Finance 117 was going to be the fifth tallest building in the world at the time. There is a tall building in New York City where work was stopped on its construction in 2019 after the contractor told the authorities he was withdrawing from the project and at last check, there is yet to be a new contractor assigned. Will this building ever be finished? In case you are wondering where the building is located the address is said to be 45 Park Place. One very famous ancient structure is the Great Wall in China. I think of it as an unfinished structure for a couple of reasons. The first reason is, while being 13,171 miles long, it does not cross the entire country of China. The second reason I believe it is unfinished is the fact it kept getting added to over the centuries. It is said the construction started on the wall in the 7th century B.C. and ended in 1911. That would mean the Chinese have been adding to and repairing sections of the wall for 26 centuries, this is incredible. One structure which looks unfinished to me but is complete is the Eiffel Tower. It just reminds me of the skeleton of a building before floors and walls are installed. It became the tallest structure in the world when it was finished, beating out the Great Pyramid after around 70 centuries. I have often wondered if some of the ancient buildings we think as complete really are? There are some we know were not finished such as the pyramid of Neferefre. The pyramid was being built for the pharaoh who was also known as Raneferef and Ranefer. The constructed started in the 5th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom period in Egypt. Evidence has been found that a mason had inscribed on a stone that the construction was abandoned in the second year of the pharaoh’s reign. Archaeologists think the pharaoh might have died at that time. There is an ancient Greek temple which was never completely finished. It is the Temple of Delians. The temple construction was started in 476 B.C. but then it was stopped. The Athenians then took over control of construction. Work started again in 314 B.C. but the temple was never completely finished. Most of the decorative parts were never installed. It is kind of funny how the ancient had problems where they didn’t finish construction, and here we are thousands of years later and we still sometimes have problems which stop the construction of buildings and other sites. There is a partially built building in Scotland, which was slated to be a sort of replica of the style of ancient Greek temples. The building was only partially built. It is located in Edinburgh. It is historic in a way and is still important even though it is sorely unfinished. It was proposed in 1816 and was supposed to be a war memorial for those who fought and died in the Napoleonic Wars. One would think a government would have finished it. It was supposed to look like the Parthenon. It is known as the National Monument of Scotland. The builders ran out of money after 3 years. In modern times it is said China has the most unfinished buildings, and the people there buy homes before they are built and sometimes this doesn’t work out very well for the people. There are people there who bought condos for example and they were never finished, yet they are stuck with the mortgage. One would think there would be laws against this sort of thing, but it seems to be pretty common. While I have talked about mostly unfinished buildings, there is another type and that is buildings which have been under construction for an incredible number of years. One such building is the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain. Construction started in 1882. The building is a basilica. It is still under construction and the date for it to be finished is projected to be in 2026. If my math is correct that is 144 years later. There is another building in Italy which is very famous and took a long time to build. Can you guess which one it is? I will give you a clue, it is not on the level. Get it? Anyway, the Leaning Tower of Pisa took 199 years to build. It has caused a lot of problems for Pisans who were worried about it falling down and projects took place to keep it standing and apparently, they succeeded. One of the buildings, also in Italy, has been under construction for an unbelievable number of years. It is the Milan Cathedral. It is absolutely one of the most impressive churches and buildings in the world. The construction started in 1386 and it became an incredible project. Stone masons and construction workers worked on in for their entire life and so did some of their children and their children and so forth. The construction was finally finished in 1965. The construction went on for 579 years and the tools used just kept improving. It just makes me wonder why a civilization would undertake a construction which would not be finished for hundreds of years, because there is no way to know if future generations might just halt it. Aside from terraforming a planet, I just can’t see it. It did provide jobs for the guilds in the old days so there was that. Also, one has to admit the structures were usually breathtaking when finished.
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