What\u2019s that huge hole in the ground in downtown Chicago? It was supposed to have been a residential skyscraper–the Chicago Spire–and it could have been the second-highest building in the world, but the project crashed when the global economy did the same. [During a recent architectural tour of Chicago,\u00a0one docent shed\u00a0exactly zero\u00a0tears over\u00a0 the Spire’s\u00a0demise, calling the idea behind it\u00a0“architectural grandstanding.”]<\/p>\n

At Web Urbanist<\/a> , you can scroll through a portfolio of 12 super high-rise projects around the world that\u2014literally\u2014never got off the ground because of the recession.\u00a0 The portfolio offers a stark contrast between the vision, via architctural renderings, and the reality–abandoned constructon sites and less-than-half-completed structures.<\/p>\n

Some of them would have been spectacular achievements of creative architecture. The people who designed them and financed them dreamed big and lost big, too.<\/p>\n

Maybe these projects are object lessons in the perils of excess and financial overreach. Perhaps they\u2019re a good starting point for a discussion about the relationship between money and imagination<\/a>. Either way, they\u2019re definitely fun to look at.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s that huge hole in the ground in downtown Chicago? It was supposed to have been a residential skyscraper–the Chicago Spire–and it could have<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1136,93,384],"tags":[1167,1166],"yoast_head":"\n