The island San Juan de Gaztelugatxe is connected to the mainland by a man-made stone bridge. The bridge transitions into a narrow path that contains 241 steps and zigzags its way back and forth to the top. Once there, you will find the church which has a bell situated along the front of its facade. According to legend, after you have completed the climb, you should ring the bell three times and make a wish.
La Scala was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal Theatre at La Scala. Today the theatre is recognised as one of the leading opera and ballet theatres in the world and is home to the La Scala Theatre Chorus, La Scala Theatre Ballet and La Scala Theatre Orchestra.
Arcosanti is an experimental town that began construction in 1970 in central Arizona. Architect Paolo Soleri, using a concept he calls arcology (a portmanteau of architecture and ecology), started the town to demonstrate how urban conditions could be improved while minimizing the destructive impact on the earth.
Hewn into solid rock in the middle of a residential square, Helsinki’s Rock Church (Temppeliaukio Kirkko) features a circular ceiling covered entirely with copper stripping. Natural light streams in through 180 window panes, while an ice age crevice in the natural rock serves as the altar.
The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal.
The World Centre of Communication is a project conceived by the sculptor Hendrik Christian Andersen and the architect Ernest Hébrard between 1901 and 1911. The project was presented in a volume published in 1913, titled Creation of a World Centre of Communication. The Centre has never been built: only urban projects, building drawings and a few sculptures do exist. What was the World Centre of Communication purpose? The authors aimed to gather in the Centre all the best intellectual product of mankind, both in the scientific and art field. In this ideal place, communication would have been at the service of the Good, Technological Progress and Civilisation. The Centre consisted of three areas: an Olympic Centre, an Art Centre and a Scientific Centre. The Olympic Centre would have contained a stadium, gyms, swimming pools, and at the entrance two giants statues of a man and a woman bearing a torch. The Art Centre would have housed a Temple of Art, galleries, libraries, schools, theatres, botanical gardens, and on both side two cathedrals. The Fountain of Life would have been located in the middle of the main square. The Scientific Centre, instead, would have been addressed to the Scientific Congress Building, the Temple of Religion and the Court of Justice. An imposing Tower of Progress completed the Centre with a huge transmitting antenna on its top and the Centre of World Press within, which had to broadcast the progresses of science.
The Palace of the Soviets is the most famous and grandiose of the unrealized projects of the Soviet government. Conceived in the early 1920s, it was supposed to become the main building and a symbol of the new country. The plan was that it would house government bodies, serve as a venue for sessions of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and mass demonstrations, and even have a swimming pool inside.
The Quinta da Regaleira is an enchanting estate near Lisbon. Built by an eccentric Free Mason, it houses the mysterious Initiation Well and is filled with Pagan and occult symbols.
The bold scheme of St. Patrick Well consists of a circular shaft 200 feet deep and 45 feet wide lighted by 72-arched windows cut into the Pozzo di San Patrizio. Two spiral staircases descend from opposing doors of the shaft to access and transport water. Both stairs wind around each other, never meeting and resembling the structure of a DNA helix with 248 steps for each one. St. Patrick Well's ingenious design permitted mule-drawn carts carrying water bags to descend on one side of the double helix and ascend on the other end without ever colliding.
A tunnel boring machine is a machine used to excavate tunnels with a circular cross-section through a variety of soil and rock strata.