"A structure becomes architectural, and not sculptural, when its elements no longer have their justification in nature." —Guillaume Apollinare
The arrangement of stones at Stonehenge, likely the most famous Neolithic religious site, on the Salisbury Plain in southern England, results from several phases of construction that occurred between 2,500 B.C. to around 2,000 B.C. The stones used in its construction came from two places. The bluestones, which form the inner, earliest, semicircle, came from the Preseli Mountains around 385 kilometres away. The larger sarsens, weighing up to 45 tonnes, were brought to Stonehenge from the Marlborough Downs, 30 kilometres to the north. [ Ancient Britain and Ireland | Buildings and Monuments ] (source)
Situated at Baalbek, 53 miles from Beirut in Lebanon, stand the ruins of a group of Roman temples constructed in the first century A.D. Surrounding the temples is a massive stone wall at whose western end lie three of the largest cut blocks of stone in the world. The largest of these is 64 by 14 by 12 feet and weighs about 800 tons. This block would have to have been cut from a quarry almost a mile away, transported to Baalbek, and possibly lifted some 25 feet to its final position. Few modern industrial cranes are capable of such a feat, yet the stones are placed so precisely, it is impossible to insert the blade of a knife between them. How these stones were transported is unknown. [ Buildings, Structures, and Monuments | Strange But True ]
The Circus Maximus in Rome, after its rebuilding by Julius Caesar, could accommodate 150,000 people. It was enlarged again in the days of the early empire to admit an additional 100,000. [ Buildings and Monuments | The Roman Empire ] (source)
Because of a rapidly increasing population, the ancient Romans built tenement houses. They were made cheaply, of a kind of concrete, and usually had three stories. (source)
Modern archaeologists have not yet agreed on how large a crowd the Colosseum in Rome could hold in its glory days. One authority estimates 50,000, but around 45,000 is the generally accepted figure. [ Buildings and Monuments | The Roman Empire ] (source)
There is a marble arch in Libya that was built in the year 164. It is still standing, but it has been covered with modern cement and made into a grocery store.
A large number of ancient buildings in Rome that survived the fall of Rome and the many calamities that befell Rome in the Middle Ages were destroyed during the Renaissance, so that new buildings could be built. Michelangelo and others complained about this practice, but to no avail.
It is reported that the Hagia Sophia (Church of the Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople cost 320,000 pounds of gold when it was constructed between 532 and 537. Even if that cost were exaggerated by a factor of ten, it was still a staggering amount of money for the Roman Empire to spend, as it was waging war simultaneously in Italy and Persia. (source)
The great cathedral of Hagia Sophia at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), after its great dome was rebuilt in 562 after previously collapsing in 558, has sustained what was until recently the largest self-supporting dome ever constructed, and in an active seismic region at that. [ Famous Buildings | Byzantine Empire ] (source)
The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Amiens, built in the Middle Ages, covers 8,500 square yards and took 137 years to complete. When it was completed, the entire population of the city, around 10,000, could attend the same service. [ Buildings and Monuments | The Middle Ages ]
The Taj Mahal in Agra, one of the world's most beautiful buildings, was built by the Moghul emperor Shah Jahan (1627-1659) as a mausoleum for one of his wives, Mumtaz Mahal, who, on her deathbed in 1631, extracted a promise from her husband to take care of her children and to build a suitable monument for her. Masons from northern India, calligraphers from Baghdad and Shiraz, and various specialists from all around the Muslim world designed and supervised building activities as well as planning the garden. The work was coordinated by Ustad Isa from Lahore. [ Buildings and Monuments | Monarchs | India ] (source)
Until the British took over India, guards were posted at the Taj Mahal with a warning that any non-Muslim who tried to enter would be put to death. (source)
The Taj Mahal was scheduled to be torn down in the 1830s in order to remove its marble facing in order to auction it off in London to the landed English gentry. It was not until wrecking machinery was moved into the garden grounds and work was about to begin that word came from London to cancel the demolition. The first auction of marble facades of Indian monuments and edifices had been a failure, so tearing down the 200-year-old mausoleum would not be worth it. [ India | Buildings and Monuments ] (source)
Paris' best-known monument, the Eiffel Tower, was saved from demolition in 1909 only because there was an antenna, of great importance to French radio telegraphy, mounted at the top of the 984-foot high structure. (source)
There are 2,500,000 rivets in the Eiffel Tower. (source)
The height of the 984-foot (usually) Eiffel Tower is over six inches higher in the summer than in the winter. (source)
In the small Italian town of San Gimignano during the fourteenth century, a lofty tower was the ultimate status symbol. The first turret was probably constructed for protection against street fighting between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, but soon, for reasons of prestige, other lords began building towers of their own, each trying to outdo his rivals. In a matter of a few years, 72 spires sprang up; fourteen still survive, giving San Gimignano its nickname, "the Manhattan of Tuscany". [ The Middle Ages | Buildings, Structures, and Monuments ] (source)
The Ice Hotel at Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, offers the ultimate in cold comfort - a building constructed out of ice where the average room temperature is -4°C. The beds are made from packed snow topped with spruce boughs and reindeer skins. The hotel melts every April and has to be rebuilt the following winter.
The world's largest building without internal supports is the Goodyear Airship hangar, in Akron, Ohio - it has 55 million cubic feet of air. Clouds form in the top of the structure during sudden temperature changes, and it rains. [ Transportation | Buildings and Monuments ]
If the air conditioning at the Astrodome in Houston were turned off, it would rain inside the stadium due to the entrance of humid air. [ Buildings, Structures, and Monuments | Sports and Games ]
The Vietnam War crypt at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the United States' Arlington National Cemetery may remain empty permanently. No victim has turned up who was unidentified, fought in Vietnam, and who had more than 80% of his body recovered.
More damage has been done to Cleopatra's Needle, a hieroglyphic-covered granite obelisk, in the 125 years it has stood in pollution-filled, weather-beaten New York City than in thousands of years in dry Egypt. [ Buildings, Structures, and Monuments | Ancient Egypt ] (source)
In São Paulo, Brazil, there is a thirty-nine-storey tall building that serves as a cemetery. It is outfitted with 21,000 tombs and room for 147,000 cremated residents. It also has a heliport, an eight-storey parking garage, two churches, and twenty-one chapels. [ Lasts | Buildings, Structures, and Monuments ] (source)
Overlooking the town of Oban in Scotland is a replica of the Colosseum, known locally as McCaig's Folly. It was the idea of banker and self-styled art critic John Stewart McCaig who, after a trip to Italy, decided to recreate the glory of Rome in Scotland. It was intended as a museum and art gallery, but when McCaig died with only the shell built everyone lost interest. It now exists as a vast blackened cylinder and encloses a public garden. (source)
One quarter of the 10,300 glass panels in Boston's 60-storey Hancock Tower fell to the ground between 1971 and 1973.
In 1974, the U.S. Army Materiel Command ran a contest to name its new headquarters building. Around 500 entries were received. The entry that the contest committee decided on was "The AMC Building". (source)