Phantom Architecture

<p><b>'60 fantastical structures described and illustrated in this colourful and highly entertaining book.' <i>The Sunday Times</i><br> <br> <br> <br> 'If you can't think of a present for the armchair architect in your life - well, problem solved' <i>The Daily Telegraph</i><br> <br> <br> <br> 'These ghostly architectural echoes entrance the reader.' <i>The Field</i><br> <br> <br> <br> 'This is a lavishly illustrated book of wonder for the dreamer in your life' <i>The Metro</i></b><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <b>A skyscraper one mile high, a dome covering most of downtown Manhattan, a triumphal arch in the form of an elephant:</b> some of the most exciting buildings in the history of architecture are the ones that never got built.<br> <br> <br> <br> These are the projects in which architects took <b>materials to the limits</b>, <b>explored challenging new ideas</b>, <b>defied conventions</b>, and <b>pointed the way towards the future</b>. Some of them are <b>architectural masterpieces</b>, some simply <b>delightful flights of fancy</b>. It was not usually poor design that stymied them - politics, inadequate funding, or a client who chose a 'safe' option rather than a daring vision were all things that could stop a project leaving the drawing board.<br> <br> <br> <br> These unbuilt buildings include the grand projects that acted as <b>architectural calling cards</b>, <b>experimental design</b>s that stretch technology, <b>visions for the future</b> of the city, and <b>articles of architectural faith</b>. Structures likeBuckminster Fuller's dome over New York or Frank Lloyd Wright's mile-high tower can seem impossibly daring. But they also point to buildings that came decades later, to the Eden Project and the Shard.<br> <br> <br> <br> Some of those unbuilt wonders are buildings of great beauty and individual form like <b>Etienne-Louis Boullée's enormous spherical monument</b> to <b>Isaac Newton</b>; some, such as the city plans of <b>Le Corbusier</b>, seem to want to teach us how to live; some, like <b>El Lissitsky's 'horizontal skyscrapers'</b> and <b>Gaudí's curvaceous New York hotel</b>, turn architectural convention upside-down; some, such as <b>Archigram's Walking City</b> and <b>Plug-in City</b>, are bizarre and inspiring by turns. All are captured in this <b>magnificently illustrated</b> book.</p>