How famous historical sights looked like 150 years ago, which have changed today

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Perhaps there is nothing more interesting than traveling the world, enjoying the scenery outside the window or admiring the local sights with a rich history. The Arc de Triomphe, the Great Wall of China, Mount Rushmore - all this and much more looked completely different not so long ago, unlike what it looks like now.

1. Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower is a Parisian landmark that is also a technological masterpiece in building history. When the French government organized the 1889 International Exhibition to commemorate the centenary of the French Revolution, a competition was held to design a suitable monument. More than a hundred plans were submitted, and the Centennial Committee adopted the design of the famous bridge engineer Gustave Eiffel. Eiffel's idea of a 300-meter tower, built almost entirely of wrought iron with an open lattice, caused surprise, skepticism and considerable opposition for aesthetic reasons. After its completion, the tower became one of the most popular and haunted landmarks in the world.

2. Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore National Memorial, a colossal sculpture in the Black Hills in southwestern South Dakota, USA, is located about forty kilometers southwest of Rapid City, sixteen kilometers northeast of Custer and just north of Caster State Park. Huge depictions of the heads of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, each about eighteen meters high, are carved into granite on the southeastern side of Mount Rushmore. The mountain itself, located at an altitude of almost two thousand meters, was named in 1885 in honor of Charles E. Rushmore, a New York lawyer. The memorial, covering an area of five square kilometers, was built in 1925, and the US National Park Service took over the site in 1933.

3. Temple of the Sagrada Familia

The construction of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona was a lifelong work of the architect Antoni Gaudí. He almost gave up his commercial work to build what was to be his play of resistance as well as an act of religious belief.

Construction began in 1883, but the building was never completed either after Gaudi's death in 1926 or at the turn of the 21st century. According to some estimates, the project could be completed by the centenary of Gaudí's death, but even this is disputed.

Whether it will ever be possible to complete the building according to Antonio's original plans is a moot point, given that during the Spanish Civil War, the workshop in which his drawings were kept was set on fire. This led to a discussion among a group of leading artists, intellectuals and architects about whether to continue with the construction work. They wanted the church to remain as faithful to the original concept of the architect as possible.

However, the Sagrada Familia is considered a unique architectural structure in the Gaudí style. Although he drew on contemporary fashion and modernity, the individual colors give his designs a distinct flavor: organic curves and shapes that echo those found in nature, fantastic, almost dreamlike shapes and brightly colored tiles. As you might expect, the architect was buried in the crypt of the basilica after his tragic death caused by falling under a tram. When the accident happened, no one was able to identify Gaudí, and he was taken to a nearby beggar's hospital. When his identity became known, he was offered to move to another place, but he humbly insisted on staying among the poor, where, in fact, he died.

4. Temple complex of Philae

Since ancient Egyptian times, the island has been dedicated to the goddess Isis. The earliest known structures belong to Taharka, Pharaoh of the 25th Kushite dynasty. The Saits built the earliest known temple, found disassembled and reused in Ptolemaic structures. The complex of buildings of the Temple of Isis was completed by Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his successor Ptolemy III Everget.

Its decorations dating back to the period of the late Ptolemies and the Roman emperors Augustus and Tiberius were never completed. The Roman Emperor Hadrian added a gate to the west of the complex. Other small temples or shrines dedicated to Egyptian deities include the Temple of Imhotep and the Temple of Hathor, as well as the chapels of Osiris, Horus, and Nephthys. The Temple of Isis continued to flourish during the Roman Empire and was not closed until the reign of Justinian I. At the end of Justinian's reign, the temple was converted into a church, and two more Coptic churches were built in the city.

5. Arc de Triomphe

The Arc de Triomphe is one of the world's most famous monuments and an iconic symbol of French national identity, which took thirty years to build.

Napoleon I commissioned the Arc de Triomphe in 1806 after his great victory at the Battle of Austerlitz to celebrate the military achievements of the French armies. The arch, designed by Jean-François-Thérèse Chalgrin, is fifty meters high and forty-five meters wide.

The construction of the arch began in 1806, on August 15, on Napoleon's birthday. By the time of his marriage to the Austrian Archduchess Marie-Louise in 1810, the foundation was almost complete, so in honor of her solemn entry into Paris, a full-scale image of the completed project was erected on this site, made of wood and painted canvas. This gave Chalgren the opportunity to see his project on the spot, and he made some minor adjustments to it. By the time of his death in 1811, only a small portion of the building had been completed, and work slowed even further after Napoleon's abdication. Thus, little was done until the works were restored by order of King Louis XVIII.

6. Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is a vast bastion built in ancient China and one of the largest construction projects ever built. The Great Wall consists of many walls built over approximately two millennia in northern China and southern Mongolia. The largest and best-preserved version of the wall dates from the Ming Dynasty and extends approximately nine thousand kilometers east-west from Hu Mountain near Dandong, southeastern Liaoning province, to the Jiayu Pass west of Jiuquan, northwestern Gansu province.

This wall often traces the ridges of hills and mountains as it snakes through the Chinese countryside, and about one quarter of its length consists entirely of natural barriers such as rivers and ridges, the remainder being built by humans. The Great Wall of China was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 and is considered one of the most unique structures on planet Earth.

Continuing the topic - 12 majestically beautiful unfinished buildings with a rich history, around which secrets soar to this day.