Pipe Dreams

Sometimes architects’ grand ambitions fall flat, and the public may be better for it. In other cases, what may have benefitted the public and the team of architects, engineers, and the other laborers involved is killed for reasons out of their control, namely financial, political, and ideological considerations. As illustrated in the Atlas of Never Built Architecture, the public may have benefitted from the more than 300 featured unfulfilled designs from across the world spanning the 20th century to today. The handsome book of graphics and snarky descriptions is a fun read for someone interested in the eccentric history of architecture and design, but it is also insightful for those in the field.

As Los Angeles-based authors Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin argue in the introduction, much unbuilt work originated from the design competition held by the Council of Athens in 448 BC for a victory monument. One could argue it set the standard for what remains unbuilt and the grossly competitive nature of the field by asking firms to waste resources and labor. Yet, as is typical of competitions seeking a legacy-making development, the Athenian government wanted something monumental honoring their decades-long rebound from poor leadership. It’s unclear who won, and the finalists’ renderings were destroyed.

Texas has a prominent role in the tome, with several of the state’s architects represented. But some of their most ambitious projects do not make the cut. As Lubell and Goldin note, they could have included more, such as artist Robert Smithson and the firm Tippetts-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton’s plan for the Dallas Fort Worth Regional Airport. It was eccentric, with runways having distinct features and described, in one case, as “wandering Earth mounds and gravel paths.” The firm didn’t get the contract and the plan was shelved.

In terms of why the featured projects were canceled, the major reasons are all here: the tension between developers and conservationists, as well as the boom and bust of the state’s oil sector. In 1982, Dallas-based Republic Bank wanted to demolish the Texas Theatre in San Antonio, which conservationists objected to. After various attempts at a compromise, including the commissioning of designs by O’Neil Ford and Michael Graves (and Ford, full of opinions, calling Graves a carpetbagger), conservation efforts failed and only the facade remains. 

Before the Texas economy crashed, the MGF Corporation commissioned I.M. Pei to design a headquarters in Midland. While a tall building financed by a big profiteer during the state’s oil and gas boom is the story of Midland, Pei’s building was not something one would see in West Texas. The structure, as rendered by design principal Harold Fredenburgh, was a 35-story obelisk with punched glass emerging from a modern square base. It was shelved in 1984 when MGF filed for bankruptcy.

The city of ultimate ambition, Dallas, is represented by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Rogers Lacy Hotel, a 1946 scheme proposed to occupy a block of downtown Dallas. The design for the 47-story hotel featured a 12-floor base wrapped in two layers of translucent glass with a pinwheel-like tower and a six-story penthouse, a nightclub, shops, and other amenities. As architectural historian  Richard Cleary previously noted in this magazine (in the March/April 2022 Backpage article), the proposal was innovative in its building materials, structural systems, and environmental controls. Alas, Lacy died in 1947 and so too did the project. One wonders if the project, had it been built, would have maintained its dignity given the city’s neglect of Wright’s Kalita Humphreys Theater, which was built in 1959 and is in disrepair. While not managed by the city, perhaps it would have even been torn down anyway considering the midcentury lust for destroying the past. 

In an era where spaceship buildings are threatened (the Fort Worth Convention Center) or destroyed (the former Round Bank in Bellmead), the Temple Emanuel chapel in Houston is probably lucky that it wasn’t built. Herb Greene’s 1957 design was a circular chapel that looks as if it is floating and abutted by greenery. The renderings dabble with scale, color, and pure imagination, not unlike the work of Bruce Goff, whose fantastical plan for Viva Casino in Las Vegas is also included. Goff’s design falls somewhere between the Grand Palace in Thailand and Disney’s Magic Kingdom and is topped by triangular forms the authors describe as akin to a tricorn hat.

The book is, like many architecture publications, a history filled with tales of grandiosity, hubris, and vision. But practically, it’s also a crash course showing the evolution of the technologies used by architects to communicate their ideas. Hand-drawn sketches have given way to electronically designed renderings, becoming more realistic  and transforming the artistry that goes into a scheme. However, it’s also a different type of architecture book showing the impact that even the most impossible of designs can have on a community and, as seen here, in the world.