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Biggest Megaprojects Never Finished · Be Amazed

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: The world around us is full of amazing buildings that make you marvel at the genius in their construction.
0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, there's the buildings where architects really gave it their best, go!
0:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Papa B. Amaze loves a try or so, I rounded up some of the biggest, most expensive, and downright, most outrageous, almost buildings that never quite made it over the finish line.
0:50
[SPEAKER_00]: When Qatar was selected to host the 2022 Kiki Pigbladder World Cup, there were big questions regarding whether the country's infrastructure could support or premiere sporting tournament.
1:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Qatar embarked on an outrageous construction campaign.
1:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of those projects was the Doha Shark Crossing.
1:10
[SPEAKER_00]: This was an insanely ambitious 3-bridge system linked by 2 underwater tunnels and a marine tunnel spanning a whopping 7.5 miles across Doha Bay.
1:21
[SPEAKER_00]: This big boy should have handled an incredible 6,000 vehicles an hour and significantly reduced traffic in the surrounding areas.
1:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Now big builds like this don't come cheap, and the Katari government set aside a whopping 12 billion dollars just for this one project.
1:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Construction was scheduled to begin in 2015 and everyone hoped it would be open for the world cup But 2022 came and went already
1:48
[SPEAKER_00]: and I don't see no bridge.
1:51
[SPEAKER_00]: See despite guitar consistently denying there was a problem, low oil prices in the years prior to 2022 had put a major strain on their economy.
2:02
[SPEAKER_00]: More than 15% of their annual income is oil, and without that money, some of these massive projects had to be put on hold.
2:11
[SPEAKER_00]: However, just because the bridges in there now doesn't mean it won't ever be there.
2:15
[SPEAKER_00]: The Cateri government announced in the 2020 budget that they were relaunching the project and expecting to complete it by 2024.
2:24
[SPEAKER_00]: That didn't happen, and as of 2022, it is still nowhere near ready.
2:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Next up, no episode about unfinished buildings would be ironically complete, without arguably the most famous unfinished building in the world.
2:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Want to guess where it is?
2:43
[SPEAKER_00]: If you said the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona have a congratulatory C.S.
2:49
[SPEAKER_00]: to after listening to this episode.
2:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Combrandt?
2:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite construction started way back in 1882, the imposing neo-gothic Catholic church is still being built.
3:02
[SPEAKER_00]: See, the project was started over 140 years ago by Francesco de Paladale Villar.
3:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But he resigned just a year later.
3:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Then it was taken over by renowned architect Antoni Galdi.
3:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Galdi poured every waking second into the project, but in 1926 he came second and a one-on-one fight with a tram and was buried in the Sagrada Familia's crypt.
3:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Damn!
3:28
[SPEAKER_00]: At the time, less than a quarter of the grand structure had been finished.
3:32
[SPEAKER_00]: The years following Galdi's passing were somewhat stopped start.
3:36
[SPEAKER_00]: The project was relying entirely on private donors, so the money to make any meaningful progress was hard to come by.
3:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Spain was devastated by the outbreak of Civil War in 1936.
3:48
[SPEAKER_00]: In June of that year, Anarkis set fire to the crypt and destroyed the workshop, as well as the original plans.
3:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Man!
3:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Luckily, the plans were redeveloped from what scraps survived and worked started again in 1939 when the war ended.
4:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Progress remains slow though until recent years where advancements in computer technologies like 3D printing have rapidly accelerated procedures.
4:15
[SPEAKER_00]: That finally brings us up to today where, drum roll, please?
4:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce in a world exclusive declaration.
4:25
[SPEAKER_00]: The Sagrada Familia is finally, still that died.
4:30
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is nearly there.
4:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Current estimates expected to be completed sometime after 2026, hoping 100 years after God is dead.
4:42
[UNKNOWN]: Phew.
4:43
[SPEAKER_00]: What a ride.
4:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's talk money.
4:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It's impossible to accurately know how much construction and maintenance has cost over the years, but current values put it around 25 million euros a year.
4:55
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just over $27 million.
4:59
[SPEAKER_00]: If, and it's a very big if, those costs were consistent for the 141 here since work started, we're talking a little short of a staggering $4 billion.
5:12
[SPEAKER_00]: To be clear, this is by no means accurate, but it's the best I've got with the information available.
5:18
[SPEAKER_00]: My grade 4 teacher, Holy said, math, was never my strong point.
5:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like Gowdy, many ambitious architects never get to see the finished fruits of their labor.
5:28
[SPEAKER_00]: One of those was King Badalpaya, 6 King of Myanmar's Kumbound dynasty, which ruled the country from 1752 to 1885.
5:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But, Bono Pia's architectural dreams didn't go wrong for quite the same reasons as Gowdys.
5:46
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been gifted a sacred Buddhist tooth relic from a visiting Chinese delegation, so to enshrined such a precious artifact, Bono Pia said about building the largest pagoda in the country and possibly even the world.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Known as the Mingun Potadorgie, worked began on the Grand Temple in 1790, 6 miles northwest of the city of Mandelae.
6:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It quickly became the most important thing in King Bought's life.
6:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So important that he left running the state to his son and built a new house for himself near the construction site so he could oversee the project.
6:21
[SPEAKER_00]: After seven years, the majestic temple was an almighty 164 feet tall, but construction had taken a huge toll on the population and rumors of a strange prophecy began to spread among the workers.
6:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Supposedly, the temple was cursed and upon its completion, the kingdom would cease to exist, and no kingdom means no king.
6:46
[SPEAKER_00]: This got the better of King Bud superstitious nature,
6:49
[SPEAKER_00]: and any further work on the temple will stop.
6:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And just a third of its design hike, the pedadourgy is still an impressive structure.
6:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's compare to what it could have been.
6:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess we'll never know.
7:02
[SPEAKER_00]: As for the curse, maybe it was true.
7:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was a lie created by an over-stretch workforce.
7:07
[SPEAKER_00]: It's forever a mystery we won't get an answer to.
7:10
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no Russian life like going to an amusement park.
7:14
[SPEAKER_00]: The thrill of the rides, the smell of freshly grilled hot dogs.
7:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, nothing better.
7:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But the Wonderland amusement park on the outskirts of Beijing was a real roller coaster for all the wrong reasons.
7:26
[SPEAKER_00]: The 120-acre theme park and Xinjiang village had hoped to draw an increase of 20 million people.
7:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So you'd think a place with high aspirations would look the part, right?
7:38
[SPEAKER_00]: out.
7:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Construction started in the mid-1990s but was suddenly halted in 1998 and the site left abandoned.
7:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Rumors spread thick and fast as to why I work trying up from the discovery of mass graves to even suspected hauntings.
7:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Who'd want to write Splash Mountain next to a ghost?
7:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Not me, but the real reason is honestly not a lot more boring, they simply ran out of money.
8:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And if your thinkingness looks like a bootleg Disney World, you'd be right.
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: The developers pretty much copied the designs figuring Disney wouldn't be able to protest against usage of their copyright in China.
8:16
[SPEAKER_00]: How wrong they were?
8:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't find any concrete legal cases, but considering Disney's signed contracts for their own theme park in Hong Kong in 1999, I'd imagine they had something to say.
8:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that's what caused the money to dry up.
8:32
[SPEAKER_00]: After construction plans, collapsed farmers who'd been kicked off their land came back and carried on like nothing had changed.
8:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, nothing except there was now a big unfinished castle nestled among their carrots.
8:44
[SPEAKER_00]: That is until 2013 when the final remaining structures were pulled down.
8:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess Wonderland became more of an, I wonderland.
8:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Zing!
8:54
[SPEAKER_00]: In terms of how much money was sunk into this waste of concrete, it's hard to say, but the initial costs for Disney World's Magic Kingdom, which is slightly smaller at 107 acres are rumored to be an astounding 331 million dollars.
9:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like the Sagrada Familia, there's a lot of variables it play, but as a ballpark it shows what a moneyhole this development could have been.
9:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Anytime I go shopping, I end up buying more stuff than I mean to.
9:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I should try my hand at the South China Mall.
9:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Plants for the colossal 7.1 million square foot megamol in Dongwan started in 2002, and included a roller coaster Egyptian Sphinx and even a 1.3 mile goddala ride through the Mall.
9:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, baby, this place sounds awesome.
9:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, despite opening in 2005 with room for 2,350 stores, this place is a ghost mall.
9:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeesh.
9:49
[SPEAKER_00]: See, despite splashing a stalking 2.5 billion yuan, or $402 million on the development?
9:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Authority struggled to seal lease agreements with vendors.
9:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, South China Mall was built on old abandoned farmland, so the road infrastructure around it isn't sufficient to supply the traffic of all this size requires.
10:10
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no trains and no direct buses.
10:12
[SPEAKER_00]: The inefficient bus service that does operate from Dongguan takes a hole two and a half hours to travel a measly six miles.
10:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, you need your own transport, something many people in the area don't have.
10:28
[SPEAKER_00]: However, not all hope is lost.
10:30
[SPEAKER_00]: By 2012, a monstrous 47 lights were filled.
10:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Woohoo!
10:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's have a party.
10:37
[SPEAKER_00]: By 2015, this number had gone up again, but large parts of the mall remained vacant.
10:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And by 2018, despite gradual improvements, bore whole stories were still empty.
10:48
[SPEAKER_00]: The Gondola River was green and stagnant and the only signs of life were the people hired to stop pedestrians from walking into the abandoned areas.
10:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Shush!
10:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Even so, when I went, I managed to come back with four hamsters and season eight of Grey's Anatomy on DVD.
11:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I am out like this.
11:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Money, money, money, money!
11:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Some say it makes the world go round, but in other cases, it doesn't move things along quite fast enough.
11:15
[SPEAKER_00]: The latter is definitely true for Eugenia Pool Financial District.
11:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, to the surprise of absolutely no one, we're still on a China group.
11:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But they're just so good at being banning building stuff, and Eugenia Pool is no exception.
11:30
[SPEAKER_00]: The area in Tianjin was set up to be the city's center for finance and world trade, and a new world money capital doesn't come cheap.
11:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Ujaya Poo received a staggering $30 billion of investment and was expected to open in June 2014.
11:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But surprise surprise, it didn't work out.
11:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not so cleverly built on land just a few inches above sea level and is very prone to floods.
11:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So after heavy rainfall people literally had to take off their shoes and roll their pants up just across the street.
12:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Also the company in charge of building, I say again the world's new finance center, struggled managing their budget.
12:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Somehow they blew through a mind-boggling $50 billion budget and ended up in crippling debt.
12:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Shockingly though, this one might not be all doom and gloom.
12:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Work on your jyapu had been slow since 2016, but by 2019, some government agencies of TN Gen had actually set up new headquarters there.
12:30
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think?
12:31
[SPEAKER_00]: This faint glimmer of hope actually live up to its hefty expectations?
12:35
[SPEAKER_00]: As it goes, the irony of failed financial centers isn't just a China issue.
12:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Over in the Venezuelan capital, Coracas, the central finance hero confidence is aimed for the moon and miss spectacularly.
12:49
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1990, work started on a flashy new financial building for Venezuela's stock brokers and bankers, and at 561 feet tall, it's currently the third tallest building in Venezuela.
13:01
[SPEAKER_00]: However, in 1994, the Venezuelan government took control of the banks in absolutely tank the economy.
13:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Work on the tower stopped when the money dried up, so the government took control over that too, and for years, it's said as this unfinished blight overlooking the impoverished city.
13:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Then in the 2000s Karakas suffered another massive blow, this time due to a severe lack of housing.
13:25
[SPEAKER_00]: This led to swans of squatters overtaking the abandoned offices in 2007 and kidding them out with basic utilities.
13:33
[SPEAKER_00]: In the years that followed the squat filled with ramshackle barber shops, bodega's, beauty salons, and even a bagstreet dentist.
13:40
[SPEAKER_00]: By 2011, over 700 families were taking refuge in the tower.
13:45
[SPEAKER_00]: The financial center had become the world's tallest slum, how ironic.
13:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Outside sources slammed the slum as a hotbed for crime and illicit goods, but no sense had caught it a kind of communal utopia.
13:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Sadly for them the dream was short lived by 2014 the government evacuated hundreds of families and relocated them into new homes just south of Caracas.
14:09
[SPEAKER_00]: By June the following year, everyone had been removed in the Centropine and SETO confinances late empty once again.
14:16
[SPEAKER_00]: They were rumors that Chinese banks were interested in renovating it for its original use, however they never materialized.
14:24
[SPEAKER_00]: While Venezuela is still plotting its way through economic woes, it's hard to see that changing.
14:30
[SPEAKER_00]: But boy, what a crazy history.
14:36
[SPEAKER_00]: San Francisco What a place Named of course after San Francis, Patron's saying of bloody instructors and $20 uses I'm kidding But for all the outlawtays and jujitsu gems the bay is known for, it's not all roses Take Hunter's point It was projected to be a swanky new neighborhood replacing the old naval shipyard with
15:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Sheesh.
15:07
[SPEAKER_00]: That included stores, restaurants, bars, public spaces, and beautiful affordable homes for all the tech brews and breweds.
15:15
[SPEAKER_00]: When I say affordable, it's still a million dollars for a two-bed condo.
15:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, it's San Francisco.
15:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Compared to the average cost in the area of $1.4 million, these are affordable.
15:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Or at least they would have been had everything gone to plan.
15:30
[SPEAKER_00]: However, everything has not gone to plan.
15:33
[SPEAKER_00]: See between 1945 and 1969, the shipyard was the largest nuclear test facility in the US.
15:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of this, the area is still a hotbed for extremely hazardous radioactive substances.
15:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, that's why the houses were so cheap.
15:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Before any building work started, clean up company Tetra Tech were tasked with removing the nasty chemicals, so, you know, the Bay Area wasn't overrun with branded radioactive zombies, but they've been accused of faking up the 97% of the data submitted as proof the area was safe.
16:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this is no joke.
16:08
[SPEAKER_00]: People have lost partners, children have been endangered, and some of even contracted diseases doctors can't diagnose.
16:15
[SPEAKER_00]: In the face of all this, TetraTek is looking at a job dropping $27 billion lawsuit for damages.
16:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy smokes.
16:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And the meantime, any further work to Hunter's point has been banned until the concerns over its safety can be nullified.
16:36
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom always used to sing me the nursery rhyme, London Bridge is falling down.
16:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of harsh, last I checked it was still there.
16:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's one London Bridge that's definitely not going anywhere.
16:49
[SPEAKER_00]: The Tim's Garden Bridge.
16:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's because construction literally didn't go anywhere.
16:55
[SPEAKER_00]: See, planning permission was granted in 2014 for a new snazzy pedestrian crossing over the river
17:05
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bridge Concepts show a beautiful nature-oriented design full of lush greenery.
17:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty cool, right?
17:11
[SPEAKER_00]: However, by 2016, the mayor of London ordered a review of the project to see if it was still proving good value for money.
17:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly, the company in charge of orchestrating construction, the Garden Bridge Trash showed a shortfall of $71 million in their company accounts.
17:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh-huh, what?
17:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, see, even before a single brick had been laid, DICE dealers dished out $27 million in construction contracts, $12 million on designers, nearly $3 million on legal costs, and over $2 million paying themselves for doing such a wonderful job.
17:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Gross.
17:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And as not counting the $530,000 they spent on a fundraising gala, which is Pasha Talk for Rich douchebag Party.
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: But the real injustice here is that $56 million of all that was money taken from British tax payers.
18:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Crocs.
18:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though the project was abandoned without any meaningful work happening, some people made a lot of money for doing nothing.
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's horrible.
18:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice and serially hope karma buckles any bridge their rich plump asses go across.
18:17
[SPEAKER_00]: People like that are the worst.
18:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, I'm a sucker for a fancy hotel between me and you.
18:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's one hotel I'm yet to stay at.
18:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Funnily enough, so is everyone else.
18:35
[SPEAKER_00]: That's because despite costing an estimated $750 million, North Korea's Rugeong hotel has never had a single guest.
18:46
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right, the 180-feet tall 105-story giant pyramid situated in the North Korean capital has never even opened.
18:56
[SPEAKER_00]: While the first bricks were laid way back in 1987 and it reached its full height just five years later in 1992, very little progress has been made ever since.
19:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, North Korea's economy tanked hard.
19:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Without the support of one of their closest allies, they no longer had the money to finance such a wildly costly and ambitious development.
19:21
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's not to say they haven't tried.
19:24
[SPEAKER_00]: A grand opening was planned in 2012 to coincide with the centenary of founding father Kim Il-Sung's birthday.
19:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Only it never happened.
19:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Neither did the soft launch plan to year later.
19:36
[SPEAKER_00]: The Rugeon Hotel became such an embarrassment for North Korea, they even tried manipulating photographs of the skyline to deny it existed.
19:44
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is, it is the skyline.
19:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward to 2018 in large LED display screens were fitted to one side, which show short animations and clips for movies.
19:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Ouch!
19:57
[SPEAKER_00]: The grandest construction project in the country's history has become little more than a colossal propaganda-noticed board, talking about living up to the stereotypes.
20:07
[SPEAKER_00]: One day, I want to live in a giant castle.
20:10
[SPEAKER_00]: That way, when I wake up, I can laugh at all my brook neighbors.
20:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, peasants!
20:16
[SPEAKER_00]: But recently, I saw a castle which made me nearly spit out my morning coffee.
20:21
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I should I say, lots of castles.
20:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Spurajal Babas was meant to be a magical residential complex of 732 near identical miniature shattoes near Mordernu Turkey.
20:34
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not worried about making your friends feel cripplingly insecure, these deluxe pants were expected to retail between $370,000 and $530,000 of hop.
20:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Not bad.
20:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially when you consider each head under floor heating, jacuzzi's and all sorts of other luxury facilities.
20:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But, shortly after construction began in 2014, Turkey's economy became highly unstable.
21:00
[SPEAKER_00]: By 2019, the developers filed for bankruptcy with debts of $25 million.
21:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Uff!
21:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And total, only 587 of the 732 homes were built, none of which were ever finished.
21:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Not alone cost an insane $200 million.
21:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I feel woozy.
21:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this fairy tale kingdom sits abandoned without a single resident, but nothing stopping somebody else from finishing it off, actually there might be one little reason.
21:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Give me a U, give me a G, give me an L, give me a Y, what have we got?
21:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, this thing is ugly.
21:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't want to live there, would you?
21:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, you've probably figured out by now there, thousands of reasons why a building might be unfinished.
21:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But Saturn unique tower in Bangkok, Thailand might be the most bonkers reason yet.
21:50
[SPEAKER_00]: The 47-story luxury high-rise kind of mini-improject started in the 1990s and suffered a knockback in 1997 due to the Asian financial crisis.
22:00
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's not the weird thing.
22:02
[SPEAKER_00]: The building's designer renowned architect, Erong Sung, Toru Suwon, was arrested in 1993 for planning a high profile.
22:10
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I put it?
22:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Kicking of the bucket?
22:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, what?
22:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a ledge torso one had beef with the president of the Supreme Court, but I'm on chansu.
22:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So, he tried to end the dispute in the most final way possible.
22:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Roundson was sent a prison in 2008, but was acquitted just two years later in 2010.
22:31
[SPEAKER_00]: weird.
22:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though he was found not guilty wrongs on struggle to secure any more funding for his project.
22:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, this $1.8 billion tie-but, or $52 million development, sits there completely desolate.
22:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Or does it?
22:47
[SPEAKER_00]: See Erbex and Thuis Histoth and Venture into the ghostly town and have a snoop around and they've reported some very unusual sightings.
22:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Rumor has it there, some otherworldly activities going on around the 43rd floor.
23:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Since 2014 Traveller's claim to have seen the ghostly apparition of a lost backpacker roaming the halls and sure enough police reports around that same time, state of body was mysteriously found in one of the rooms.
23:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they were a rogue explorer who slipped through an unfinished floor.
23:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Or perhaps it was something much more sinister.
23:22
[SPEAKER_00]: My suggestion?
23:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep away from the place.
23:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You know that old saying, there's no smoke without fire?
23:28
[SPEAKER_00]: This place is a red flag in Furno.
23:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you ever dream about what houses of the future will be like?
23:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I do.
23:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I pull into the garage with my flying car.
23:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Walk through the door in my hot robot wife-sorted little seasers.
23:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Sounds glorious, right?
23:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we never know what the future might hold.
23:46
[SPEAKER_00]: At least that's what the developers of the Xanadoo houses discovered?
23:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Though what now?
23:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Bear with me.
23:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Back in the 1980s, a series of experimental homes popped up in the US showcasing the possibilities of future living.
24:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Across the three homes in Florida was constant in Tennessee, Xanadoo presented an idealized future of home design.
24:09
[SPEAKER_00]: concrete?
24:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Please, that's so less decayed.
24:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Each Zanado house was built by inflating a large balloon and sprang it with special polyurethane and salation foam.
24:21
[SPEAKER_00]: That only was this much cheaper than concrete, but it was quicker, too.
24:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And it gave Zanado this weird futuristic appearance.
24:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But, just like a little Caesar's takeout box, the magic is inside.
24:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Zanadoo had everything your dream house could.
24:37
[SPEAKER_00]: A spa, party room with video projectors, and a state-of-the-art kitchen with an electronic chef, which automatically planned to add nutritious, well-balanced meals.
24:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Every single room was fully automated and controlled by microcomputers.
24:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome, so hold up, where's my auto-shap preparing my delicious nutritious meals?
24:58
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, like my little Caesar's, the interior marvels turned out to quickly go old and stale.
25:04
[SPEAKER_00]: See all the computer equipment that formed the basis of Xanado's futuristic claims was actually old tech from the 1950s.
25:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Just ten years after the first house was built, it had become a relevant.
25:16
[SPEAKER_00]: By 2005, the last house had been demolished, and that's kind of why Zanadoo's futuristic ideals never materialized.
25:23
[SPEAKER_00]: It was pretty much dead before it hit the ground running.
25:34
[SPEAKER_00]: For many of us home is a place we share with our loved ones, somewhere to create cherished memories.
25:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Luckily, that's because most of us are more fortunate than American businessman George Bold.
25:44
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd made his millions in the hotel industry throughout the 19th century, but when it came to his own home, George wanted to pull out all the stops.
25:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So he purchased the aptly named Heart Island on the St. Lawrence River, New York, as a surprise for his beloved white Louise.
26:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Here he said about constructing one of the largest houses in America at the time, costing a cool $2.5 million.
26:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And remember that's $2.5 million over a hundred years ago?
26:11
[SPEAKER_00]: A justing for inflation?
26:12
[SPEAKER_00]: That's near to $100 million in today's money.
26:15
[SPEAKER_00]: He hoinks!
26:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Construction began in 1900, but it tragically stopped in 1904 when Louise suddenly died.
26:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Devastated in heartbroken George couldn't bear returning to the island as a lonely widower.
26:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So the remains of his audacious mansion were left to rot.
26:33
[SPEAKER_00]: For 73 years, no welcome guest stepped foot inside both castle, and as time went on, it was beat down by tough weather and vandals.
26:41
[SPEAKER_00]: However, in 1977, the project was overtaken by a trust who purchased this elaborate home for just $1.
26:48
[SPEAKER_00]: They've been fixing it up, and as of 2020, they've spent an eye-watering $50 million on renovations alone.
26:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Sadly, all the money in the world could never finish this house the way it was meant to be.
26:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Ugh, what a bummer.
27:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Nah, you've given us some of the world's most incredible architectural marbles.
27:06
[SPEAKER_00]: The swings, the pyramids of Giza, but only real ones know of a building that even though Barrow's tried to sweep onto the rug.
27:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about the pyramids of...
27:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about the pyramids of NEVERFRAE.
27:30
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the resting place of Abu Sire of NEVERFRAE EC, an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh who ruled way back in the 25th century BC during the 5th dynasty.
27:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Aside from his pyramid, hardly anything is known about Nefarah Frey.
27:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And even the pyramid doesn't give us much.
27:49
[SPEAKER_00]: See despite the foundations being 256 feet wide and 213 feet long, it only measures a measly 23 feet tall.
27:58
[SPEAKER_00]: According to an inscription from the time, work stop during Nefarah Frey's second year in charge.
28:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Huh?
28:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's generally agreed that he must have died just two or three years after taking the throne, bringing work to a premature halt.
28:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Nonetheless, he was buried in his unfinished pyramid, which was hastily turned into a moustaba.
28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: A kind of large flat top tomb by his successor.
28:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Many years later, small fragments of his mummy were uncovered there, which suggested never if Rey was only in his early 20s when he died.
28:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yikes.
28:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Or Guy?
28:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine being remembered for thousands of years has the ferro with the tiny pyramid.
28:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that's a very thing.
28:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening to the podcast.
28:41
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see you again next time.
28:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll want to be amazed.