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In 1955 the New South Wales government launched an international competition for an opera house on Bennelong Point, pushed by Eugene Goossens, chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It drew 233 entries from 32 countries. Danish architect Jørn Utzon submitted sketchy, diagrammatic drawings inspired by bird wings, clouds, walnut shells, and palm leaves, and the judges' own reports called them simple to the point of being diagrams. Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen, arriving late, is said to have pulled the entry from the rejected pile and championed it. Fearing the project would be cancelled, the government forced construction to start in March 1959, before the roof was designed, and parts of the podium later had to be blown up and rebuilt stronger.

From 1957 to 1963 Utzon and engineers at Ove Arup & Partners struggled with the shell geometry, until they designed every sail as a section of a single sphere, letting the ribs be cast from common molds, with Ferranti Pegasus computers running the stress calculations. In 1965 Premier Robert Askin's public works minister Davis Hughes demanded open tenders and withheld Utzon's fees until he was owed over 100,000 dollars. When Utzon threatened to resign in February 1966, Hughes accepted, and Utzon left Australia. The building opened in October 1973 at a cost of 102 million dollars against an estimate of about 7 million.

• Utzon wanted to work directly with manufacturer Ralph Symonds on the plywood interiors, which clashed with blind bidding
• Utzon called the ordeal malice in blunderland
• Peter Hall, who had signed a petition to reinstate Utzon, took over despite Utzon warning him he could not finish it
• Hall split concert and opera into separate halls, leaving a cramped orchestra pit and ripping out stage machinery as scrap
• Utzon won the Pritzker Prize in 2003, the Utzon Room opened to his design in 2004, and he died in 2008 without returning

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Friedensreich Hundertwasser was born Friedrich Stowasser in Vienna in 1928, with Jewish heritage on his mother's side. To survive the Nazi regime, he was baptized Catholic in 1935, drawing on his late father's background, and joined the Hitler Youth, marching in straight lines while hiding who he was. After the war he lasted three months at Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts, then traveled Europe and North Africa with a pocket watercolor set. Noting that sto means hundred in several Slavic languages, he became Hundertwasser, hundred water, took Friedensreich, realm of peace, as his first name, and added names meaning rainy day and darkly multicolored. Seeing postwar concrete grids as a continuation of mechanized control, he called the straight line cowardly and immoral and embraced the spiral.

In the late 1950s and 1960s he issued manifestos against rationalist architecture and gave lectures naked to illustrate his theory of three skins: body, clothing, and buildings. In 1980s Vienna, working with architect Peter Pelikan, he built the Hundertwasser Haus public housing, with a concrete skeleton hidden under irregular windows, uneven floors, and trees growing from the walls, and refused payment. He lived off the grid in New Zealand's Kaurinui Valley, and died of a heart attack in February 2000, aged 71, aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2 in the Pacific.

• His window right would let every tenant paint the outside wall as far as an arm could reach
• Undulating floors were built by layering concrete, plaster, and tile on a flat structural slab
• He championed composting humus toilets and tree duty, returning built-over land to nature on rooftops
• He opposed the European Union and backed a constitutional monarchy under Otto von Habsburg as a long-term steward of nature
• He was buried naked in a shroud under a tulip tree in his Garden of the Happy Dead, and the Hundertwasser Art Centre opened in Whangarei in 2022

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Zaha Hadid was born in Baghdad in 1950 to an industrialist and politician father who served as Iraq's finance minister and an artist mother. Family trips to Sumerian ruins in southern Iraq, where sand, water, and mud brick seemed to flow together, shaped her lifelong interest in architecture that grows from the land. She studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut, then in 1972 entered London's Architectural Association, where she banished the right angle and sometimes left out practical details like usable staircases. After working in Rotterdam she opened her own London firm in 1980 and spent over a decade as a paper architect, known for teaching and for paintings of shattered, intersecting volumes, featured in MoMA's 1988 deconstructivism exhibition.

In 1994 she won a competition for an opera house in Cardiff, Wales, only for the funding body to give the project to another architect. Her breakthrough was the Vitra fire station in Germany, commissioned in 1993, cast in custom concrete formwork with no right angles. A ski jump in Austria and the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati followed, and in 2004 she became the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize. She died of a heart attack in Miami in March 2016 at 65, and Zaha Hadid Architects finished her projects, including a starfish-shaped Beijing airport.

• The Cincinnati center made her the first woman to design an art museum in the United States
• She insisted her team hand draw and paint concepts first so software would not limit their imagination
• The pebble-shaped Guangzhou Opera House rests on a triangulated steel space frame
• Rome's MAXXI used self-compacting concrete, and the London Aquatics Centre's wave roof rests on three concrete supports
• Critics faulted a Glasgow transport museum that hung cars too high to see into, and commissions in Azerbaijan and Qatar

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Shibam, a walled city in the Wadi Hadramaut of eastern Yemen, is called the Manhattan of the desert: about 7,000 residents live in roughly 500 mud brick tower blocks of 5 to 11 stories, the tallest over 98 feet. Walls several feet thick at the base taper as they rise, and date palm beams tie the floors together. The towers were packed tightly inside a fortified wall as a defense against Bedouin raids, turning the streets into a shadowed maze where attackers could be hit from above, while the cluster also shields each tower from wind. The first known inscriptions naming Shibam date to the 3rd century CE, and around 300 AD it became capital of the Kingdom of Hadramaut after the destruction of Shabwa, growing rich on the frankincense and myrrh caravan trade.

Although the city has been inhabited for 1,700 years, most standing towers date to a rebuilding around 1533, because mud brick must be constantly replastered with mud and ash to survive. The city sits over six meters above the plain, possibly on a rock spur or on centuries of compacted collapsed buildings. A 2008 tropical cyclone flooded the valley and brought down several historic buildings as the bases soaked up water. In 2009 an al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula suicide bomber killed four South Korean tourists and a Yemeni guide, and the civil war has brought a nearby car bomb and coalition bombing. UNESCO listed Shibam as endangered in 2015.

• An ancient quarry called Juja supplied large squared building stones
• An Assyrian-style bronze lion's head found nearby points to trade links with Mesopotamia
• Capillary action wicks floodwater up into the mud walls until the base gives way under the stories above
• Blast shockwaves crack the rigid mud facades even without a direct hit
• Shibam's towers were recreated as a pavilion at Dubai's Global Village

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In December 1888 ranchers Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charlie Mason, searching for stray cattle in southwestern Colorado, looked over a cliff edge and found Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The rock overhang had protected it for more than six centuries, leaving a stone axe with its wooden handle still bound and human remains in the open air. By March 1889 Wetherill had hauled artifacts to Durango, and through the 1890s tourists and treasure hunters knocked down walls and tramped across fragile roofs. Wetherill and others then campaigned for protection, leading to Mesa Verde National Park in 1906, when the Smithsonian sent Jesse Walter Fewkes to excavate and stabilize what remained.

The ancestral Puebloans built Cliff Palace between roughly 1200 and 1300 AD from sandstone shaped with river stones and set in mortar of soil, water, and ash, with chinking stones to carry the load. About 100 to 120 people lived in some 25 residential rooms averaging six by eight feet, their roofs still black with soot. The site holds 21 kivas, a ratio of nine rooms per kiva against the usual twelve, marking it as a ceremonial and political center. Moving into the cliffs for defense around 1200, the inhabitants left by 1300 as prolonged megadroughts collapsed crops, water, and game.

• Fewkes still recovered yucca sandals, cotton and turkey feather textiles, polished stone balls, and stores of corn, squash, and beans
• A four level, 27 foot tower leans into the curve of the cliff for support
• Nine granaries sit high in the alcove, where cool stone protected food from moisture and rodents
• Kivas used an air shaft and deflector wall to feed the fire and push smoke out the roof, and each has a sipapu marking humanity's emergence
• A hidden tunnel links the two southernmost kivas, suggesting theatrical rituals

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Ulm Minster in southern Germany is often mistaken for a cathedral, but it was built by the town's own citizens. In the 14th century Ulm's parish church stood outside the city walls, exposed during a siege tied to Emperor Charles IV, and was controlled by the Reichenau monastery under an arrangement dating to Charlemagne in 813. The roughly 10,000 people of Ulm decided to fund a new church inside the walls themselves. Mayor Ludwig Krafft laid the foundation stone on June 30, 1377, and Heinrich Parler designed a hall church, with the town's women working on the foundations. In 1392 Ulrich Ensingen, previously associated with Strasbourg Cathedral, changed the plan to carry a 150 meter spire, forcing a much taller nave.

After Matthias Böblinger took charge in 1477, heavy aisle vaults pushed outward until the building threatened to collapse. Burkhard Engelberg of Augsburg reinforced the west tower and replaced the vaults with ones half as wide on new rows of columns. Ulm voted to turn Protestant in 1530 and 1531, and in 1543 work stopped with the tower at about 100 meters, as ocean trade routes opened by Columbus, the Portuguese, and Magellan drained the landlocked city's overland trade. Work resumed in 1844 with flying buttresses, and the steeple was completed on May 31, 1890 at 161.53 meters, briefly the tallest building in the world.

• The north wall of the nave still bulges outward by 27 centimeters from the near collapse
• A December 17, 1944 air raid destroyed about 80 percent of the medieval center, and a 500 kilogram bomb that hit the choir on March 1, 1945 failed to explode
• Mozart played the main organ in 1763
• In 1877 Ulm's Jewish congregation, including Hermann Einstein, funded a statue of the prophet Jeremiah below the organ
• After more than 130 years as the world's tallest church, it was surpassed by the Sagrada Familia on October 30, 2025

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Baalbek, in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley near the sources of the Litani and Orontes rivers, has been inhabited for eight to nine thousand years as an oasis on caravan routes from Tyre to Palmyra. Its Canaanite triad of Baal, Astarte, and Adon was absorbed after Alexander the Great's conquest in the 330s BC, when the city became Heliopolis, and later by Rome, which merged Baal-Hadad with Helios and Jupiter. Starting in the first century BC, Rome spent centuries building one of the largest sanctuaries in the Western world. Jean-Pierre Adam estimated that moving one 557 ton foundation block took a wooden capstan and pulley rig and about 512 workers. In a nearby quarry lies a 1,650 ton block, still attached to bedrock, fully excavated in 2014 by a German-Lebanese team and the largest ancient stone block ever found.

As Rome turned Christian, violence broke out: in 297 AD the actor Gelasinus was stoned after converting on stage during a parody of baptism. Constantine replaced the Venus Temple with a basilica, Theodosius destroyed the Temple of Jupiter, and Justinian shipped eight columns to Constantinople for the Hagia Sophia. Medieval rulers turned the ruins into a citadel, and locals credited King Solomon and his djinn with the stones. Kaiser Wilhelm II's 1898 visit launched excavations under Otto Puchstein. In recent wars the city has been struck repeatedly, and UNESCO granted the site enhanced protection in November 2024.

• Emperor Trajan tested the oracle with a sealed blank page and got a blank page back
• Asked about his war with Parthia, Trajan received a broken centurion's vine staff and died returning from the campaign
• In the 16th century the Polish prince Radziwill failed to recognize the ruins as Roman
• Scavengers gouged the columns for their iron bands and lead, weakening them
• Of the Temple of Jupiter's 58 columns, nine stood before the 1759 earthquake and six after it

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In the mid 2000s Singapore offered two 30 year casino licenses for integrated resorts, where casinos had to fund convention centers, theaters, museums, and retail. The government fixed the Marina Bay land price at 1.2 billion Singapore dollars so bidders competed on design, and Las Vegas Sands won in 2006 with architect Moshe Safdie. The budget grew from 3.85 billion to 8 billion Singapore dollars, about 6.88 billion US dollars, amid soaring sand and steel prices and a labor shortage. Safdie's three 55 story towers, inspired by decks of cards, each have a curved leg leaning on a straight one, held by temporary steel struts during construction and vetted by feng shui consultants. On top sits the 1.2 hectare SkyPark, lifted in 14 prefabricated sections, with a 66.5 meter cantilever and a 150 meter infinity pool holding over 376,000 gallons.

The 2008 financial crisis forced Las Vegas Sands to halt other projects and open in phases in 2010 and 2011. The first conference in May 2010, held by the Inter-Pacific Bar Association, hit unfinished rooms and power failures, leading to lawsuits over a withheld 300,000 dollar payment. By June 2010 half a million gamblers had visited, despite a daily levy on Singaporeans and permanent residents. Las Vegas Sands later secured a 12 billion Singapore dollar loan in 2025, the largest corporate loan in Singapore's history, for a fourth tower and a 15,000 seat arena due in 2031.

• Four movement joints give the pool about 500 millimeters of play as the towers sway
• 500 adjustable jack legs keep the infinity edge level as the towers settle at different rates into reclaimed marine clay
• Safdie's lotus-shaped ArtScience Museum roof funnels rain into an indoor waterfall
• The resort appears in Crazy Rich Asians, Call of Duty Black Ops 3, and Mario Kart tracks through the pool
• After a disputed slot payout in 2011, regulators backed Chow Hong Eng, who received the full 416,000 dollars and gave it to charity

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Itsukushima, or Miyajima, in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, was treated as a living god: an island dedicated to the three Munakata goddesses, daughters of the storm god Susanoo, beneath the 1,700 foot Mount Misen. To keep it pure, commoners were long banned, burials were forbidden, and pregnant, elderly, and dying residents had to leave for the mainland. A shrine existed earlier, with a first torii said to date to 569 CE, but its grandeur came from Taira no Kiyomori, governor of Aki province by 1168 and the rising power at the imperial court. His Taira clan traded with the Song dynasty and sought control of Inland Sea shipping, and honoring the goddesses of navigation served both faith and business. Legend says an old monk promised him dominion over Japan if he built the shrine.

To avoid touching the sacred ground, the main shrine, guest shrine, and 17 other structures were built in the shinden-zukuri style as piers over the tidal flats. Kiyomori, who saw the goddesses as forms of Kannon, gave the shrine 32 sutra scrolls decorated with gold, silver, and mother of pearl. In 1555 Mori Motonari surprised Sue Takafusa there in a night attack in a rainstorm, and thousands died on the sacred shore. Blood-soaked topsoil was scraped into the sea, and Motonari funded a rebuild of the main hall in 1571.

• The 50 foot O-torii gate is camphor wood, unanchored, and held down by stones packed into its hollow top
• Its four extra support legs are a hallmark of Ryobu, or dual, Shinto
• The main hall walls carry 15 coats of white stucco applied between tides
• The current gate dates to 1875, and Typhoon Songda tore up boardwalks and roofs in 2004
• In the yearly Kangensai, three boats lashed into one carry court musicians and are spun through the shrine's narrow corridors at dusk

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The Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate into the inner city of Babylon, built under King Nebuchadnezzar II in the 6th century BC. The double gate stood about 15 meters high on foundations sunk another 14 meters into the water table and sealed with bitumen. Its bricks were molded in relief, bisque fired, then coated in a cobalt frit glaze to imitate lapis lazuli, the stone that forms the goddess Inanna's body in the myth of her descent to the underworld. Aurochs for the storm god Adad and mushhushshu dragons for Marduk covered the gate, while striding lions for Ishtar lined the 800 meter Processional Way, the route of the 12 day Akitu New Year festival. Nebuchadnezzar's dedication plaque runs 60 lines of cuneiform boasting that he dug down to the water to lay the foundation.

From 1899 to 1914 German archaeologist Robert Koldewey and his assistant Walter Andrae excavated Babylon for the German Oriental Society. Andrae used his wasta with German intelligence officers and local tribal sheikhs to bypass Ottoman authorities, numbering the glazed fragments with a color code, packing them in straw inside coal barrels, and shipping them down the river. In Berlin the pieces were desalinated in water baths and gaps filled with bricks from a purpose-built kiln. Iraq has asked for the gate back, including in 2002 and 2009, while museums point to the looting of the National Museum of Iraq after the 2003 war.

• Babylon at its peak used an estimated 15 million baked bricks
• Seams between bricks were planned so they would not cut through the animals' eyes
• Of 120 lion reliefs from the Processional Way, 118 were taken out of Iraq
• Only the smaller front gate stands in the Pergamon Museum, while the main gate sits disassembled in storage
• In 2011 an Italian-Iranian team found a 6th century BCE gate at Tol-e Ajori near Persepolis with the same aurochs and dragons