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Unfinished building

Unfinished building is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Unfinished building rather than just read about it. In short: An unfinished building is a building (or other architectural structure, as a bridge, a road or a tower) where construction work was abandoned or on hold at some stage or only exists as a design. It may also refer to buildings that are currently being built, particularly those that have been delayed or at which construction work progresses extremely slowly.

Unfinished building — main illustration
Unfinished building — illustration

Key takeaways

  • Unfinished building belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
  • Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
  • Connect Unfinished building to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
  • Reproduce the core statement of Unfinished building from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

An unfinished building is a building (or other architectural structure, as a bridge, a road or a tower) where construction work was abandoned or on hold at some stage or only exists as a design. It may also refer to buildings that are currently being built, particularly those that have been delayed or at which construction work progresses extremely slowly. Many construction or engineering projects have remained unfinished at various stages of development. The work may be finished as a blueprint or whiteprint and never be realised, or be abandoned during construction. One of the best-known perennially incomplete buildings is Antoni Gaudí's basilica Sagrada Família in Barcelona. It has been under construction since 1882 and planned to be complete by 2026, Gaudí's death centenary.

Partially constructed buildings

There are numerous unfinished buildings that remain partially constructed in countries around the world, some of which can be used in their incomplete state but with others remaining as a mere shell. Some projects are intentionally left with an unfinished appearance, particularly the follies of the late 16th to 18th century. Some buildings are in a cycle of near-perpetual construction, with work lasting for decades or even centuries. Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain, has been under construction for around 140 years, having started in the 1880s. Work was delayed by the Spanish Civil War, during which the original models and parts of the building itself were destroyed. Today, even with portions of the basilica incomplete, it is still the most popular tourist destination in Barcelona with 1.5 million visitors every year. Gaudí spent 40 years of his life overseeing the project and is buried in the crypt. Germany's Cologne Cathedral took even longer to complete; construction started in 1248 and finished in 1880, a total of 632 years.

Buildings (and other architectural structures) never completed Buildings that were never completed and remain in that state include:

Duomo di Siena (Siena Cathedral), Italy Abbey of the Santissima Trinità, Venosa, Italy San Petronio Basilica, Bologna, Italy Herrenchiemsee, Bavaria, Germany Prora, island of Rügen, Germany Hotel Britanika, Kaunas, Lithuania Woodchester Mansion, Stroud, Gloucester, England, UK Bishop Castle, San Isabel National Forest, Colorado, US Boldt Castle, Thousand Islands, New York, US National Monument, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK Ajuda National Palace, Lisbon, Portugal Cuenca Cathedral, Cuenca, Spain Al-Rahman Mosque, Baghdad, Iraq Kellie's Castle, Batu Gajah, Malaysia Plaza Rakyat, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Cathedral of St. Alban the Martyr, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Centro Financiero Confinanzas, Caracas, Venezuela Beaumaris Castle, Anglesey, Wales, UK Ryugyong Hotel, Pyongyang, North Korea Sathorn Unique Tower, Bangkok, Thailand 161 Maiden Lane, New York City, US Unfinished buildings that were subsequently demolished:

Aspotogan Sea Spa, Nova Scotia, Canada The Harmon, Las Vegas, US In other cases, construction works proceeds extremely slowly, so one can also say form incomplete structures. Examples are:

Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City, New York, US Sagrada Família, Barcelona, Spain Kaliakra transmitter, Cape Kaliakra, Bulgaria Westminster Cathedral, London, UK Mosul Grand Mosque, Mosul, Iraq Monumento a la Revolución, Mexico City, Mexico

Other unfinished structures There are also roads, railway lines and channels which remained unfinished.

Roads MP-203, Madrid, Spain Interstate 710, Los Angeles County, California Route 11 Expressway, New London County, Connecticut LaSalle Expressway, Niagara County, New York South Mall Arterial/Dunn Memorial Bridge, Albany and Rensselaer, New York Seaford–Oyster Bay Expressway, Nassau County, New York Korean War Veterans Parkway (Richmond Parkway), Staten Island, New York Willowbrook Expressway/Parkway, Staten Island, New York Foothills Parkway, Tennessee Amstutz Expressway, Waukegan, Illinois Olimpijka in Poland M8 Bridge to Nowhere, Glasgow, Scotland The Foreshore Freeway Bridge in Cape Town, South Africa B 464 near Sindelfingen, Germany Strecke 19 (Berlin - Hamburg) Strecke 20 (Berlin - Wittstock) Strecke 24 (Basel - Hamburg) Strecke 37 (Koblenz - Mehren) Strecke 46 (Fulda - Würzburg) Strecke 73 (Dresden - Görlitz) Strecke 77 (Hamm - Kassel) Strecke 78 (Eisenach - Kassel) Strecke 85 (Bamberg - Eisenach) Strecke 86 (Nürnberg - Regensburg) Interstate 170, Baltimore, MD New Central Cross-Island Highway, Taiwan (including Provincial Highway 14, 18, 21)

Railway infrastructure Cincinnati Subway Mosel Railway (German: Moselbahn) Ahrtal Railway (German: Ahrtalbahn) Old Railway at Willebadessen Strategic Railway Embankment (German: Strategischer Bahndamm)

Arenas Deutsches Stadion Nou Mestalla Lithuania National Stadium

Ferris wheels

New York Wheel, New York City, New York, US Skyvue, Las Vegas, Nevada, US Turn of Fortune, Changzhou, China

Industrial plants Kramatorsk Metallurgical Plant [1] GRES-2 Power Station, Ekibastus

Nuclear power plants Crimean Atomic Energy Station, Shcholkine, Crimea Fast Breeder nuclear reactor SNR-300, Kalkar, Germany Lemoniz Nuclear Power Plant, Lemoniz, Spain Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant, New Washington, IN, United States Satsop Nuclear Power Plant, Satsop, Washington, United States Stendal Nuclear Power Plant, Arneburg, Germany Unit 5, 6, 7, 8 of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station Valdecaballeros Nuclear Power Plant, Valdecaballeros, Spain Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant, Taiwan Juragua Nuclear Power Plant, Cuba Żarnowiec Nuclear Power Plant, Poland

Electric power transmission systems Wolmirstedt HVDC-back-to-back plant Elbe Project HVDC Ekibastuz–Centre

Towers Watkins' Tower, London, UK Yekaterinburg TV Tower, Yekaterinburg, Russia (demolished) Berlin-Müggelberge TV Tower, Berlin, Germany Dubai Creek Tower, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Belgorod TV Tower, Belgorod, Russia Deutschlandsender Herzberg/Elster, Germany Wardenclyffe Tower, Shoreham, New York, USA Hakell Creative Educational Media, Haskell, Oklahoma, USA [2] at 35°53'0"N 95°46'15"W Galich TV Mast

See also Unfinished creative work List of visionary tall buildings and structures Off-plan property

References

External links Rick Edmondson's Unfinished Buildings Unbuilt British motorways at Pathetic Motorways

Illustrations

Unfinished building: Unity Tower, a high-rise building in Kraków, Poland, sat in an unfinished state from 1981 until 2016 when construction restarted.
Unity Tower, a high-rise building in Kraków, Poland, sat in an unfinished state from 1981 until 2016 when construction restarted.
Unfinished building: Construction of the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang was on hold between 1992 and 2008. Had it been completed on schedule, it would have been the tallest hotel in the world at the time.
Construction of the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang was on hold between 1992 and 2008. Had it been completed on schedule, it would have been the tallest hotel in the world at the time.
Unfinished building: Construction on Hotel Britanika in Lithuania was halted after the country gained independence in 1990
Construction on Hotel Britanika in Lithuania was halted after the country gained independence in 1990

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Unfinished building

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Unfinished building claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Unfinished building before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Unfinished building ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Unfinished building

In research
Unfinished building appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry
Engineering practice reuses Unfinished building in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom
Unfinished building is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Building engineering, Unfinished buildings and structures, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life
Look for Unfinished building outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.
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How to study Unfinished building in 20 minutes

  1. Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
  2. Close the page and write down what Unfinished building means in your own words.
  3. Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
  4. Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
  5. Explain Unfinished building out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Unfinished building in simple terms?

An unfinished building is a building (or other architectural structure, as a bridge, a road or a tower) where construction work was abandoned or on hold at some stage or only exists as a design. It may also refer to buildings that are currently being built, particularly those that have been delayed…

Why does Unfinished building matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Unfinished building?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Unfinished building.

Tags

  • Building engineering
  • Unfinished buildings and structures

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