Phantom Architecture

'60 fantastical structures described and illustrated in this colourful and highly entertaining book.'The Sunday Times

'If you can’t think of a present for the armchair architect in your life – well, problem solved'The Daily Telegraph

'These ghostly architectural echoes entrance the reader.'The Field

‘This is a lavishly illustrated book of wonder for the dreamer in your life’The Metro





A skyscraper one mile high, a dome covering most of downtown Manhattan, a triumphal arch in the form of an elephant:some of the most exciting buildings in the history of architecture are the ones that never got built.

These are the projects in which architects tookmaterials to the limits,explored challenging new ideas,defied conventions, andpointed the way towards the future. Some of them arearchitectural masterpieces, some simplydelightful flights of fancy. It was not usually poor design that stymied them – politics, inadequate funding, or a client who chose a ‘safe’ option rather than a daring vision were all things that could stop a project leaving the drawing board.

These unbuilt buildings include the grand projects that acted asarchitectural calling cards,experimental designs that stretch technology,visions for the futureof the city, andarticles of architectural faith. Structures likeBuckminster Fuller’s dome over New York or Frank Lloyd Wright’s mile-high tower can seem impossibly daring. But they also point to buildings that came decades later, to the Eden Project and the Shard.

Some of those unbuilt wonders are buildings of great beauty and individual form likeEtienne-Louis Boullée’s enormous spherical monumenttoIsaac Newton; some, such as the city plans ofLe Corbusier, seem to want to teach us how to live; some, likeEl Lissitsky’s ‘horizontal skyscrapers’andGaudí’s curvaceous New York hotel, turn architectural convention upside-down; some, such asArchigram’s Walking CityandPlug-in City, are bizarre and inspiring by turns. All are captured in thismagnificently illustratedbook.