The Sydney Opera House might have been little more than a squat concrete building resembling a factory, and a visit to the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial could have required scaling a massive stepped pyramid. Ranging from close second-place finishes in design competitions to proposals that were little more than pipe dreams, these alternative designs for 12 major iconic landmarks around the world represent radical departures from the monuments we’re accustomed to.

Sydney Opera House

(images via: new world wonders, wikimedia commons)

The Sydney Opera House is one of the most recognizable buildings in the world, with a dramatic series of vaults rising from the ground along Sydney Harbour. But Danish architect Jørn Utzon’s now-iconic design was controversial when it was first proposed in 1957, and the design that came in second place may have been more palatable to the public. American architect Joseph Marzella’s design was rather industrial in its appearance, but didn’t seem quite so out there.  It’s hard to imagine the magnificent performing arts venue looking so squat and dull.

Triumphal Elephant in Place of Paris’ Arc de Triomphe

(images via: wikimedia commons)

In place of one of Paris’ most famous monuments, the Arc de Triomphe, could have been a three-story elephant monument with a spiral staircase in the underbelly leading to the pinnacle. 18th century architect Charles Ribart offered this monument for the Champs Élysées, complete with a cross-sectional drawing showing the intricate rooms within, but was turned down by the French government.

This isn’t even the only massive, ridiculous elephant statue envisioned for Paris. Originally conceived by Napoleon, the imposing Elephant of the Bastille (third photo) was meant to be cast of bronze and placed in Paris’ Place de la Bastille on the site of the old Bastille prison, which was the birthplace of the French Revolution. A stairway set into the legs would give access to the top, and the base would be surrounded by a fountain. However, only a plaster model was built, as memorialized by Victor Hugo in the novel Les Miserables, and eventually the July Column took its place.

Unbuilt Design for the Golden Gate Bridge

(images via: pbs newshour, wikimedia commons)

Now 76 years old, the Golden Gate Bridge is an iconic symbol of San Francisco, coated in literally millions of gallons of orange paint. The Art Deco-style bridge is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world, beating many experts’ predictions that it wouldn’t last against gale-force winds in the straight where the San Francisco Bay opens to the Pacific Ocean. But this wasn’t engineer Joseph Strauss’ first design. The original proposal is markedly different, with a heavier look combining cantilevered and suspension designs. It was rejected by the planning committee.

Lincoln Memorial Pyramid

(images via: i own the world, wikimedia commons)

Highlighted at Unbuilt Washington, an exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C., John Russell Pope’s Lincoln Memorial Proposal replaces the columned rectangular building honoring the 16th president with a pyramid. Anyone who wanted to get up close to Abraham Lincoln’s statue would have had to climb that entire thing to reach it. Some historians believe that this proposal was ridiculous on purpose; Pope wasn’t a fan of the swampy location chosen for the memorial, and may have created this and other absurd designs in an effort to encourage the committee to seek a new setting. Pope went on to successfully design the Jefferson Memorial.

Pyramid Necropolis for London’s Primrose Hill

(images via: andrew gough, wikimedia commons)

Infused in the Victorian preoccupation with melancholy and inspired by the Egyptian spoils of traveler and tomb-raider Giovanni Battista Belzoni, London architect Thomas Wilson proposed a massive, 15-acre pyramid-shaped necropolis for the city’s Primrose Hill. The granite pyramid would have towered into the air with 94 tiers of tombs in honeycomb shapes and a base measuring 18 acres, casting a gargantuan shadow over the hill many Londoners use for picnics and looking out over the city. Churchyards were so crowded at the time, that graves were bursting out of the ground – but concerns about what to do with London’s dead weren’t enough to convince the public that a necropolis was a good idea.

White House Alterations for President Harrison

(images via: loc.gov, wikimedia commons)

While he’s not nearly as forgettable as his grandfather, ninth United States President William Henry Harrison – who died after just 32 days in office – many Americans will struggle to recall any of twenty-third President Benjamin Harrison’s achievements during his tenure in the White House. However, Harrison could have made quite a mark. The first President to reside in the White House after it was wired for electricity, Harrison and his First Lady, Caroline Harrison, proposed significant changes to the complex that were never carried out. However, ten years later, Theodore Roosevelt made plenty of changes of his own, including the addition of the West Wing.

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Alternative Landmarks 12 Monuments As They Almost Were

Today, Photoshop and other photo editing tools are used extensively for everything from digitally slimming swimsuit models to retouching school photographs in an effort to erase the memories of adolescent acne. But some photo retouching has a rather more nefarious purpose: swaying viewers to one side or the other of a political debate. This practice is not a strictly modern one, though: people have been altering photographs for political purposes almost since the day photographs were invented. These political photo hacks date all the way back to the 19th century and continue up through the present day…because no one ever accused politicians (or their staff, followers or enemies) of being too honest.

Honest Abe’s Not-So-Honest Pose

(images via: Gajitz)

Abraham Lincoln is one of the most celebrated former American presidents, and this stately portrait of him standing in a rather regal pose has graced countless classrooms. But the truth is that Lincoln never posed for this picture; rather, it is Abe’s head (from a less-regal seated portrait) pasted onto the body of Southern politician John Calhoun. If you look very closely, you can see that the words on the papers have been changed from “the sovereignty of the states,” “strict constitution,” and “free trade” in the Calhoun photo to “union,” “constitution,” and “proclamation of freedom” in Lincoln’s.

Grant’s Grand Battle Scene

(images via: Gajitz)

Another iconic American history photograph is this one of General Ulysses S. Grant on horseback before his troops in City Point, Virginia during the Civil War. It’s a wonderful and oft-circulated piece of history…and it’s also a total fabrication. The portrait, bottom, is actually a composite of the three images above it: General Grant’s head on the body (and horse) of General Alexander McCook with a backdrop of a battle at Fisher’s Hill, Virginia.

Majestic Mussolini

(images via: Dartmouth)

In this 1942 portrait of Benito Mussolini, the horse handler holding the steed’s reins was thought to detract from the power and authority that the Italian Fascist wanted to portray. Therefore, Mussolini had him summarily dismissed from the photo after the fact.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

(images via: Dartmouth)

It’s rough falling out of favor with a political leader – particularly one who employs skilled photo editors to erase all photographic evidence of enemies’ existence. In all of these photos, a former friend, colleague or adviser was deemed unsavory after the photos were taken and subsequently edited out of the images. Top: a commissar is removed from a photo where he once walked alongside Josef Stalin. Middle: once Po Ku fell out of favor with Mao Zedong, Mao had him erased from this photograph. Bottom: Joseph Goebbels was one of Hitler’s closest advisers and a high-ranking Nazi official. Although his career experienced ups and downs, he never truly fell out of favor with Hitler, which is why it is puzzling that he was removed from this 1937 photograph.

(images via: Museum of Hoaxes, Dartmouth)

Likewise, Leon Trotsky (along with two other men) and Carlos Franqui suffered photographic deaths after publicly opposing the policies of Josef Stalin and Fidel Castro, respectively.

Grim Tydings

(images via: Museum of Hoaxes)

In 1950, with America in the midst of the Cold War and anti-Communist sentiment running hot, this apparent meeting between Senator Millard Tydings and Earl Browder, the head of the American Communist Party, was instrumental in Tydings’ unsuccessful senate bid. It was a fake cooked up by the staff of Senator Joseph McCarthy after Tydings insisted that the American government was not swarming with closet Communists, contrary to what McCarthy alleged. Even though the photo was admitted as a fake, Tydings lost his 1950 election and his made-up Communist ties were thought to be at least partly to blame.

Election Hijinks

(images via: Museum of Hoaxes)

(image via: Snopes)

(image via: Snopes)

During the 2004 presidential election, pictures surfaced of both George W. Bush and John Kerry in compromising positions. Bush was depicted as stupid and child-like, while Kerry was shown keeping company with unsavory characters or participating in activities that encouraged Americans to question his personal beliefs. Among the most memorable: the top picture apparently shows G.W. Bush reading a children’s book upside down, but it was clearly altered from the original image, show to the right. John Kerry was reported to have shared a podium with Jane Fonda at an anti-Vietnam war rally, but the images was later revealed to be a composite of two photographs from two separate events. Kerry was also reported to have spent time with Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, as evidenced by this photo…a photo which was soon uncovered as a fake.

(images via: Dartmouth)

(images via: Museum of Hoaxes)

The 2008 election was filled with just as much photo trickery. The infamous Sarah Palin photo above, in which the former Governor of Alaska poses in an American flag bikini with a large gun, quickly spread all around the world. It was, however, just as quickly proven to be a fake. Also a topic of discussion during the election was Barack Obama’s pledge to quit smoking, which has proven somewhat troublesome for the politician. This photo of the president with a cigarette in his mouth, however, is not a photographer’s lucky catch of a slip of willpower; it was created by an anonymous internet prankster.

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right

(images via: Stinky Journalism)

In 2009, the director of Spain’s National Intelligence Center, Alberto Saiz, was accused of spending government money on lavish international fishing and hunting vacations. To disprove his presence on a certain fishing trip, Saiz released the bottom photograph above which was supposed to show that he was not present on the fishing boat. The only problem is that when his staff removed Saiz’s head from the photo, they replaced it with that of the man standing just a few feet away from Saiz…in the same photograph.