Could Albert Speer's immense Volkshalle (Great Hall) ever really have existed following a WW2 victory, was it essentially just a fantasy? The trouble largely seems to be that it would have needed hugely deep foundations, but Berlin is built on sandy soil. Even with all the brutal forced labour that would certainly have been used, how on earth were they going to get nearly down to the bedrock as would presumably have been necessary? In Robert Harris's Fatherland, it says the building is the only one in the world that generates it's own climate, because the huge dome is so high up that it enables light rain to fall.
Of course that fits in a novel, but doesn't sound too realistic, does it? I know nothing about architecture, but how safe would such a huge dome be in the long run? Surely the moisture would eventually have put it at risk of collapse, the indoor rain (!) wouldn't have been at all good for the electric lighting and so on, either. Assuming the postwar Third Reich eventually fell apart and returned to democracy after Hitler's death, maybe the building would today still be a huge exhibition hall or something?
The also unbuilt Palace of the Soviets in Moscow (though it arguably got far closer actually to transpiring), maybe seems a bit fantastic as well. Of course, a Nazi victory would have doomed it anyway, Moscow would perhaps just have been an artificial lake. It was to be so huge, but also so close to the Moscow river. They had to make a bitumen curtain to prevent flooding of the excavations below river level, WW2 meant there were no workers available to maintain it.
Even if there was no German invasion and it had been built, what if river water had gradually seeped into the foundations? According to Wikipedia, concrete degradation due to groundwater wasn't a significant concern, but somehow it just seems to be asking for trouble. An eventual 9/11 like disaster, where the whole thing collapses? If Putin still happened, no doubt he'd really like a building like that, as a symbol of Russian power. Possibly the Russian parliament
would now be housed in it, amongst other state bureaucracy function(s)?
But the beautiful Cathedral that had been on the site would presumably have had to be rebuilt somewhere else, perhaps in the nearby Arbat area?
What was left of the Orthodox church in Soviet times would have been furious about the palace being completed on the site of such an important church, they were doubtless already angry that it had been blown up. Perhaps they'd have prayed God would strike the palace down. All the more so if the Soviet Union still collapsed and the church regained it's old power and influence. Good that both megalomaniac buildings never happened, in OTL the world maybe has enough of them in some places.
Of course that fits in a novel, but doesn't sound too realistic, does it? I know nothing about architecture, but how safe would such a huge dome be in the long run? Surely the moisture would eventually have put it at risk of collapse, the indoor rain (!) wouldn't have been at all good for the electric lighting and so on, either. Assuming the postwar Third Reich eventually fell apart and returned to democracy after Hitler's death, maybe the building would today still be a huge exhibition hall or something?
The also unbuilt Palace of the Soviets in Moscow (though it arguably got far closer actually to transpiring), maybe seems a bit fantastic as well. Of course, a Nazi victory would have doomed it anyway, Moscow would perhaps just have been an artificial lake. It was to be so huge, but also so close to the Moscow river. They had to make a bitumen curtain to prevent flooding of the excavations below river level, WW2 meant there were no workers available to maintain it.
Even if there was no German invasion and it had been built, what if river water had gradually seeped into the foundations? According to Wikipedia, concrete degradation due to groundwater wasn't a significant concern, but somehow it just seems to be asking for trouble. An eventual 9/11 like disaster, where the whole thing collapses? If Putin still happened, no doubt he'd really like a building like that, as a symbol of Russian power. Possibly the Russian parliament
would now be housed in it, amongst other state bureaucracy function(s)?
But the beautiful Cathedral that had been on the site would presumably have had to be rebuilt somewhere else, perhaps in the nearby Arbat area?
What was left of the Orthodox church in Soviet times would have been furious about the palace being completed on the site of such an important church, they were doubtless already angry that it had been blown up. Perhaps they'd have prayed God would strike the palace down. All the more so if the Soviet Union still collapsed and the church regained it's old power and influence. Good that both megalomaniac buildings never happened, in OTL the world maybe has enough of them in some places.
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