To each country, its monument (or almost). If they are essential today, packed with tourists and their visits cost an arm, they have not always been there (yes!). We got used to seeing them on all the postcards, but who ever tried to imagine what the landscape looked like when they weren’t there? We. Present. It is as destabilizing as it is impressive!
1. Mount Rushmore, before the presidents
Date de « construction » : between 1927 and 1941. Yeah, it still takes a few years to sculpt all that.
Function : this American summit, in the State of South Dakota, has been transformed into a memorial. 4 sculptures in the rock, 18 meters high, represent the faces of George Washington (1732-1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) and Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865): four presidents Americans who marked the country. The least we can say is that we really respected them.
2. The Champs de Mars, before the Eiffel Tower
Date de « construction » : from 1887 to 1889.
Function : I’m not going to re-explain to you what you’ve known since you were 6 or 7 years old, huh… Gustave Eiffel, the 1889 Universal Exhibition, blah-blah-blah. Boring. On the other hand, since we are here to relax a little: I let you discover the replica of the Eiffel Tower in Bolivia. Spoiler: she definitely looks like a dick. Oh yes, it’s funny!
3. The Louvre, before the pyramid
Date de « construction » : from 1985 to 1989. (You too thought it was a bit older than that?)
Function : Inaugurated for the first time by Mitterrand on March 4, 1988 and then a second time in 1989, the glass pyramid simply houses the entrance to the museum. It’s also one of the favorite spots for tourists to take high-quality souvenir photos… The ones where they kind of have their feet on tiptoe, hihihihi too many bars for optical illusions.
4. At the Sydney beach, avant l’Opera
Date de « construction » : from 1959 to 1973. It was officially inaugurated on October 20, 1973, after 14 years of construction (still!).
Function : as its name indicates so well, the Opera quite simply hosts concerts and artistic performances. Some see in its architecture the representation of a sailboat, others of a shell… What did you smoke? It looks powerful.
5. San Francisco, avant le Golden Gate Bridge
Date de construction : from 1933 to 1937.
Function : the bridge connects the cities of San Francisco and Sausalito. A true emblem of the city, it has appeared dozens of times in the cinema. The first time was in 1955, in “It Came From Beneath the Sea”. In 2020, we find him in the video game Marvel‘s Avengers.
6. Seattle, avant le Space Needle
Date de construction : 1960 to 1961.
Function : just like the Eiffel Tower in France, the Space Needle was built for a Universal Exhibition. That of 1962, in this case. Now, at the top of the building, there is a restaurant with a rather nice view!
7. London, before Big Ben and the new Palace of Westminster
Date de (re)construction : in the 1870s, the palace reopened its doors. For the record, in October 1834, most of the first Palace of Westminster went up in smoke in the fire of Parliament. A new palace, even more orfissime, was then rebuilt on the same site. For its part, the Big Ben was completed in 1869.
Function : the Palace of Westminster, also called “Houses of Parliament”, is simply the seat of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It includes the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Big Ben, bah… It gives the time, what.
8. New York, avant l’Empire State Building
Date de construction : 1930 to 1931.
Function : The Empire State Building has 102 floors, which makes it the 7th tallest building in New York, the 9th tallest skyscraper in the USA and the 54th tallest in the world. This American cultural icon has appeared in no less than… 250 shows and films (good score)! And that’s not all, the American Society of Civil Engineers named it one of the 7 wonders of the modern (stylish) world. Initially, the Empire was used as a relay for the Radio Corporation of America, thanks to the antenna placed at the top. Today, at the top, you will find an observatory. A place to visit for a cool view of the Big Apple.
9. Rio de Janeiro and Mount Corcovado, before Christ the Redeemer
Date de construction : from 1926 to 1931. It was then necessary to wait until 1973 for one of the largest statues in the world to be classified as a historical monument.
Function : bah… It’s a statue… It decorates and brings in quite a few tourists (750,000 per year)! In reality, it was after the First World War, when the Catholic Church decided to unite with the Brazilian people, that the idea of this immense representation of Christ was born. Symbolically, the open arms of Jesus symbolize openness to others, to the world.
10. Dubai, before Dubai
Date de « construction » : It all depends on what we are talking about. If we hear “Dubai before” (like a small isolated city in the desert), Dubai was founded in the 18th century. If we talk about the modern city, luxury galore and the death of ecology: we can place that in the 1970s. In 1971, the United Arab Emirates was founded. The first population explosion occurs around 1977 with 200,000 inhabitants. The peak came in the 2000s, with the Burj Khalifa in 2008 or the Palm Island in 2009.
Function : hosting all the influencers of France and Navarre, while poor foreigners are treated as slaves. Wow. It was definitely worth fucking the planet.