Hi All, my first post, although I have used the site for a couple of years as a best resource on WHS on the web!

Just a fun topic/ speculation:
What would/ should be the first site from XXI century to get inscribed?

My money would be on Burj Khalifa, Dubai. Some other ideas:
City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia
Gardens by the Bay, Singapore
Bird's Nest stadium, Beijing?

Of course, nature could be first as well, something along the lines of Surtsey, so a landscape/ biodiversity shaping event (volcano, earthquake, meteorite strike, jokulhaup etc.). But rather more diffucult to predict :)

Or the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in its neighbour Abu Dhabi?


Welcome, Marek!

Designed in, built in, opened in.....?
Were there any 20th C buildings before the 1920s? Centuries tend to "carry over" before a "new paradigm" emerges. Has one yet emerged for this 21st century? And will it before the coming decade? Bigger, taller, stranger in shape etc etc? But is any of this "enough" for true OUV and capturing what we were about in these first 2 decades? Perhaps - they say something about the way in which cities competed with each other in this era and about the exploration of the structures which had been made possible by computer design etc

Millau Viaduct was built and opened this century albeit designed in the last. For combination of beauty and function in its environment it takes some beating and, IMO, that is more important than having been the tallest bridge in the World. Its design life is supposed to be 125 years but no doubt that could be extended.

Shanghai Maglev -also built and opened this century. But will time prove it to have been nothing more than a quirky transport technical cul de sac?
.
What about an Internet Server farm from some time during the first 2 decades of this century? Or an early Photovoltaic power station found rusting in some field and preserved around the year 2060? They could both capture something of what the early 21st century was about. And both will no doubt seem pretty "quaint" when measured against the technology of 50 years hence.

Or maybe a decaying "Shopping Mall" of early 21st Century shops from when people still did "shopping" in such places . The trouble is that I suspect we won't do enough to preserve the "everyday" things of our age. A bit like my old holiday photos which are all about famous sites etc when really far better ones exist on the Web/in NG etc and I should have been concentrating on the unique minutiae of the trips

I would say it will be the Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings; after being proposed, then rescheduled, deferred, etc. for a hundred years...


I believe Marek meant to say XXII century...

21st century - not too difficult to understand from Marek's examples, or is it a language misunderstanding?

No?? Surely he was asking what "sites" from this 21st Century should be inscribed later on during it. My question was about whether a structure from the first few years of 21st Century can really be considered "21st C" - especially if it was designed at the very end of the 20th..

Well, you could be correct. I will let Marek clear that up. (I was thinking along the lines of a language mix-up, as in 2000s = 21st century. And knowing the pace of things, that it may be another 82 years for the Burj Khalifa to be nominated ;-) )

The Rietveld Schröderhuis built 1925 had to wait until 2000 - 75 years
Sydney Opera House opened in 1973 had to wait until 2007 - 35 years (though Australia did try as early as 1981!!!)
Brasilia built in the 1960s only had to wait until 1987 - 27 yrs
If Jodrell Bank succeeds next year - then its main attraction the Lovell Telescope built 1957 will have had to "wait" 61 years

One would think really that at least 40 - 50 years would normally be needed to establish whether an artefact has OUV. I suppose that, as the speed of change increases then the average might get lower. But, as i mentioned -the problem is that, with very fast change, nothing of any period stays around long enough to get preserved !!!!

Well, there is never a clear-cut solution to what should be included/ excluded, but I leanded to "opened"* after 2000. So calendar-driven, irrespective of "eras". In any case, of the top of my head, there are no really, really recent sites, right? Sydney Opera is probably the newest?

There could be sites, that would be regarded as "legacy" in future, but I cannot really find a proper example right now.

Burj Khalifa, due to being a significant technical achievement, impact of design, maybe cultural impact as well?

*opened, not necessarily completed, as for example Sagrada Famillia is still long way from completion.

My proposal: a historic site rather than an architectural marvel: "National September 11 Memorial & Museum". This place, this day, made us truly enter the new century. This site could be part of the comparative study of recent memory sites.

Whatever it is, it will be something in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, or China.

Sagrada Família would technically be a 21st century building? They claim it will finish in 2026. I'm not an expert to know if this was the original idea in Gaudi's mind, because e.g. the Sydney Opera House adding another wing in the 21st century wouldn't make it a new building (bad example, sorry). Tricky one.

(Ruins of?) Palm Islands and then immediately on the In Danger list.

Swiss Re Building for it's influence on other designs, showing OUV.

I think there are many great sites/buildings but just being good design isn't enough. Seeing that the Burj Khalifa is soon bypassed as the tallest building, and then probably again by another building in another decade the superlative thing doesn't make it unique in my opinion.

Always a favourite topic of mine, I realised it has been a decade since I put this list forward:




I think that list still stands up pretty well, even if a few of the sites are white elephants.

I think the other sites I would now add are the Architectural oeuvre of Zaha Hadid, the most notable: 2012 Aquatic Centre, Heydar Aliyev Center (Baku) and Riverside Museum Glasgow.

Places tongue in cheek, aren't they still building the Heritage Village that will be inscribed when Khor Dubai inevitably gets on the list?

I think that was a pretty good example, and explains why the inscription of the Sagrada Familia is limited to just the nativity facade which was the only one constructed mostly in Guadi's lifetime to his direct designs.

City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia. Could see that. But technically first building was before 2000.

Guggenheim Bilbao. Again agree it will eventually make the list. But ... built before 2000.

I also feel the works of Norman Foster deserve inscription. But... The Reichstag was also opened 1999.

Regarding engineering feats like highest building, longest tunnel, largest bridge, ... it feels that nowadays these aren't quite the groundbraking accomplishments they used to be. In Ironbridge Gorge, you find a first steel bridge. But what makes the aquaduct of Millau a first apart from being long?

It will probably be one of the iconic buildings of the 21st century. Zaha Hadid seems a fine candidate, especially as this would be posthumous, unfortunately. I could also see urban renewal projects (NYC High Line), ecological architecture, Asian architecture, developing world urban planning as topics.