Top 10 Times Massive Construction Projects Went Wrong

Sometimes, aesthetics just aren’t practical. The Aon Building in Chicago was completed in 1974, then known as the Standard Oil Building. It was the tallest in the city at the time, as well as fourth tallest in the world. The building itself is structurally sound, and earthquake-resistant among other things. However, the original design had an exterior clad in relatively thin slabs of Italian Carrara marble, which looked nice, but proved to be problematic. In fact, a large piece of the marble fell during construction and broke through the roof of a neighboring building. In 1985, an inspection revealed cracks and warping to the marble. In 1990, an estimated $80 million project was implemented to replace it with white granite.

The Sampoong Department Store was originally designed as a four-story residential apartment complex. But during construction in 1987, the plan changed. Lee Joon, Chairman of Sampoong Group, altered the original blueprints, cutting out support columns and adding a fifth floor. After contractors warned him of serious structural flaws, he fired them and completed the building anyway. You can see where this is going. In 1995, cracks began to appear. Lee Joon was warned of imminent collapse. He and other executives left the building, but refused to evacuate staff and customers for fear of revenue loss. The building collapsed, killing 502 people and injuring almost 1,000 others. Lee Joon served seven and a half years in prison.

Things often sound simple until they’re put into practice. In 2002, construction began to replace a portion of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. The discarded portion was seismically unstable, making it necessary to replace. The project was originally estimated at $250 million, but upon completion 11 years later, came with a price tag of $6.5 billion. It was the most expensive public project in Californian history. The replacement was plagued with issues: FBI investigation into rush welding jobs, allegedly falsified inspection records, bolt failures, water leaks, improperly filled beam foundations and problematic project management, among others. So, building bridges isn’t only figuratively difficult, apparently.

This decade-long hydroelectric project in Labrador has become a financial disaster for Canada. Construction began in 2013, but it remains incomplete, years behind schedule, and $6 billion over budget! Energy company Nalcor reportedly assembled a team of experts in oil and gas for the project that lacked hydroelectric expertise. Critics claim that government officials blindly trusted the ‘experts’ and gave them free reign financially. Engineering firm SNC-Lavalin was initially overseeing the project, but reportedly found Nalcor difficult to work with. There are also environmental and health concerns, with a study from Harvard University concluding that the project will lead to an increase in methylmercury levels in fish.

Site of perhaps the most taken tourist photo of all time, the Leaning Tower of Pisa’s claim to fame is its foundational failure. Completion of the tower took around two centuries, which is a substantial amount of time for a crooked building. Foundations were originally laid in 1173, using stones subsidized by a wealthy local widow. In 1178, when construction had begun on the second floor, the tower began to sink, due to a shallow foundation in unstable soil. Various wars put construction on hold for nearly a century, allowing the soil to harden and preventing collapse. It was completed in 1372. Efforts have been made for centuries to stabilize the Tower, most recently in 2001, when it was declared structurally stable for a projected 300 years.

In 1978, Allegheny Energy ordered the construction of a large power plant at Willow Island, West Virginia. In April of that year, workers were busy with the construction of the second cooling tower. Instead of the scaffolding having a base on the ground, it was moved up and bolted into new concrete as the tower was built. The pourable concrete was brought up by a crane atop the scaffolding. On April 27, the cable pulling up the concrete slackened, causing the crane to fall inward. The scaffolding tore free of the previous day’s concrete, layers of concrete peeled off from the tower, and 51 workers fell to their deaths. An investigation concluded that construction had been rushed and failed to follow safety procedures.

Completed in 2014, 20 Fenchurch Street in London was quickly nicknamed “The Walkie-Talkie” by locals, thanks to its odd shape. It was designed by Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly, and cost over 200 million pounds. In 2015, it was given “Building Design” magazine’s prestigious “Carbuncle Cup”, an architecture award for the ugliest building of the year. Other than the aesthetic displeasure, the building’s shape was discovered to be hazardous during construction. During a specific time of day, for at least 2 hours, the sun would hit the building in a way that created burning light beams between 196 and 243 degrees Fahrenheit (much like a concave mirror). This caused damages to parked cars, actually melting the bodywork of some vehicles.

The Sydney Opera House was designed by Jørn Utzon, an award-winning Danish architect. Utzon was put in charge of directing construction in 1958. Early in construction however, it was found that the podium wasn’t strong enough to support the shell structures, and it had to be rebuilt. It took six years to figure out how to design and build these shells. The original projected cost for the structure was around A$7 million, yet ended up costing $102 million - over A$1 billion by today’s standards (or around US$700 million). The result is certainly spectacular, but it does have major problems with its acoustics due to its design.

Construction disasters are not a modern phenomena. In the late 1690s, Scottish investors thought to gain wealth and authority by establishing a colony in the Isthmus of Panama, the strip of land that links North and South America. The colonization plan was an expensive failure. The initial settlement was abandoned twice, and resulted in numerous deaths due to famine, tropical diseases, and conflict with the Spanish. Scotland had invested 20% of its economy on the endeavor, and was ultimately financially ruined, resulting (some say) in the Acts of Union with England in 1707.

There’s a chance you’ve seen this footage, and perhaps wondered if it was real. It definitely was. In 1938, construction began on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state. During construction, workers nicknamed the bridge “Galloping Gertie”, as it tended to move in windy conditions. This should have been a red flag for the people running the show, but, ah whatever, let’s just keep building! In July of 1940, the bridge was open to the public. It collapsed in November of that year, in a way that almost seems cartoonish: the structure basically twisted like rubber before it crumbled. In simplified form, the frequency of the wind matched the frequency of the bridge structure, amplifying the movement.