The city of London is no stranger to tall constructions today, but long before the first skyscrapers would loom above its streets, Watkin’s Tower was supposed to be the tallest structure in not only London but also the entirety of the UK. Inspired by France’s recently opened Eiffel tower, railway entrepreneur and Member of Parliament [Sir Edward Watkin] wanted to erect a structure that would rival the Eiffel tower, as part of a new attraction park to be constructed near the Middlesex hamlet of Wembley. In a retrospective, [Rob’s London] channel takes a look at what came to be known as Watkin’s Folly among other flattering names.
After [Gustave Eiffel], the architect of the Eiffel tower recused himself, a design competition was held for a tower design, with the Illustrated Catalogue of the 68 designs submitted available for our perusal. The winner turned out to be #37, an eight-legged, 366 meter tall tower, much taller than the 312.2 meter tall Eiffel tower, along with multiple observation decks and various luxuries to be enjoyed by visitors to Wembley Park.
Naturally, [Watkin] commissioned a redesign to make it cheaper, which halved the number of legs, causing subsidence of the soil and other grievances later on. Before construction could finish, the responsible company went bankrupt and the one constructed section was demolished by 1907. Despite this, Wembley Park was a success and remains so to this day with Wembley Stadium built where Watkin’s Folly once stood.
I came across this project in Felix Barker’s fascinating book “London As It Might Have Been”, a collection of extraordinary projects that never came to fruition, including a version of St Paul’s Cathedral with a huge pineapple on top, an airport built on the rooftops of Central London, and a splendidly titled “Grand Sewer”. The chapter about this structure is called “The Eiffel Tower At Wembley”.
But London still has the Crystal Palace Tower
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Palace_transmitting_station
That doesn’t beat the French into submission as English architecture ought.
That’s Colin Furze’s job.
Shame it didn’t succeed, it would have been an eye full.
evangelist Rex Humbard was constructing a tower at his “Cathedral of Tomorrow” in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio(Now known as Grace Cathedral). It was to have a rotating restaurant on top, but the project was only half completed. The project was often referred to, by those who worked there, as “Rex’s Erection”
You can seethe half completed tower on google maps street view here
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.1463176,-81.5111139,3a,75y,134.82h,118.7t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1snfQP-xPouF0HMMAbi_69FA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-28.702499832536347%26panoid%3DnfQP-xPouF0HMMAbi_69FA%26yaw%3D134.82001101301424!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDYxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
japan’s tokyo tower was built to copy the eiffel tower. i didn’t know about it for years until i came across it on twitter. a lot of cosplayers go there for photo shoots.
In Prague, the Czech Republic, such a tower has been built. Only about 60 meters height – see https://prague.eu/en/objevujte/petrin-tower-petrinska-rozhledna/ , if you are interested in history.