(5 of 5) America’s amazing mega-monuments… that were never built. From the Statue of Liberty to the Lincoln Memorial, America is home to many of the world’s best-known monuments. But a host of other incredible monumental structures were designed but never built – here’s a glimpse into the U.S. monuments that could have been. CashNetUSA commissioned NeoMam Studios to create digital renderings of what the monuments would have looked like.
INITIAL PLAN FOR MOUNT RUSHMORE NATIONAL MEMORIAL, SOUTH DAKOTA
One of America’s best-known monuments, Mount Rushmore would have been different if the sculptor Gutzon Borglum’s original plan had been implemented.
“Had it not been for a band of impenetrable mica schist lower in the mountain, and time restraints, Borglum and his crew of carvers would have hewn down to the presidents’ waists,” notes Smithsonian Magazine. “The wide-eyed sculptor had also envisioned an entablature 120 feet high and 80 feet wide, in the shape of the Louisiana Purchase, to the right of the presidents, on which a brief history of the United States would be etched.”
NeoMam also notes that the project ran into funding problems, which were exacerbated by World War II. “Eventually Congress had to step in to ensure any money given was only to be used for finishing the heads that had been started,” it explains.