7 TOP-SECRET ARCHITECTURAL WONDERS OF THE WORLD

7 Top-Secret Architectural Wonders of the World
By Steph, Web Urbanist, 15 April 2013.

Bunkers under luxury hotels, wartime factories hidden beneath fake neighbourhoods and vast systems of intricately decorated tunnels just beyond humble houses are among the many incredible architectural wonders just out of sight. Often built for top-secret purposes like manufacturing weapons or housing important officials during attacks, these complex and fascinating facilities went undiscovered for decades.

1. America’s Top-Secret Atomic Cities

“What you see here, what you do here, what you hear here, when you leave here, let it stay here.” So say posters and billboards that were once posted all over Oak Ridge, Tennessee, one of the United States Government’s three secret cities that toiled away on The Manhattan Project: atomic bombs that would soon devastate two cities in Japan. 75,000 employees lived and worked in Oak Ridge with absolutely no idea what they were actually party to. Their town wasn’t even on the map, and visitors were restricted. They didn’t find out the exact nature of their work until the infamous atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the final stages of World War II in 1945.

Oak Ridge joined Los Alamos, New Mexico and Richland, Washington as a major research and development site producing fissionable materials for nuclear weapons. Employees brought in from other areas of the country were screened with lie detector tests. There were so many of them in this small town with a former population of just 3,000, the government had to house them in temporary huts. Hundreds of photos of life inside Oak Ridge were captured by Ed Westcott, the only government-authorized photographer during the Manhattan Project. The American Museum of Science and Energy has published them on Tumblr.

2. Britain’s Secret Underground City of Burlington

You’d never guess that below a charming historic market in Wiltshire, England is an entire underground city inside a system of limestone caves. And it’s not dank and primitive. Built in the 1950s to house 4,000 central Government employees during a nuclear strike, the mile-long facility with sixty miles of roadways has kitchens, laundry facilities, its own pub and even a communications hub from which the Prime Minister would have addressed the nation in the event of a real attack.

The Burlington Bunker can withstand bombs, radiation and poison gas, and was designed to sustain its inhabitants for a three-month stretch. In fact, it boasted an underground lake (now drained) to provide fresh water, and a secret rail line from London for the English Royal Family.

No one knew about the existence of Burlington until 2004, when it was decommissioned. See photos, videos and maps at BurlingtonBunker.co.uk.

3. The Fake Washington City Hiding Boeing’s Wartime Plant

Anticipating the possibility of a direct attack on its most important facilities during World War II, Boeing didn’t want to take its chances with vast factory roofs that would be clear from the air. So at the Seattle facility known as Boeing Plant 2, the company created a surprisingly convincing form of camouflage in the form of a fake neighbourhood. Blending in fairly well with its surroundings, the plant was covered in streets, trees and plywood shells of houses. A Hollywood set designer was brought in to make sure the housing development looked as realistic as possible. Boeing Plant 2 helped turn Seattle into a boomtown for technology, and the bombers built there helped win the war.

Luckily, the ploy was never tested. After the camouflage was removed, the factory sat empty and abandoned for decades before it was demolished in late 2010.

4. Secret Society in the Catacombs of Paris

The Catacombs of Paris are mysterious enough on their own, an underground ossuary holding the remains of about six million people connecting to a larger system of tunnels throughout the city. But in 2004, they became even more intriguing as police discovered that they were in use as a hidden lair complete with an underground cinema. Using pirated electricity, the 3,000-square-foot space even had a security system mostly made up of recorded barks of guard dogs. What the cops first thought was a bomb later turned out to be a couscous maker. Once their hideout was discovered, those responsible for it came back in the night to claim their equipment, wiring and booze. Parisians wondered what secret society could possibly have been using the space, with news outlets theorizing “extreme right-wing” connections.

The truth is not quite so dramatic, though no less interesting. An anonymous group of Parisian underground explorers calling themselves LMDP built the cinema and other areas nearby over a period of 18 months starting in 1999, and screened Urbex movies for audiences of twenty to thirty people. The main point was escaping the realities above the surface, holding free events for those in the know. Read the whole story at Gizmodo.

5. Underground Arras, France

The small French town of Arras found itself on the front lines of World War I in 1914, with Allied forces having nowhere to go above ground to make progress against the Germans. So they hired miners from New Zealand to dig deep into the soft chalk beneath the town, creating a network of tunnels linked to pre-existing medieval ones. Together they were capable of holding 24,000 people. These tunnels had electric lights, kitchens, a rail system and a hospital; in 1917, they became the secret weapon of the Allies, as troops streamed out of them in a surprise attack. They were ‘rediscovered’ in 1996, and now include a museum.

6. The Vast, Surreal Temples of Humankind, Damanhur, Britain

One hundred feet underneath a modest, unassuming home in the northern Alps of Italy lies a vast, intricately decorated system of temples so impressive, the Italian government dubbed them the Eighth Wonder of the World after their discovery. But these temples aren’t remains of some ancient society. They were built starting in 1979 by a 57-year-old former insurance broker inspired by a childhood vision.

Oberto Airaudi claims to have experienced visions of dazzling temples, which he attributed to past-life memories, since he was just a boy. He explained later that his goal was “to recreate the temples from my visions.” Together with a group of friends who supported his quest, Airuadi used hammers and picks to dig out the stone from beneath his hillside home, sharing their idea with like-minded people. Volunteers from around the world soon joined in.

Today, there are nine chambers filled with murals, mosaics, stained glass, carved columns and a hall of mirrors. Word got to authorities by the ’90s, and the illegally-built temples were ultimately seized by the Italian government. Eventually Airaudi and his fellow builders were given retro-active permission, and now, the temples are open to visitors.

7. The U.S. Government’s Hidden Bunkers and Other Facilities

In an expose entitled ‘A Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control,‘ The Washington Post revealed the existence of an alternative geography of the United States made up of thousands of secret government facilities hidden from public view. The paper’s two-year investigation found that ‘Top Secret America’ includes 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies working on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence, in about 10,000 locations around the country. In Washington D.C. alone, 33 building complexes occupying the equivalent of almost three Pentagons house top-secret intelligence projects.

Conspiracy theorists have long warned of secret prisons and other government facilities located throughout the country, and they’re probably not far off the mark. But not all of these facilities, real or imagined, are ominous. One of the most notable examples of secret government architecture that have already been revealed is the bunker at The Greenbrier, a luxury resort in West Virginia.

Code-named ‘Project Greek Island’, the massive underground bunker beneath Greenbrier was built to serve as an emergency shelter for members of the United States Congress during the Cold War. It was kept stocked with supplies for thirty years, but never actually used for an emergency. The Washington Post revealed its existence in a 1992 news story, and since then, it has become an attraction; visitors can take a tour.

[Source: Web Urbanist. Edited.]

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