Any time I encounter a story about massive unfinished boondoggles like this, I think about parallel moments of what could be called "edging." One example is the construction of Disney Hall in Los Angeles, which went on for about ten years before running out of money. All they got done was the underground parking lot, a $100m endeavor. By this point in time, two of the project's original three sponsors had died, Disney's widow and one of his daughters. As far as they are concerned, seeing as they no longer exist, all the money they gave the L.A. Phil went toward a parking lot. I'm curious how Speer, who survived the war, later thought about the never-built projects he planned and started. There's something a little elegaical in that feeling, one which gives me no small unease, guilt, nausea...Why do I now slightly wish I could see this arch the Nazis would have had to have won the war in order to complete? Places where this kind of fascist architecture have come closer to completion include the Statue of Unity, now the world's largest statue but sitting in a part of Gujarat that is in the middle of no where, and just completed by Modi's Hindu Nationalist government. Perhaps closer to Speer's experience is Tommy Suharto, son of the former Indonesian dictator, whose Kuta Selatan resorts in southern Bali are mainly unfinished and rapidly rotting away.
