Nice idea for a post. Your suggestions of the Three Gorges Dam, the Super/Hyper Kamiokande, and the LHC are especially solid IMO.
A few suggestions of my own. To me, one of the most wondrous things about the modern age is our ability to travel around the world with ease. I’d nominate Singapore’s Changi Airport. I see some parallels with the Hanging Gardens, actually. Part of me wants to nominate the Airbus A380. I got to fly on one recently and it was truly awesome.
The materials we use have also defined many of our past eras (Iron Age, Bronze Age). To celebrate modern materials, I’d nominate Steinway Tower in NYC.
I feel like we have to have something that acknowledges the central role of tech in our culture too, but most tech companies have mediocre architecture. The biggest exception I can think of is Apple Park. I haven’t seen it in person, but it does look wondrous.
A final suggestion that I think might be my most controversial: Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas. Even though it’s very kitschy, the sheer scale and the amount of coordination it takes to run boggles the mind.
I honestly did not consider airports, but I have to agree, some of them are breathtaking.
I decided not to include supertall structures, just because there are so many of them, and I think they cannot be considered true Wonders anymore. But the materials argument is a great one!
Apple Park was on my candidates list for a while (and so was Pentagon), but I decided against them.
I haven't seen the Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas before - thanks! I think, for this list I only really looked at static structures, but it looks very impressive.
My personal preference fails on a few counts: it's 54 years old, and relatively tiny, and there's no good pictures of it, and only 2 people ever saw it, and it's not even technically on the planet. But I still like Apollo 11's Tranquility Base, the descent module of the LM-5 Eagle. Maybe it gets extra credit for changing our definition of "the world"? :-)
The International Space Station lays somewhere in between! And I keep getting fascinated by the fact that the "international" in the name actually fits:
The implication here (not new) is that STEM is the religion in in the modern world. Just as a backlash is brewing (or in full swing, depending on who you ask).
It has probably become a religion for some people (see the debate around Scientism). I am not sure how I feel about it. Probably not very positively.
But my implication in this post, and indeed, a more general life philosophy, is slightly different. I think that religion—any religion, or, for that matter, religion as a concept—was brought up to be a tool for explaining, understanding, and knowing our world. Science is another such tool. It may be more suitable for our age; thus the need for more scientifically-themed wonders.
Nice idea for a post. Your suggestions of the Three Gorges Dam, the Super/Hyper Kamiokande, and the LHC are especially solid IMO.
A few suggestions of my own. To me, one of the most wondrous things about the modern age is our ability to travel around the world with ease. I’d nominate Singapore’s Changi Airport. I see some parallels with the Hanging Gardens, actually. Part of me wants to nominate the Airbus A380. I got to fly on one recently and it was truly awesome.
The materials we use have also defined many of our past eras (Iron Age, Bronze Age). To celebrate modern materials, I’d nominate Steinway Tower in NYC.
I feel like we have to have something that acknowledges the central role of tech in our culture too, but most tech companies have mediocre architecture. The biggest exception I can think of is Apple Park. I haven’t seen it in person, but it does look wondrous.
A final suggestion that I think might be my most controversial: Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas. Even though it’s very kitschy, the sheer scale and the amount of coordination it takes to run boggles the mind.
These are all very good.
I honestly did not consider airports, but I have to agree, some of them are breathtaking.
I decided not to include supertall structures, just because there are so many of them, and I think they cannot be considered true Wonders anymore. But the materials argument is a great one!
Apple Park was on my candidates list for a while (and so was Pentagon), but I decided against them.
I haven't seen the Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas before - thanks! I think, for this list I only really looked at static structures, but it looks very impressive.
My personal preference fails on a few counts: it's 54 years old, and relatively tiny, and there's no good pictures of it, and only 2 people ever saw it, and it's not even technically on the planet. But I still like Apollo 11's Tranquility Base, the descent module of the LM-5 Eagle. Maybe it gets extra credit for changing our definition of "the world"? :-)
Yes! Oh man, how I wanted to fit that! But this is probably the One Wonder Outside the Modern World :)
A league of its own.
The International Space Station lays somewhere in between! And I keep getting fascinated by the fact that the "international" in the name actually fits:
https://whoisinspace.com/
Yes, it's an incredible thing, this.
The implication here (not new) is that STEM is the religion in in the modern world. Just as a backlash is brewing (or in full swing, depending on who you ask).
It has probably become a religion for some people (see the debate around Scientism). I am not sure how I feel about it. Probably not very positively.
But my implication in this post, and indeed, a more general life philosophy, is slightly different. I think that religion—any religion, or, for that matter, religion as a concept—was brought up to be a tool for explaining, understanding, and knowing our world. Science is another such tool. It may be more suitable for our age; thus the need for more scientifically-themed wonders.