Five Buildings That Should Have Been Impossible

Five buildings. Five different fights with physics, money, and time. A skyscraper in typhoon country survives because of a 660-tonne golden ball swinging inside it. The tallest tower on Earth had to out-think the wind itself. A 105-floor pyramid in Pyongyang has stood for over 35 years without a single guest. A basilica in Barcelona has been under construction since 1882. And in the Saudi desert, a mirrored city 170 kilometres long exists mostly as a render. All five, back to back. Chapters: 0:00 Five Impossible Buildings 0:27 Taipei 101 — The Golden Ball That Saves a Skyscraper 3:07 Burj Khalifa — The Tower That Confuses the Wind 9:33 Ryugyong Hotel — 105 Floors, Zero Guests 16:54 Sagrada Família — Under Construction Since 1882 23:30 The Line — They Promised 170 km Image credits: Taipei 101 tower — photo by Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Taipei 101 tuned mass damper (close-up) — photo by Armand du Plessis, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Taipei 101 tuned mass damper (cables) — photo by Johan Jönsson (Julle), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Other visuals are AI-generated (original). Figures on The Line reflect reporting as of mid-2026; disputed numbers are attributed in the narration. Which megastructure should I cover next? Let me know in the comments. #MegaStructures #Taipei101 #BurjKhalifa #SagradaFamilia #RyugyongHotel #TheLine #Engineering #Skyscraper[Skriv videons hook-mening här — ersätts per video] CHAPTERS: 00:00 Maps, money and megaprojects — why the world looks the way it does. Two series: ▸ MAPPED — geopolitics, borders and money, worldwide ▸ PROMISED VS. BUILT — the world's biggest projects and failures Subscribe for a new episode every two weeks. Some visuals in this video are AI-generated. Narration is voiced with AI.