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Believe it or not, that amazing glass dome at the top of this post was one of the original plans for LAX. The image is part of a new exhibition at the Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles that offers a hypothetical version of L.A. by collecting a series of scrapped civic projects. The collection includes plans and renderings for everything from transportation systems to parks and building projects, which never made it past the planning phase.

According to the curators, the plans, each presented with the narrative of their creation and reason for eventual demise, would have created a much denser city with clearly defined urban centers instead of the sprawling neighborhoods of present day L.A. The museum also created an iPhone app to guide users to sites of the ill-fated projects. 

"Never Built: Los Angles" is open until October 13. 


 Frank Lloyd Wright's Huntington Hartford Sports Club

Steven Holl's Natural History Museum Addition



The Goodell Monorail


Santa Monica Offshore Freeway


William H. Evans' Tower Of Civilization, 1939

via Museum's Instagram

The most famous item in Museum's permanent collection is the shoe thrown at George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad. The other exhibitions, collections of "modern day artifacts from around the world" may not have been part of international news stories, but are equally curious. Museum specializes in found items: last month's stack of rejected menu photos from a burger place in Cambodia, or, currently on view, creepy transcriptions from pornographer Al Goldstein, and rocks and tools from artist Tom Sachs' Mars expedition.

Museum occupies only a single elevator shaft, but has all of the trappings of large institutions, including a café (a single espresso machine), and a gift shop (on single shelf).

Museum is located in Cortlandt Alley between Franklin and White Streets in Lower Manhattan. It's open on weekends from 11am to 7pm. Find Museum on Instagram