It would be difficult to imagine New York City not being what is is today. If the architects of the past had anything to do with it; NYC would be covered in domes, have floating airports and recreate Ellis Island into a towering city of its own.

The “Never Built New York” exhibition at the Queens Museum is a collection of works created around architectural ideas that would have changed the lifestyle of New York which were proposed by local architects. These architects created alternate paths that skewed the view of normal city expectations to create a world full of futuristic grandeur.

Many of the ideas in this exhibition hold a futuristic air like the inspired idea from Steven Holl’s 1980 proposal; to build luxury villas and Single Resident Occupant hotels together on elevated tracks. Another idea from Matthew Nowicki aimed at building a giant circular shopping centre hovering over Columbus Circle or Buckminster Fuller’s creation which was simply a dome over Manhattan.

The exhibition has been co-curated by Sam Lubell, a Contributing Editor at the Architect News Paper, and author of seven books about architecture. Co-curator Gred Goldwin was the architecture critic at Los Angeles Magazine from 1999 to 2011.

The exhibition will be held from September 17th 2017 to February 18th 2018 at the Queens Museum.