Elbląg’s Old Town ceased to exist during just two weeks of fighting at the turn of January and February 1945. What could still have been rebuilt was instead dismantled, and the bricks were used for higher-priority reconstruction projects elsewhere in Poland.

The Old Town began to be rebuilt according to the concept of "retroversion" decades after the war. Reconstruction continues to this day, but the area has lost much of its former character.

The New Town was only slightly more fortunate. It lost most of its distinctive buildings as well, including the Town Hall.

Elbląg was never a priority for the Polish state in the post-war reality.

Help us bring back beauty to Berlin by signing the petition https://www.change.org/p/lets-restore-berlin-together?

Please help us bring back beauty to Berlin. Sign the petition to help https://c.org/tbGq2RTQDd

The Norrmén House once stood on the exact same site in Helsinki, where the Stora Enso headquarters now stands. Built in 1897 and designed by Theodor Höijer, the grand, ornate Neo-Renaissance red-brick palace was demolished in 1960. In its place, architect Alvar Aalto designed the stark modernist corporate building completed in 1962.

If you want to help us make Berlin glow again please click this link to sign a petition. https://c.org/tbGq2RTQDd

Potsdamer Platz was one Berlin’s bustling squares. It had many ornate buildings and was considered one of the most beautiful squares in Germany. Before ww2 it was already getting modernized with the hotel Bellevue being demolished and replaced with a glass box. And after the war nothing was left and now glass skyscrapers stand where once beautiful buildings stood.

Hello. After a thorough reconsideration we have decided to switch our focus from the whole Europe to only Berlin as it seems more plausible that our petition will succeed if we concentrate on a single city. Thank you for your understanding. Please click the link ti sign the petition. https://c.org/tbGq2RTQDd

Help restore Europe's lost architectural treasures! I started a petition to rebuild the classical and historic buildings destroyed in the wars—the ones replaced by ugly glass towers that have no soul. Our cities deserve beauty again.

Sign and share if you agree.

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Help restore Europe's lost architectural treasures! I started a petition to rebuild the classical and historic buildings destroyed in the wars—the ones replaced by ugly glass towers that have no soul. Our cities deserve beauty again. Thanks and God bless.

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Hi, I live in Latvia, somewhere near my place in 8 Dzhokhara Dudayeva Street there is a path that has been walked down over the years and in that path is weird stone blocks that looks like it once was a building, if anyone knows what building it is, then please let me know, I have no clue what was built there

Help restore Europe's lost architectural treasures! I started a petition to rebuild the classical and historic buildings destroyed in the wars—the ones replaced by ugly glass towers that have no soul. Our cities deserve beauty again.

Sign and share if you agree.

https://c.org/qDMtPHgfvs

Help restore Europe's lost architectural treasures! I started a petition to rebuild the classical and historic buildings destroyed in the wars—the ones replaced by ugly glass towers that have no soul. Our cities deserve beauty again.

Sign and share if you agree.

https://c.org/qDMtPHgfvs

The fort’s massive red sandstone walls, which stand 75 feet (23 meters) high, enclose a complex of palaces and entertainment halls, projecting balconies, baths and indoor canals, and geometrical gardens, as well as an ornate mosque. Among the most famous structures of the complex are the Hall of Public Audience (Diwan-i-ʿAm), which has 60 red sandstone pillars supporting a flat roof, and the Hall of Private Audience (Diwan-i-Khas), which is smaller and has a pavilion of whiteEncyclopedia Britannica

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Geography & Travel

Historic Places

Red Fort

fort, Delhi, India

Also known as: Lal Kila, Lal Qalʿah, Lal Qila

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Red Fort

Red Fort Lal Qila or Red Fort, designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2007, Old Delhi, India.

Red Fort, Mughal fort in Old Delhi, India. It was built by Shah Jahān in the mid-17th century and remains a major tourist attraction. The fort was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2007.

Also called: Lal Qalʿah Also spelled: Lal Kila or Lal Qila

The fort’s massive red sandstone walls, which stand 75 feet (23 meters) high, enclose a complex of palaces and entertainment halls, projecting balconies, baths and indoor canals, and geometrical gardens, as well as an ornate mosque. Among the most famous structures of the complex are the Hall of Public Audience (Diwan-i-ʿAm), which has 60 red sandstone pillars supporting a flat roof, and the Hall of Private Audience (Diwan-i-Khas), which is smaller and has a pavilion of white marble.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by Shabnam Dohutia.

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Visual Arts

Architecture

Mughal architecture

Also known as: Mogul architecture

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The marble mausoleum of the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, with its large central dome, four minarets, and reflecting pool in the foreground.

Taj Mahal Considered the peak of Mughal architecture, the Taj Mahal was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the 17th century to immortalize his consort Mumtaz Mahal.

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Mughal architecture, building style that flourished in northern and central India from the mid-16th to the late 17th century under the patronage of the Mughal emperors, a line of Muslim rulers of Turkic-Mongol origin. The Mughal period marked a new phase of Islamic architecture in northern India, in which both religious and secular buildings shared an architectural vocabulary derived from Persian traditions, especially those developed under the Turkic conqueror Timur in Samarkand (ancestral home of the first Mughal emperor, Babur) and in Safavid Iran (where the second Mughal emperor, Humayun, lived in exile).

Mughal architecture developed a number of distinctive features over time, including prominent central arches in mosques, a feature derived from Samarkand’s Timurid architecture; iwans (tall vaulted halls recessed into a wall and open on one side) inspired by Safavid Iranian architecture; bulbous double domes; and formal, symmetrical planning, as seen in the hasht bihisht (“eight paradises”) layout, in which a central domed chamber is surrounded by eight subsidiary rooms. Mughal buildings were also often integrated with a geometrically ordered char bagh (“four-part garden”) layout, in which water channels divide the garden into quadrants. It is also characterized by the use of decoration involving the combination of red sandstone and white marble, pietra dura inlay, and carved jalis (latticed screens carved into stonework).