⪮ Good Morning
These four links are all about large scale models. Some are digital recreations of cities long lost, others are physical models designed to save lives.
They are all amazing works of history that give us a glimpse into the past.
Welcome to New York City, 01609
With this interactive map, you can explore what Manhattan was like over 400 years ago. Before New York, before New Amsterdam, the area was known to the Lenape people as Mannahatta.
Istanbul, Türkiye 01200 AD
This is an ongoing project to digitally recreate Byzantine Monuments located in Istanbul from 800 years ago.
Having been to Istanbul, some of these places still exist and parts of the city don't feel like they've changed. Remanence of the Hippodrome are still there for you to walk around. Other relicts still exist elsewhere. The four bronze horses that stood atop the Hippodrome boxes, were moved as war spoils to St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy.
Tenochtitlan 01518
In the middle of Lake Texcoco, Mexico was Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire. With over 200,000 farmers, artisans, merchants, soldiers, priests and aristocrats in 01518, it is one of the largest cities in the world.
Now modern day Mexico City, much of the underlying gridded road structure and canals are still there today.
Mississippi River 01943
After disastrous flooding in the 01920s, the Army Corps of Engineers started to plan massive infrastructural changes. Before computer simulations, they needed to build a physical model.
In 01943, they began construction on a model that could test all 1.25 million square miles of the Mississippi River, rendered to a 1/2000 horizontal scale, spanning more than 200 acres. It was so big that the only way to see it was from a four-story observation tower.
By 01993, the project was shut down and left to wild.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/americas-last-top-model/