Archinect - News

UNESCO urges UK not to proceed with Stonehenge tunnels project

2023-09-26T11:34:00-04:00

The A303 redevelopment proposal had originally garnered the attention of preservation advocates beginning in 2017 and eventually yielded a favorable ruling from the UK High Court in 2021, the same year UNESCO first threatened to add the site to its list of World Heritage in Danger.

Adding to the narrative, UNESCO has now openly criticized the UK government's recent decision to proceed with the contentious project. The UK's transport secretary, Mark Harper, sanctioned the scheme earlier this year, setting its initial cost at a staggering £1.7bn. This tunnel, which is proposed to be two miles in length, is alarmingly close to the ancient and revered site of Stonehenge in Wiltshire.

National Highways insists its plan will "conserve and enhance" the area while addressing a notorious traffic bottleneck. UNESCO’s requests center on placing the tunnel entrances at longer intervals so as to not disturb the site’s existing landscape. In a statement, the project manager for the overhaul said...

16,000 plastic bottles used to create Stonehenge-like monument in Milan

2022-11-25T13:01:00-05:00

UK-based studio VATRAA has created a monument in Milan, Italy composed of thousands of plastic water bottles. The installation, titled Plastic Monument, seeks to bring attention to the issue of plastic pollution.

“Some plastics last up to 1000 years in our landfills and oceans while others might never biodegrade,” the studio notes. “We could argue that plastic waste is our legacy to many generations to come.”

Image credit: VATRAA / Alessandro Ariel Terranova

In response, the studio created a monument in the form of a trilithon, drawing similarities with the ancient Stonehenge site in the UK. The installation seeks to create a stark contrast between the single-use, disposable nature of plastic waste and the timeless nature of ancient monuments, reminding visitors that “what we are doing today might stay on Earth forever.”

Image credit: VATRAA / Alessandro Ariel Terranova

To complete the monument, which stands 25 feet tall, 16,000 plastic bottles were pressed together into bales, and...

Stonehenge's secret strength is revealed thanks to a repatriated core sample in the UK

2021-08-16T14:23:00-04:00

A team of scientists from the University of Bristol in the UK has gotten closer to solving an ancient mystery central to the country’s most famous archaeological site thanks to a “Holy Grail” core sample that has waited nearly 60 years to reveal its crystalline clues.

Led by Professor David Nash, the researchers were able to analyze two pieces of slab with help from the British Geological Survey, London’s Natural History Museum, the Salisbury Museum, and English Heritage.

One sample was returned by the family of a man named Robert Phillips who had removed it while working on the site as a stonecutter in the late 1950s.

“Getting access to the core drilled from Stone 58 was very much the Holy Grail for our research,” Nash said in a statement. “It is extremely rare as a scientist that you get the chance to work on samples of such national and international importance.”

Previously on Archinect: A judge has blocked impending highway construction around Stonehenge…for now

The analysis of...

A judge has blocked impending highway construction around Stonehenge…for now

2021-08-02T17:05:00-04:00

The proposed highway tunnel near Stonehenge that loomed over a recent UNESCO ruling has been called off thanks to a court order preservationists across the UK are referring to as a “wake up call” for Conservative politicians behind the controversial £1.7 billion ($2.4 billion) development project.

Activists are celebrating after a legal challenge against an approval granted last year by British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps was upheld by a High Court judge in London on Friday. The ruling cited the government’s own guidelines regarding the consideration of alternative schemes in a process that deliberately excluded impact assessments, something Justice David Holgate deemed irrational.

A plan that would revitalize an eight-mile-long section of the A303 road was first brought forth in 2017 and called for the installation of a tunnel near the 5,000-year-old ruins that opponents claim would significantly harm Stonehenge’s integrity and authenticity as a cultural site. Highways England...

Planned tunnel beneath Stonehenge could put world heritage site on UNESCO danger list

2021-06-22T13:57:00-04:00

Unesco has warned that Stonehenge could be put on its list of World Heritage sites in danger if plans to build a tunnel under the prehistoric site in Wiltshire are not modified. Unesco’s warning comes on the eve of a judicial review scheduled to take place at the High Court in London from 23 to 25 June which will examine the UK government’s decision to greenlight the 3.3-kilometre tunnel.

The planned tunnel scheme aims to reroute an existing road and divert traffic away from the world heritage site. In a newly published report, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee warns that the current length of the proposed tunnel was inadequate and could adversely impact the integrity of the property, potentially threatening Stonehenge's status as a world heritage site.

"The proposed tunnel still only extends across part of the property, with around 1km of the proposed new dual carriageway being exposed in a wide cutting within the open landscape," states committee's report. "It is regretted that for such an iconic World Heritage property, the argument persists that the perceived benefits of a longer tunnel do not outweigh the costs."

Archaeologists discover ring of Neolithic sites encircling Stonehenge

2020-06-22T13:39:00-04:00

A new archaeological discovery at the site of an ancient village near Stonehenge promises to offer significant clues about life more than 4,500 years ago in the Neolithic period, and could even “write a whole new chapter in the story” of the celebrated structure’s landscape, experts say.

Archaeologists working through the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project have discovered a neolithic site near Stonehenge that could shed new light on how ancient human societies lived. The research team utilized magnetic remote sensing technologies to scan the site without having to dig and were able, as a result, to construct digital maps showing a two kilometer wide ring of pits surrounding the Stonehenge site dating approximately to 2500 BCE.

The "Stonehenge" in the Amazon reveals an unexpected ancient history

2016-12-20T18:03:00-05:00

Roughly one thousand years ago, a civilization in what is now known as the Brailizan Amazon constructed what appears to be an astronomical observation structure that, thanks to its inadvertent discovery by a tree-razing cattle ranch foreman in the 1990s, has been dubbed the area's "Stonehenge." This New York Times article explores how the structure's existence undermines the idea that the Amazon was a lush, vacant backwoods just waitin' for that first touch of human civilization. Instead, many archeaologists increasingly hypothesize that the structure was either used for ritual ceremonies or as a kind of landmark for agriculture and hunting. Archeaologists also speculate that the area hosted a cilivilzation of up to 10 million people, as evidenced by ancient road networks and settlements found nearby.

Other cool breakthroughs in archaeology thanks to architectural discoveries:

Stonehenge may have originated in Wales, new study suggests

2015-12-08T13:52:00-05:00

archaeologists have found several recesses in rock formations in Wales that match the size and shape of Stonehenge's bluestones, leading to theories that the monument may have been erected in Wales first, before being moved to its present site in Salisbury Plain. The researchers also discovered evidence of what they described as “a loading bay" from where the massive boulders could have been dragged away.

Wales is over 130 miles / 209 kilometers from Stonehenge's current site in Salisbury Plain – a distance that would have taken Neolithic people over 500 years to transport the monoliths over, according to Professor Mike Parker Pearson, a British late prehistory professor at UCL who led the study.

Researchers involved in the project find it unlikely that, after the bluestones had been removed the quarry, the harvesters would have immediately set a course for Salisbury Plain. What is perhaps more likely is that the stones were used for a monument in Wales first, and were then transported to their current site through a massive coordination effort with people living in both areas.

“One of the latest theories is that Stonehenge is a monument of unification, bringing together people from across many parts of Britain," Pearson told The Guardian.

Open henge policy: BUREAU A designs shipping container Stonehenge for BIG biennale

2015-10-28T18:25:00-04:00

"Steelhenge," BUREAU A's design for the inaugural BIG biennale for independent art spaces, isn't just 50 blue shipping containers arrayed to mimic Stonehenge's layout in the center of Geneva: it was also the site of a four-day party in June to celebrate the open-spirited biennale, which according to a written statement provided by BUREAU A's Daniel Zamarbide, "represents a remarkable initiative to bring out art to the city, literally opening its doors to everyone. Contrary to the settlements of the 70’s (Drop City, etc.) considered at times as too insular, BIG concentrates a wide variety of players that speak out for many reasons and purposes."

Musicians, writers, artists and Genevan passerby could stroll into the installation, which according to Zamarbide "is an informal monument made out of people assembling for an unconditional engagement in culture and art."

New standing stones discovered near Stonehenge

2015-09-09T14:44:00-04:00

Using high-resolution ground penetrating radar, archaeologists have discovered a series of up to 90 standing stones buried in the earth less than 3 kilometres from Stonehenge. Archaeologists speculate that the stones, which form a rough 'C' shape underneath the 4,500-year old Durrington Walls super-henge, were pushed under the bank of the relatively newer super-henge, and may have once demarcated springs leading into the nearby Avon.

While the precise age of the stones has not been determined yet, the discovery adds new dimensions to the narrative, scope, and historical and architectural significance of Stonehenge. As Dr Phil McMahon of Historic England noted, "The World Heritage Site around Stonehenge has been the focus of extensive archaeological research for at least two centuries. However this new research by the Hidden Landscapes Project is providing exciting new insights into the archaeology within it. This latest work has given us intriguing evidence for previously unknown fea...

The Guardian's Rowan Moore reviews the almost-finished Stonehenge visitor centre

2013-12-16T17:42:00-05:00

The architects are Denton Corker Marshall, an Australian practice with an office in London, whose design makes intelligent choices. The coach part is split from the car park, which reduces their combined effect on the landscape, and back-of-house facilities are put in a separate building, a discreet chestnut-clad box, a little distance from the public structure. The latter is, deliberately, as light as the old stones are heavy, with an undulating parasol of a roof propped on skinny steel sticks.

Laser scan uncovers secrets of Stonehenge

2012-10-10T00:46:00-04:00

Stonehenge was designed to light up carvings as though they were on display in a modern museum, a groundbreaking 3D scan of the iconic stones has found. The latest 3D laser technology revealed new evidence of the importance of the midwinter sunset to the ancient creators of Stonehenge, along with 71 new images invisible to the naked eye due to weathering of the stone.

Get set for druids in golf buggies at Stonehenge

2011-08-31T14:56:46-04:00

Now the British government is preparing to close the road around [Stonehenge], restoring the stones' heathland setting, while a new visitors' centre is constructed 2.5km away. In the new design, hundreds of thousands of sightseers will reach the site via the centre on a lightweight transit system. Expect druids in golf buggies.