Random Famous Buildings That Were Rebuilt (13 items)

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  (#13) World Trade Center

  • Building complex

  New York City lost part of its population, soul, and skyline on September 11, 2001, when the twin towers, the two tallest buildings at the World Trade Center, were brought down in a terrorist attack that took the lives of nearly 3,000 people. Designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki and built starting in 1966, the dual structures were 110 stories tall. 

  After the towers fell and workers cleared the detritus, the place where the buildings stood was turned into a memorial with two reflecting pools. A new single tower, symbolically 1,776 feet tall, replaced the previous two. One World Trade Center opened in 2014.
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  (#8) Royal Exchange, London

  • Building

  Merchant Sir Thomas Gresham created London's Royal Exchange in 1566 as a stock trading center. It burned down in 1666 during the Great Fire of London, was rebuilt, then burned down again in 1838. (The earlier image shown here was painted in 1810.)  

  The third version of The Royal Exchange opened in 1844, similar in design to the original building but with an eight-column entrance added. The building sustained damage, and traders stopped trading, during WWII, but they returned for a brief period in the 1980s. After an extensive renovation, including the addition of two floors, the building reopened in 2001 as a shopping and dining center. 
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  (#3) St Paul's Cathedral

  • English Baroque

  St. Paul's Cathedral in London, perched atop the city's highest point, is in its fourth iteration. The original wooden church, built in 604, was rebuilt three times after fires, Viking raids, and lightning strikes either brought down or severely damaged the structure. The current version, designed by Christopher Wren, went up after the Great Fire of London in 1666, and took 35 years to build. Although the cathedral was bombed during WWII, it withstood the damage.

  For more than 250 years, the cathedral was London's tallest building; the dome is 365 feet high.
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  (#7) Hurva Synagogue

  "Hurva," the name of this synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Old Jerusalem, means "ruin," referring to its destruction several times since the 17th century, most recently during the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict (it's pictured here in 1948 before it was wiped out).

  Israel recaptured the Old City during the 1967 Six-Day War, but because of debate about how to re-create the Hurva Synagogue, didn't start construction on a modern-replica replacement until the 2000s.  
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  (#10) United States Capitol

  Construction on the U.S. Capitol began in 1793, with President George Washington laying the cornerstone. The design featured a central dome area flanked on the north and south by separate rectangular chambers for the Senate and House of Representatives. The building was occupied but unfinished when the British set fire to it in 1814 during the War of 1812. George Munger's drawing shows the damaged structure, with most of the exterior singed but still standing, although the domed rotunda did not fare so well. After the fire the Capitol was rebuilt.

  Over the years, the building - with portions burned again during fires in 1851 and 1898 - has been renovated, expanded, modernized, and fireproofed.
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  (#12) Royal Castle, Warsaw

  Built in stages starting in the Middle Ages, the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland, was originally a nearly all wooden structure. It previously served as a residence for Polish monarchs and site for Parliament, among other uses. During WWII, under German occupation the castle was bombed, plundered, then wiped out during the Warsaw Uprising.  

  Reconstruction using donated funds didn't begin until 1971 and continued through the 1980s, when the structure reopened its interior to the public. Restoration of other parts of the complex continued through 2019. Some salvaged pieces of debris have been incorporated into the rebuilt palace. 

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