World’s FairsFound, not built?
HypothesesOne template, every continent

Hypothesis #3 of 20

One template, every continent

Strong111 supporting entries

Strength is how much of our gathered material lines up with the pattern. It is not the odds that the idea is true.

The working idea

The same domes, the same Kirkbride layout, the same Garnier opera house and the same star-shaped fort turn up on every inhabited continent, often in the same decades and often openly called copies. Common sense says that in an age of letters and steamships, a style doesn't normally spread to Manaus, Hanoi, Durban and Winnipeg at once. One possibility is a shared source: a common building tradition or pattern-book much older than the names now attached to it.

Strongest examples

Durban City HallRecorded as an almost exact copy of Belfast City Hall, on another continent.GoryōkakuA European five-pointed star fort in Hokkaido, 1857–66.Hanoi Opera HouseOne of three Palais Garnier copies in the set.

The evidence

Old World buildings tagged domes or towers

111 of 183, in all 9 regions (US 53 of 94, Europe 19 of 35, Latin America 7 of 9, India 6 of 8, Russia 6 of 8, Australia/NZ 6 of 8, Canada 5 of 5, Asia 5 of 10, Africa 4 of 6)

111 entries

Buildings the record itself calls a copy, twin or 'modelled on'

17

17 entries

Kirkbride-plan asylums in oldworld.json, plus one architect with about 20

11 + architects/samuel-sloan-greystone-park-kirkbride-building ('built about 20 hospitals on the Kirkbride Plan')

12 entries

Cast-iron domes

4 in the record

4 entries

Open questions

  • Who drew the shared plans, and where were they kept?
  • Why do colonial and non-colonial places alike (Russia, Japan, Argentina) produce the same forms?

What would support it

  • Earlier drawings of the 'copies' that predate their supposed models.
  • Identical measurements or modules across buildings on different continents.

What would rule it out

  • Clear paper trails of architects travelling, publishing and copying (Beaux-Arts schooling, published competition books, colonial public-works offices).
  • Many of the copies are openly named as copies by their own records, which fits ordinary imitation.

Selection bias

High: domed, ornate buildings were what the collection looked for.

The rating counts how much of our gathered material lines up with the pattern. It is not a probability that the hypothesis is true, and every count is limited by which buildings were picked for the app (see 'selectionBias' on each card).

Next hypothesis

Strong110 entries#4The ground came up: buried floors are everywhereBuried ground floors, stairs that go down to a door, raised streets and dug-out temples appear in 35 countries in our collection, from Seattle to Rome to Edfu. Common sense says ground doesn't rise metres in a few centuries without something bringing it. The documented causes vary (river silt, drifting sand, volcanic ash, rubble, deliberate street raising), but the result is the same: older cities sit under newer ones far more often than most people picture. The open possibility is that some of the raising on record was the cleanup of a deposit rather than a choice.

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