Teh New Wonders of teh World Thread

[DaShi]

The Summer Palace is much better than the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City gets tiresome when you've seen mini versions of it in nearly every other city in China. The Summer Palace has far more variety and interest in structure, landscape, and art.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Odin
What I think should be the 7 wonders list:

Great Pyramid at Giza
Great Mosque of Mecca
Hagia Sophia
Chichen Itza
Forbidden City
Eiffel Tower
Statue of Liberty

Great Pyramid at Giza
Hagia Sophia
Eiffel Tower
Statue of Liberty
Pyramid of the Sun
Sydney Opera House
and...uhm...

The St. Louis Arch?

[Kuciwalker]

@ the Gateway Arch

[Wernazuma III]

Christ the Redeemer is really a joke.
Machu Picchu is a great site I've visited but can easily be beaten by just so many others. No really great structures at all.

It's out of my mind, however, how one can think about replacing them by Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty though - two nice monuments but compared with just so many great other sites they're nothing.

The Forbidden City should have been a must.
And like Barnabas said Teotihuacán would have made a better choice for Ancient America than both Machu Picchu and Chichen Itza.

I would not have thought about Panama Canal myself, but I like the idea.

[snoopy369]

The Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty have meaning beyond their physical appearance though - or, rather, in their physical appearance embody meaning that transcends that appearance.

The Eiffel Tower is the symbol of the Industrial Age, the most significant advancement in the history of the world since the wheel [or perhaps since the knife even]. By itself it is an ugly piece of steel; in context, it is the greatest monument to the New Religion, technology.

The Statue of Liberty embodies the American spirit of democracy. I'm not sure it quite qualifies as a World wonder, since the meaning is to America and to some other countries, but not to many (European countries primarily). That said, many of the wonders are primarily symbolic to the local nation or religion ... so who knows.

[Sir Og]

How come Angkor Wat didn't make it in the list? IMO it is in third place right after the Piramids and the Great Wall.

[Odin]

See what I mean by people liking or not liking a monument based on modern political stuff?

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-New-Seven-Wonders.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Many jeered when the Statue of Liberty was announced as one of the candidates. Portugal was widely opposed to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Not that I'm supporting the war, but dislike of Chimpy's foreign policy does not have any objective bearing on the actual merits of the State of Liberty.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

So apparently the wonder with the cheapest text messaging wins?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
Christ the Redeemer is really a joke.

Bet there wasn't any strategic voting or campaigning for that one AT ALL.

No sir.


How many indulgences got that on the list, I wonder ?


Angkor or Borobudur are much more impressive achievements, and Borobudur is just as picturesque.


I'd take Chartres or the Sagrada Familia over Christ the Ignorer of the Favelas any day.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Barnabas



Statue of liberty and great mosque of mecca aint really super awesome buildings,

I must agree when it comes to Mecca... It's not great accomplishment at all. There are many mosques that are 1000x more interesting or awesome.

[Patroklos]

Stuff like this should be left for historians. When It's Joe Shmoe making the picks you often end up with choices made for nationalistic or political reasons.

Isn't democracy great

Wasn't the reason that they decided to redo the wonders in the first place because only one of them is left?

So why the hell are they picking things that are already ruins like Chichen Itza and Manchu Pichu? Sure I call look at a pile of rocks in the Andeas and think about how great this place was and how hard it would have been to build it here, but it is just a pile of rocks. No different than some of the old wonders.

If we are going to pick things that don't exist anymore, I say stick with the old ones.

[Colon™]

Originally posted by Patroklos


Isn't democracy great

It's the same kind of mob rule that has been ruining Eurovision.

[Berzerker]

Angkor Wat should be on the list in place of the Christ statue

Teotihuacan doesn't really qualify as a wonder since it was a huge city

Chichen Itza is a valid pick, the way the builders were able to use the corner of the pyramid to form the shadow of a snake climbing and descending the staircase on the solstaces is real cool.

The platform at Baalbek was too old to make the ancient wonders list, but if you want to see some big blocks of stone, thats the place. Those people were working blocks that dwarf the stones used at that Cusco fortress. Seriously, some of them stones are beyond belief. I doubt mankind has ever moved something that heavy.

Nan Modal and Timbuktu might be on my list but I'd have to see more of the structures. Easter Island might make it.

How about Notre Dame? Isnt that supposed to be some great achievement?

Whats the biggest bridge in the world?

[Barnabas]

Notre dame if I recall correctly fits inside Hagia Sophia

edit: I meant the pyramid of the sun, not all teotihuacan

[Cartimandua]

Originally posted by Berzerker

Teotihuacan doesn't really qualify as a wonder since it was a huge city

Chichen Itza is a valid pick, the way the builders were able to use the corner of the pyramid to form the shadow of a snake climbing and descending the staircase on the solstaces is real cool.

Nan Modal and Timbuktu might be on my list but I'd have to see more of the structures. Easter Island might make it.

Excuse me, but how does Teotihuacan not qualify because it's a city, but Chichen Itza does? Do you not realize that Chichen Itza is also a city? Timbuktu is also a city and Easter Island is an entire island.

Perhaps you meant to say the Temple of Kukulcan which was IN the city of Chichen Itza and is what you actually build in Civ IV? And maybe you meant the University of Sankore which is IN Timbuktu and maybe you meant the Moai Statues which are ON Easter Island?

If these structures were not what you meant, then you disqualified your own argument. Coming back to Teotihuacan, why not consider the merits of the massive Pyramid of the Sun by itself? I think it beats out any other individual Mesoamerican structure.

Also, as a point to others on this thread, Angkor Wat is also a city. The wonder in Civ IV is a specific temple in the city. If we're going to consider entire cities in a list of wonders, that changes the entire "wonder" definition.