Architects throughout history have been influenced by earlier works and a surprising number of famous buildings around the world were actually modelled after older gems.
From the White House and Buckingham Palace to the Empire State Building and Burj Khalifa, we've rounded up 22 iconic structures that nod to, draw heavily from or pretty much duplicate other buildings in some unexpected locations. Click or scroll to get started...
Completed in AD 80, Rome's Colosseum was built by the Flavian emperors Vespasian and Titus. Financed by the spoils of the empire's plunder of Jerusalem, the vast amphitheatre – which remains the largest in the world – could accommodate more than 50,000 spectators and was the scene of brutal 'entertainments', which usually entailed the gruesome killing of gladiators, Christians, criminals and exotic animals.
The design of the building borrows significantly from an earlier Roman structure, the Theatre of Marcellus. The city's largest theatre, it was constructed under Julius Caesar and Augustus, the first Roman emperor, and completed in 13 BC.
The venue fell out of use in the fourth century AD and a palazzo was built on top of its ruins during the Renaissance era.
Currently undergoing restoration following the devastating fire of April 2019, the medieval cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris is among the finest examples of French Gothic architecture and, along with the Eiffel Tower, is one of the French capital's most enduring symbols, as well its most-visited landmark.
While the cathedral nods to the older Basilica of Saint-Denis just to the north of Paris, its ancestor in terms of design is thought by some scholars to be the unassuming Romanesque church of Qalb Lozeh ('Heart of the Almond') in Syria.
Constructed way back in the fifth century AD, the ancient basilica could very well have been the blueprint for Notre-Dame's signature twin-towered facade.
A breathtakingly beautiful marble mausoleum, the Taj Mahal was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, who had died delivering their 14th child.
While it's the epitome of Mughal architecture, the building was actually inspired by several other iconic structures.
They include the 15th-century Gur-e Amir, located in modern-day Uzbekistan, where Timur, the progenitor of the Mughal dynasty, is entombed.
As you can see, the two buildings look alike, with similar onion domes and minarets, though Shah Jahan went for an even more luxurious feel, opting for exquisite white marble inlaid with semi-precious stones rather than red sandstone decorated with tiles.
During the 1660s, architect Louis Le Val converted a relatively modest stone and brick hunting lodge into a sumptuous three-storey Baroque château befitting of King Louis XIV, who was inspired to create the peerless Palace of Versailles after visiting another of Le Val's ravishing creations located to the southeast of Paris.
In 1661, the Sun King was guest of honour at the newly completed Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte in the town of Maincy.
Bowled over by its lavishness, the monarch wasted no time hiring Le Val to create his very own version, albeit on an even grander, more opulent scale and went on to imprison its owner Nicolas Fouquet, the super-ambitious Superintendent of Finances, for daring to outshine him, which is explored in The Man Who Outshone the Sun King: The Rise and Fall of Nicolas Fouquet by Charles Drazin.
Hampton Court Palace in south London dates back to the Tudor period, when it was home to Cardinal Wolsey and then King Henry VIII.
More than a century later and it was given a fabulous Baroque makeover in the late 17th century by superstar architect Christopher Wren, who was hired in 1689 by King William III and Queen Mary II to update the tired palace. The glam additions bear more than a passing resemblance to France's most famous palace.
Wren had travelled to Paris and its environs in 1665 and was massively influenced by Versailles when he came to design the Hampton Court Palace revamp.
Both his initial plan – which was for a much larger domed palace – and the finished design were heavily influenced by the work of Louis Le Val and later Versailles architect Jules-Hardouin Mansart, whose father Wren had met during his sojourn in France.
One of the most recognisable buildings in the world, America's presidential mansion is the handiwork of Kilkenny-born architect James Hoban, who won a national competition in 1792 to land the prestigious commission.
When figuring out the design, Hoban looked to his native Ireland for ideas.
In fact, the White House was primarily influenced by Dublin's Leinster House. Completed in 1748 by Richard Cassels, an architect Hoban held in high esteem, the elegant manse was built as a palace for the Duke of Leinster and has housed Ireland's state legislature since 1922.
The buildings share many similarities, including a triangular pediment supported by four columns, two chimneys, and four windows on each level either side of the pediment.
Though it's a structure rather than a building per se, we just had to include the Eiffel Tower given its iconic status – the 1,083-foot wrought-iron lattice tower is, after all, one of the most famous constructions in the world.
Designed by engineer Gustave Eiffel and completed in 1889 as the centrepiece for the World's Fair that same year, the tower went on to inspire the Tokyo Tower, Blackpool Tower and other notable lookalikes.
Believe it or not, Gustave Eiffel got the idea for his masterpiece from America, basing his design on New York's Latting Observatory, a 290-foot iron-braced wooden tower that was built on 42nd Street for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in 1853.
Dubbed 'New York's first skyscraper', the observation tower burnt down in 1856, but the short-lived structure's legacy lives on in the Eiffel Tower and its many derivatives.
The Reichstag was completed in 1894 to house Germany's Imperial Diet (its parliament, from 1871-1918) and was the scene of the infamous false flag fire in 1933, which helped Adolf Hitler cement his power.
Following the blaze and subsequent bomb damage during the Second World War, the prominent dome was destroyed. It was later rebuilt in a contemporary style by Norman Foster, and the restored building now accommodates the nation's federal parliament.
Frankfurt architect Paul Wallot won the competition to design the building with his neo-Baroque creation.
It was actually modelled after Philadelphia's Memorial Hall, the main building of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, particularly the dome and Baroque-style decorative details. While the original Reichstag dome is, of course, long-gone, Memorial Hall's cupola still stands.
America's largest privately owned house, the beguiling Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, was built between 1889 and 1895 for George Washington Vanderbilt II, who hired celebrated architect Richard Morris Hunt to design the enormous country pad in the fashionable and fittingly grand château-esque style.
Vanderbilt and Hunt had gone on a recce in Europe before the design of the sprawling manse was finalised, visiting a number of stately homes, including Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild's recently completed neo-Renaissance Waddesdon Manor, in England.
Hunt took his inspiration from the house, which had been in term inspired by the Renaissance-style Château de Blois in France's Loire Valley, on which Biltmore's cantilevered stairwell and numerous other design features were modelled. Other buildings that inspired the final design include French châteaux such as Chenonceau and Chambord.
In 1894, heiress Florence Adele Vanderbilt Twombly and her husband Hamilton McKown Twombly commissioned top architectural firm McKim, Mead and White to build “a house on the order of an English country gentleman” in Madison, New Jersey.
The end result was the glorious 100-room Florham. Now part of Fairleigh Dickinson University, the Gilded Age manse is among the biggest in the US.
The primary inspiration was Christopher Wren's expansion of Hampton Court Palace, which was of course itself influenced big-time in design by the Palace of Versailles.
McKim, Mead and White mimicked myriad features of Wren's revamp, including the classical columns, rooftop balustrades and contrasting red brickwork and stone.
The seat of Hungary's parliament, this imposing landmark on the River Danube is the country's grandest building and then some.
Designed in an English neo-Gothic style by famed architect Imre Steindl and built between 1885 and 1904, the awe-inspiring structure pays homage to another world-famous parliament building.
Steindl reportedly based his showstopping building on London's Palace of Westminster, which was rebuilt in the English Gothic Revival style from 1840 to 1870 under the auspices of Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin.
While not overly alike, the buildings share a whole host of similarities including multiple towers, arched windows, flying buttresses and ornate stonework.
The stunning Met Life Tower looms 700 feet over Manhattan's Flatiron District and is one of New York's most beloved buildings.
Designed by the architectural firm Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, the early skyscraper was completed in 1909 to house the eponymous insurance company's HQ and was the world's tallest building until 1913, when it was surpassed in height by the Woolworth Building.
Napolean LeBrun & Sons based the design of the tower on St Mark's Campanile in Venice, and their similarities are evident.
Interestingly, the Manhattan icon, which is more than twice the height of the Venetian OG, is actually older than its model since the 16th-century Campanile collapsed in 1902 and was rebuilt with work completed in 1912.
The public face of London's most emblematic building, the east front of Buckingham Palace, was completed in 1850 by architect Edward Blore, who was given the job on account of his reputation for thriftiness.
The end result was underwhelming, while the cheap Caen stone rapidly deteriorated. In 1912, Aston Webb was commissioned to give the facade a majestic makeover and he turned to a country house up north for inspiration.
Webb is said to have modelled the redesigned facade, which was faced in premium Portland stone, after the South Range of Lyme Park, a magnificent Grade I-listed pile in Disley, Cheshire, which you may recognise as the location for Colin Firth's wet-shirt scene in the BBC's 1995 Pride and Prejudice adaptation.
The seat of the illustrious Legh family from 1398 to 1946, the stately home was reworked in the 1700s by Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni, who incorporated elements of both Palladium and Baroque design to spectacular effect.
Stealing the crown from the Met Life Tower in 1913, the 792-foot Woolworth Building was the world's tallest edifice until 1930, when 40 Wall Street pipped it to the post.
A wonderfully decorative neo-Gothic beauty, the tower is resplendent with ornate details reminiscent of the great medieval buildings of Europe.
As it happened, company boss Frank Woolworth gave the skyscraper's architect Cass Gilbert a picture of the Gothic Revival Victoria Tower, which is part of London's Palace of Westminster, to act as the model for the building.
Gilbert is also said to have garnered inspiration from the spire of Brussels Town Hall when coming up with the design.
Built to honour the assassinated 16th president of the US, the neo-Classical Lincoln Memorial was completed in 1922, 57 years after his death.
As iconic structures go, it really does takes some beating, appearing on the one-cent coin and five-dollar bill, and is, unsurprisingly, the most-visited monument in Washington DC.
The memorial's architect Henry Baker based the design on the Parthenon, the Greek temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, which was completed in 438 BC.
Baker's reasoning for the design stems from his belief that a memorial to such a renowned defender of democracy should be modelled after a structure from the birthplace of democracy, hence why he chose Ancient Greece's most famous building as the prototype.
India's Parliament House, aka Sansad Bhavan, was designed by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker, the British architects tasked with the planning and construction of New Delhi.
The handsome circular building opened in 1927 as the seat of the Imperial Legislative Council and became the nation's parliament following independence. It is being replaced by a new, larger structure and will be converted into a museum. Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India unveiled the new Parliament building in May 2023.
A number of archaeologists and historians are convinced Parliament House was inspired by the 11th-century Chausath Yogini Shiva temple in Morena, which is remarkably similar in form.
While there's no concrete evidence Lutyens and Baker were influenced by the perfectly round sacred structure, the architects did look to India's heritage when designing the buildings of New Delhi.
40 Wall Street lost the title of the world's tallest building to the newly completed Chrysler Building after just several weeks, but the beautiful Chrysler only retained it for a year.
In 1931, the 1,250-foot Empire State Building assumed the accolade and held on to it for an impressive 41 years. The Art Deco tower boasted a state of the art newfangled design.
Yet the sensational skyscraper isn't all that original. According to History, the architectural firm behind it, Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, modelled the topper of their magnus opus on another of their creations, the much smaller Reynolds Building in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which was completed in 1929.
The base, on the other hand, is more or less a copy of that of the Carew Tower in Cincinnati.
Liverpool's Modernist Catholic cathedral is loathed and loved in equal measure by the city's denizens. Its architect Frederick Gibberd won a global competition to design the edifice and the place of worship was completed in 1967.
Gibberd was arguably inspired by a cathedral many miles away.
Eminent critic Stephen Bayley has described Gibberd's creation in The Spectator as a “thin and brittle” take on Oscar Niemeyer's highly acclaimed Cathedral of Brasília, which was designed in 1958 and went on to win him the Pritzker Prize, architecture's top accolade.
Liverpool's version, however, is much-derided and has been plagued by flaw after flaw, so much so that the cathedral authorities ended up suing Gibberd for the botched construction, according to the Independent.
Inaugurated in 2010, the incredible Burj Khalifa in Dubai stands 2,717-feet-tall, dwarfing every other human-made structure on the planet.
Since its completion, the tower has become one of the world's most recognisable buildings and is now the most searched-for landmark online, acccording to Kuoni, with the Eiffel Tower taking second place.
Though an obvious inspiration for the world's loftiest building is Frank Lloyd Wright's mile-high Illinois tower, which never made it past the drawing board, the Burj Khalifa's chief architect Adrian Smith claims the design was actually influenced by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s unrealised glass-sheathed tower (pictured), which he dreamed up 1921, as well as Chicago's 1969 Lake Point Tower.
Piercing the London skyline, The Shard has fast-become one of best-known symbols of the UK capital. Completed in 2012, the pointy tower next to London Bridge station comes in at 1,016 feet, making it the country's tallest building and the highest in Western Europe.
When figuring out the design for the edifice, architect Renzo Piano examined 18th-century paintings of the city by the Venetian artist Canaletto.
While Piano's chief inspirations are said to have been the spires of churches by Christopher Wren and masts of sailing ships that feature heavily in Canaletto's depictions of London, the Shard's design was likely influenced by the wooden York Buildings Water Tower, which can be seen in several of Canaletto's paintings of the capital.
Eerily similar in form, the 70-foot landmark, which soared over the city, was erected in Westminster in the late 17th century and is thought to have stood until the construction of the Victoria Embankment in the 1860s.
While it may bear striking resemblance to a baronial hall, Belfast Castle was actually constructed in 1862 at the behest of the Marquis of Donegal.
The castle, which was completed in 1870, is made of beautiful pink Scrabo sandstone. It was described by Chairman of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, Sir Charles Brett, as “a rugged and determined exercise in the fullness of the Scottish Baronial style.”
With over 650 years of history behind it, Glamis Castle in Angus, Scotland, is perhaps most famous for having inspired the setting for Shakespeare’s Macbeth and it certainly bears more than a passing resemblance to Belfast Castle.
However, the baronial-style castle has been the home of real-life monarchs since 1372. The ancestral seat of the Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne, Glamis played host to Mary Queen of Scots and James V, and was also the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.
Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl Tower is a TV and radio tower which was completed in 1994. The towering building is 1,100 feet in height, making it the third tallest structure in Shanghai.
With 15 observation levels, as well as a 20-room hotel, exhibition facilities, and even a small shopping centre, the tower draws an estimated 2.8 million visitors a year with attractions like a revolving restaurant and even a roller coaster.
An icon of the Seattle skyline, the Space Needle was originally erected in 1962 for that year’s World’s Fair. Could it have been the inspiration for the Oriental Pearl Tower? Although smaller at 605 feet in total height, it boasts a 520-foot-high observation deck and was once the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River.
The design for the tower was the combination of the visions of two architects: Edward E. Carlson, who envisioned a giant balloon tethered to the ground, and John Graham, Jr, who was imagining a flying saucer.
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