AI artist Thierry Lechanteur visualizes Gaudí's unrealized Hotel Attraction

AI artist Thierry Lechanteur has created digital renders of Antoni Gaudí's speculative 1908 design for Hotel Attraction, a supertall skyscraper in New York that was never built. The visuals, part of Dezeen's Gaudí Centenary series, show a cluster of nine towers peaking at 360 meters in Lower Manhattan. Lechanteur described the project as "a ghost of an alternative New York" and "a nostalgia for a future that never happened." The images have gone viral on Instagram since being posted earlier this month. Gaudí's proposal, commissioned by two unknown American businessmen, included a hotel, theater, gallery, restaurants, and a viewpoint called the Space Tower. The design remained obscure until published by collaborator Joan Matamala i Flotats in 1956, and was later submitted to the 2003 World Trade Center memorial competition. Lechanteur used AI models including ImagineArt, combined with Photoshop, to produce the renders, calling his process "closer to an editing room than to a single shot." He has been creating AI-based architectural visuals since 2022.