The Arc de Triomphe, the Sydney Opera House and Tower Bridge are all instantly recognisable city landmarks.
But it turns out they could have all looked very different if these rejected designs had been given the go-ahead instead.
From a pyramid-like Lincoln Memorial to a futuristic-shaped Tribune Tower, GoCompare commissioned a series of illustrations showing how some of the world’s best-known cities could have looked.
Arc de Triomphe, Paris
The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, left, honours France’s war veterans but in 1758 there had been a plan to build a giant elephant, right, on the same spot
The Arc de Trimophe, which was formerly opened in 1836, stands proudly in the heart of Paris at the end of the Champs-Élysées and centre of Place Charles de Gaulle.
It was commissioned to honour those who lost their lives fighting for France in both the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
But many years earlier in 1758, architect Charles Ribart proposed a plan to erect a giant elephant on the same spot.
The elephant would have had three levels that would have been accessible via a spiral staircase and a drainage system that would run through the animal’s trunk.
However, the French government rejected his plans, although later granted Napoleon permission to build a similar Elephant of Bastille in 1813 that was demolished in 1846.
Tower Bridge, London
Tower Bridge in London, left, is a major tourist attraction but one design for the bridge was a curved shape
For tourists, no trip to London would be complete without snapping a selfie next to the city’s most instantly recognisable bridge.
But in 1876 the City of London Corporation had to wade through 50 different designs for the crossing after announcing they were to build another bridge across the Thames.
The bridge had to be built downstream of London Bridge without disrupting the busy river traffic.
And one of those designs was by F.J Palmer, who proposed featuring moveable platforms at either end of the bridge, as GoCompare’s illustration shows.
However, that and 48 other designs were rejected in favour of the one by Sir Horace Jones, who was the City of London Architect and had also came up with the plans for famous London markets Smithfield, Billingsgate and Leadenhall.
Sydney Opera House
The sails of the Sydney Opera House, left, are much more pleasing than a rejected design by the conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Opened in 1973, the Sydney Opera House is one of the instantly recognisable sights Down Under.
And in 1955, an international design competition was launched for architects to submit their plans.
One of them was by Sir Eugene Goossens, the conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, who designed it with perfect acoustics.
However, it was submission 218 out of 223 by Danish architect Jom Utzon, which featured a sail boat design, that was picked as the winner.
The Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C
Those in charge of building the Lincoln Memorial preferred the design by Henry Bacon, left, rather than the one by John Russell Pope, right
In 1911, US Congress approved the building of the Lincoln Memorial with the Commission of Fine Arts recommending Henry Bacon as the prime candidate to design the landmark.
But John Russell Pope was also eager to put forward his own proposals, and the Memorial Commission gave him the opportunity to submit designs.
When Potomac Park was finally selected as the location for the memorial, Pope submitted a pyramid-like design.
However, the Memorial Commission preferred Bacon’s plans despite Pope’s design being highly regarded in the architecture community.
Tribune Tower, Chicago
The Tribune Tower in Chicago, left, was built to mark the 745th anniversary of the Chicago Tribune but almost ended up in a cylinder shape
To mark its 75th anniversary the publisher of the Chicago Tribune along with local politician Colonel Robert R McCormic, challenged architects to design ‘the most beautiful office building in the world’.
They received submissions from over 260 architects in 23 countries, including a pyramidal design by Bruno Taut.
But the winner was a neo-Gothic design by New York architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood.