A Sky-High Memorial to Qatar's Rising World-Cup Death Toll

Construction accidents, heat stroke, disease spread by lousy living conditions—these are the things that have killed more than 1,000 migrant workers preparing for Qatar's 2022 World Cup. And with the oil-rich country making little headway with safety reforms, experts forecast the death toll could swell to 4,000 by the time the first soccerball hits the field.

Should all this human destruction go unhonored? The folks at the French/Chilean experimental-architecture concern 1Week1Project think not. They've drafted designs for one of the most gloomy and least-subtle memorials possible: a towering citadel in the middle of the killing desert, made from huge stones that each represent one lost Nepalese worker. (About half of Qatar's World Cup labor force hails from Nepal and India.)