The Heaviest Building Ever Moved

Imagine finding out your spectacular, historic stone mansion is sitting right in the path of a brand-new city road. Instead of destroying it with wrecking balls, the city of Baku decided to simply pick up the entire house and push it out of the way!

The city hired an expert engineering team to save the building. Workers carefully dug underneath the massive structure, severed it from its original foundation, and laid down a perfectly smooth track made of steel and concrete rails.

Using nine ultra-powerful hydraulic jacks, engineers slowly pushed the intact, 18,000-tonne mansion 35 feet down the street. Creeping along inch by inch, the record-breaking move took five entire days—proving that with enough science, anything is possible!

How Is That Even Possible?

Engineers used massive hydraulic jacks, which are machines that use pressurized liquid to multiply force. Because liquid cannot be squeezed into a smaller space, pumping fluid into a tight cylinder creates immense pressure—enough to slide an 18,000-tonne stone building along a low-friction steel track.