National Theatre of Iceland

Guðjón Samúelsson based his design for Iceland's National Theatre on old folktales of humans invited into elf palaces hidden inside giant rocks, aiming for an interior transcendental world of colour, light, dance and music. Construction began in 1929 but stalled three years in when funding ran out, forcing the government to introduce an entertainment tax just to keep the project moving; British soldiers then occupied the unfinished building during their WWII occupation of Iceland. The theatre finally opened to the public in April 1950, the same month Samúelsson died.