One of the strangest examples of architecture gone awry is the San-Zhi Pod Village.
The San-Zhi pod village is an abandoned pod hotel/ housing development/ apartment complex in the small town of San-Zhi (三芝) on the north coast of Taiwan.
It is unclear as to whether San-Zhi was meant to be a hotel or a housing development.
It was constructed in the 1960s.
It included a dam to protect it against the sea.
Its floors and stairs were made of marble.
It had its own small amusement park.
The site was commissioned by the government and local firms.
Unsurprisingly, there is no named architect.
Inexplicably, the project was abandoned and the complex was left in its unfinished state.
It was demolished in 2009.
About fifty photos and a few videos are all that remains of the pod village of San-Zhi.
Photographer Craig Ferguson has an online archive of his photographs of San-Zhi:
http://www.filemagazine.org/projects/taiwan/
And here is the wikipedia entry for the San-Zhi pod village:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanzhi_UFO_houses
The San-Zhi Pod Village, Taiwan
(c) R J Dent (2011)
R J Dent 