If you’ve not heard about the UFO houses in Taiwan, we’re going to tell it. And although this story isn’t strictly art-related, we couldn’t help but marvel at what an incredible canvas or artist’s playground this extraordinary set of forgotten buildings might make for a series of public art installations, projection mappings or street art.
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It’s a story of abandoned architecture and a community that never arrived. In fact, the ‘UFO’ Sanzhi pods on the northern coast of Taiwan would make a great setting for a film about such deserted worlds. The futuristic ‘UFO’ houses as they are called were originally designed – and partly built – as part of a vacation resort during the early 1980′s, where free-spirited hippies and the like could come on holiday. But alas, it was not to be when too many fatal injuries were caused during its construction (although some reports suggest that it was something more sinister, and the deaths were covered up by the government). Abandoned before any of the UFO pods had their interiors, and in some cases, exterior shells completed, the vacation resort became a forgotten dream.
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The strange pods, in green, pink, blue and white now take on their’plan b’ role as a tourist attraction, intriguing all visitors by their overtly sad, purposeless existence, but still managing to contain a mysterious beauty and a life that could’ve been, but ceased to exist.
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The ghost town that now remains looks like this…
Half a Sanzhi UFO house
Dirty and derelict, the northern quarters of the Sanzhi houses
Ghost town in Taiwan
And what could’ve been…
The original vision
