Book Review: Archiflop

Archiflop

Written by Alessandro Biamonti

Published by Niggli in 2017

Sub-titled “A guide to the most spectacular failures in the history of modern and contemporary architecture”, it was published three years ago. I only read it this month (January 2020) – and it amazed me! Tales in this book show money spent on buildings – and leading to bankruptcy of the designers. Some of those were build for a population, but very few people ever moved into any of them. Some other tales tell of non-inhabitant buildings, such as a railway station, an entertainment park, a community built out at sea. Nothing of them used today.

Biamonti is an architect and a professor at the Department of Design in Milan, Italy. He has been specialising in the “anthropological dimension design” for years. He now gives public lectures and conferences where interested people might be happy to find out about these kind of buildings and properties, but this book may intrigue a lot more people – perhaps not too many interested in the “anthropological dimension design” but in the money wasted on these properties. On the first page, titled “Failure”, Biamonti said “We are living in a moment in history when the concept of failure is being reinterpreted, especially through the search for and proposal of new reasons to conceive it as an opportunity rather than a problem.” I see the reasons to conceive certainly as a problem, not an opportunity.

Kangbashi New Area is in Ordos, China. It cost the country “160 billion dollars of public money” in 2004, yet there are only around 30,000 people living there when it is a huge area and was originally intended for a million people. Cranes are left on the roofs of the tall apartment buildings: the builders didn’t intend to finish them if there were no more than the 30,000 who have moved in.

Nova Cicade de Kilamba in Angola, Africa, was planned in 2008 for half a million population. Now there are only 220 apartments sold, out of 2,800. Angola is one of the wealthiest countries in Africa, yet the majority of the population can afford to buy one in Nova Cicade, let alone rent one.

In the 1980s and 1990s, thirty years ago, the Charleroi Metro was built, but has never been opened to the public since the population dwindled after the steel industry crisis. The Cinderella City Mall, built in Englewood in Colorado, USA, was opened in 1968 but was abandoned in 1995: such a huge three level mall building built in a town with only 30,000 population. The Torre Abraham Lincoln in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was started in 1969, but it has never been finished and only 250 of the 454 apartments have been sold. Building the Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea had commenced in 1987, but it still hasn’t been finished.

Kowloon Walled City was in Hong Kong, and was so densely populated that sunshine couldn’t get in within the interconnected skyscrapers: they looked like a ghetto. Britain and China decided to demolish the city, and that happened between 1991-1993. Residents received some compensation – the Hong Kong government “was forced to pay out 2.7 billion Hong Kong dollars”.

There are other tales in this book, along with so many excellent – and sad – photos. I wonder how on earth can “rich” people spend their money for buildings, parks and entertainment which are not used? Where is their money for the people who really need it?

In the end of the book Biamonti gave a “half-serious glossary” which listed the meanings of the demolition, deterioration, economic crisis, futuristic, landmark, ruin, skeleton and unfinished construction, and others. For me, that wasn’t “half-serious”. It was very, very sad.