City of the Future, Taiwan 1960s

May 27, 2008 10:56 AM

City of the Future, Taiwan 1960s
posted by socalsamba (13 comments total)

Cool spot. Pity about the ham-fisted photoshopping on some of them. The ones left 'natural' look better.

Retro-future is always fun, though. Just think how wrong we'll turn out to have been fifty years from now.
posted by echo target at 11:10 AM on May 27, 2008

That's great. The story is great, the situation is interesting and the pictures are pretty intriguing. Nice find. It was less depressing after reading the story behind it, though it's sad that workmen died during construction.
posted by cashman at 11:14 AM on May 27, 2008

Toronto has its own abandoned houses of the future.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:18 AM on May 27, 2008

I think there's some more pictures of the same site on Flickr.
posted by gerryblog at 11:32 AM on May 27, 2008

I love abandoned buildings.
posted by Korou at 11:37 AM on May 27, 2008

BoingBoing seems to re-run this every few years. I guess they don't have people out checking for doubles.
posted by GuyZero at 12:15 PM on May 27, 2008

bad-ass.
posted by delmoi at 1:47 PM on May 27, 2008

I too am fascinated with abandoned buildings, ever since I took a short tour of a jail house in Helena, MT, when I was 10 years old or so (if you'll indulge me). In the mid 80's, I lived in Helena right smack next to the aforementioned jail house (built during the gold/silver rush?). Our backyard ended against a high wall of the jail, so naturally sporting equipment was lost over the wall during the years. Rather then buy new equipment, my mother sent my sister and I to the modern jail house (about a block away, next to the current courthouse) to petition entry to the old building. They subsequently sent us to the courthouse grounds keeper, who escorted us into and through the old building, all the way back to a rather small exercise yard (yes, strange isn't it that the local government would sanction an on-the-spot tour of one of their abandoned buildings for 2 young citizens?). I don't remember it looking very much like how I thought an old jail house should look; no discernible barred cells/detention areas, etc. Undoubtedly looted by the Historical Society, the only interesting item we encountered was a massive coal stove. My sister and I collected our frisbees, baseballs, etc., and were on our way. The building has since been renovated, and is now a repertory theater, I believe.
posted by Brocktoon at 3:38 PM on May 27, 2008

Recent ruins are great, always fun to see pictures like these (though I agree with echo target on the photoshopping). The flickr set gerryblog linked to is a good complement to the OP, too: nice to see these things from different angles. They're really very striking. It's a shame they aren't inhabited, actually. Seems a waste...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:11 PM on May 27, 2008

I once took a round trip bus from Taipei to Yeliu, which passes by these abandoned pods. We hadn't even heard of them, so to see them from the road was quite a surprise. We tried to get the bus driver to stop and let us off, but he wouldn't. Nobody on the bus knew what they were, so it took a long time to figure out what on earth was going on there.
posted by gemmy at 4:58 PM on May 27, 2008

You can see more of the photographer's images here.
(Full disclosure: Craig is a friend of mine. We used to shoot together in Taiwan. Check out more of his work on his website.)
posted by pantagrool at 10:41 PM on May 27, 2008

City of the Future, Taiwan 1960s PS > "
I think there's some more pictures of the same site on Flickr."
posted by deric at 11:50 PM on May 30, 2008

If you like ruins.... schedule your next vacation in New Mexico. Half the state is turning to dust under a blazing sky.

The sheer number of cars rusting into oblivion is staggaring.
posted by answergrape at 12:50 PM on June 2, 2008