G Auad, a reader of The Artificial owl nicely sent me some pictures of this incredible abandoned building located in the mountains of his country, Bulgaria. This is the first inclusion on AO of a reader's suggestion, and frankly I hope to get a lot more, because this one is great. Thanks G Auad!
The flying saucer shape building is called the Buzludzha Monument, It is located in Buzludzha National Park in the Central Stara Planina, right in the middle of Bulgaria.
So what is the story of this construction exactly? In 1891 the socialists led by Dimitar Blagoev assembled secretly in the area to form an organised socialist movement. In honour of this act was built the Buzludzha Monument, one of the symbols of the socialism in Bulgaria. The building is now abandoned but still stands alone in the most beautiful landscape.
coordinates : 42°44'07.85"N 25°23'39.20"E
google map
pictures sources : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
text source : 1 2
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The Futuro house was a product of post-war Finland, reflecting the period's faith in technology, the conquering of space, unprecedented economic growth, and an increase in leisure time. It was designed by Suuronen as a ski cabin that would be “quick to heat and easy to construct in rough terrain.”
The end result was a universally transportable home that had the ability to be mass replicated and situated in almost any environment.
By the mid 1970s the house was taken off the market, arguably due to poor marketing, but primarily due to the Oil Crisis where tripled gasoline prices made manufacture of plastic extremely expensive. It is estimated that today somewhere between 60 and 100 of the original Futuro homes survive.
coordinates : 32°53'53.18"N 96°18'00.16"W
google map
pictures sources : 1 2
text source : 1
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An abandonned hotel on the north coast of taiwan, than was never finished.
" First of all, what are they made of?
Well, you can easily realize that if you see them first hand. The flying saucer parts are made of fiberglass. This is not surprising at all since here on the north coast one of the main businesses is the construction of fiberglass yachts. The fiberglass is attached to a central column made of ferrcement.
Next, what happened to it?
Well, I've heard a dozen version of this one, but the one I tend to put the most faith in, because it is fairly common in Taiwanese real estate development as well as having the flavor of mundane reality, is that there was a falling out of the partners towards the end of construction. Also, consider that this was approximately the time of the biggest real estate bubble in history which was even bigger than the one in the US today, that is the Japanese real estate bubble of the eighties. This is a relic from that era and while you may protest that Taiwan in not Japan. Well, it's a long story but suffice it to say that Taiwan is indeed a former colony of Japan and their economies are interrelated in many complex ways and Taiwan's real estate was certainly caught up in a huge bubble at that time. The house I'm in now was worth around half a million in those days. Today it probably couldn't get a hundred and fifty. So, it's really not too mysterious what happened if you know a bit about the economic history of real estate in Taiwan.
What was it meant to be?
This one is pretty easy if you look around the place. It was something like a hotel/amusement park/spa kind of thing. Again, this is no surprise if you're in the area and have a chance to peek around. There were two very large and complex swimming pools with water slides in the middle of it that may have had other features like a wave machine. It wasn't meant to be single family housing or anything like that. It was more like a fancy hotel or resort. Although it's cool to think of living there as a permanent residence, I assume it was too costly for that sort of thing."
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