San Zhi Abandoned City

I came across a flickr set today with some amazing pictures of an abandoned housing complex called San Zhi outside of Taipei, Taiwan. A google search didn’t bring up much information, but from what I can gather, it was apparently built in the early 1980s as a series of vacation homes marketed towards affluent Taipei residents seeking to get out of the city. The speculation about why the site was abandoned varies, with the most interesting being that a series of fatal accidents occurred during construction, causing locals to believe the site was haunted, and therefore instigating the developer’s decision to stop construction (and also putting a stop to any future redevelopment). A more mundane reason listed for the abandonment was the developer running out of money, but I’ll go with the first reason, thank you! Architecturally speaking the houses are super cool, being very futuristic for the 80’s (even by today’s standards) with the cantilevered, modular pods houses (think Archigram). Check out more amazing photos from two flickr sets after the jump!