UFO Houses, Ruins of the Future, now just a memory [30 Pics]

The weird and wonderful Sanzhi Pod City, or UFO houses (on account of their flying saucer-like shape), was an abandoned resort complex in Taiwan. Pod City was marketed as a holiday resort for U.S. military personnel posted to East Asia.

The original idea for the UFOs came from Sanjhih Township plastics manufacturer Yu-chou Co. The first construction license was issued in 1978 and the idea for the design came from Matti Suuronen, an architect from Finland, but construction stopped in 1980 when Yu-chou went bankrupt.

Unfortunately his company went bankrupt in 1980 and the project work was stopped. Efforts to revive the project didn’t succeed. There were several accidents which many superstitious said were due to damage to some Chinese dragon during construction activities. Many also felt that the area was haunted. End result was that the entire township was abandoned, left uncompleted and soon became a ghost town.

Ultimately the buildings were scheduled to be torn down in late 2008, despite an petitions to retain one of the structures as a museum. It is understood that this was not agreed to and work on demolition began on 29 December 2008. The following images are a tribute to the UFO Houses in Sazhi, or the Ruins of the Future. [35 Pictures]

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