Abandoned spaces - Chinese Mall
I am fascinted by abandoned places -- buildings and other structures left to rot in the elements.
Here is an unusual one profiled in
the UAE publication: The National:
Mall of misfortune
The people who work at the South China Mall, in the muggy, factory-filled city of Dongguan, have the honor of passing each day in the biggest shopping mall on the face of the planet. In theory, it�s a glorious place: a seven-million-square-foot retail-and-entertainment behemoth in the heart of China�s southern Pearl River Delta, the wealthiest region in a nation that boasts the world�s biggest population and its fastest-growing major economy. The mall is part of China�s new arsenal of superlatives: the world�s largest airport terminal, the highest train track, the golf resort with the most holes.
The employees of this giant mall could, if they wanted, spend their breaks driving bumper cars, browsing for house-wares, strolling along a Venetian canal, petting fake herons in an indoor rain forest, or gazing at an eighty-five-foot replica of the Arc de Triomphe � all, of course, without leaving the premises. They could also picnic next to the bell tower of St Mark�s Square in Venice, soak up the ambience of San Francisco, or take a ride on the mall�s indoor-outdoor roller coaster, a 553-meter flying railway known as Kuayue Shi Kong, or �Moving Through Time and Space�.
As it happens, it�s just those things � time and space � that give so much trouble to the workers here. They have too much of both. On a recent Friday afternoon, an amusement-park employee, slouched in a forsaken ticket booth, tried to kill time by making origami. Another worker slept, with perfect impunity, on a table. In front of the haunted house attraction, one attendant was doing hand-stands while two others looked blankly on.
There was nothing else to do, because the South China Mall, which opened with great fanfare in 2005, is not just the world�s largest. With fewer than a dozen stores scattered through a space designed to house 1,500, it is also the world�s emptiest � a dusty, decrepit complex of buildings marked by peeling paint, dead light bulbs, and dismembered mannequins.
The Malls website is here:
South China Mall
Just WOW! That would be fun to browse through, hate to think of what the upkeep costs are...
Posted by DaveH at June 15, 2008 8:33 PM