The city lies empty to this day (Image: Getty)
You may associate Mongolia for its glittering lakes and vast expanses of hilly terrain, but once upon a time, a section south of Ordos was carved out for next big mega city.
Once envisioned to house over a million inhabitants, the new town of Kangbashi in northern China is now home to merely a tenth of its projected population.
In the early 2000s, Chinese government officials into the city’s development in Inner Mongolia.
Empty high-rise buildings loom over silent streets, creating an atmosphere that many visitors have called “post-apocalyptic.” The outcome, as per French photographer Raphael Olivier, is a ” full of contradictions.”
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High rise buildings have been left to the elements (Image: Getty)
Millions was invested into the city (Image: Getty)
Olivier described covering parts of the 137 square mile expanse saying, “I was just keen to take my time, and walk through different districts, and almost in a catalogue way, find as many interesting structures as possible.
“There’s the super-modern edgy Ordos Museum [by MAD Architects], the more boring, modern Chinese residential blocks, unfinished projects from Ordos 100 [a project by Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei to invite 100 architects from 27 countries to design for Ordos] as well as the influence of Soviet-style architecture,” Olivier added.
“This mix is only really possible in China because it’s the only country that is both communist and has the money and power to attract so many architects from abroad.”
Olivier argued the “ghost town” label doesn’t capture the ongoing growth of the city. “Foreigners consider the city to be abandoned,” he said.”Chinese consider the city to be still developing.”
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Many projects are left unfinished (Image: Getty)
Further highlighting the skewed perspective, he added, “A lot of the early news reports focus on it being a failed, weird place – but it’s also a huge accomplishment and people there are not necessarily unhappy, there is a huge sense of hope.
“You have to respect that on a certain level.”
Olivier was attracted to the “” atmosphere created by the contrast between the deserted large-scale buildings and the surrounding desert.
He captured the ghost town and its partially finished architectural wonders in his series titled “A Failed Utopia”. His striking yet strangely surreal images focus on the city’s ambitious projects rather than its “empty streets.”