Squelettes: buildings that never made it

Bruce Sterling wants a new word to describe buildings that are abandoned part way through construction due to economic bad times:

*Another version is the abandoned, incomplete high-rise. Commonly a steel and cement framework is erected (because that's pretty easy), and then there's some legal or economic brouhaha and the builders just down tools and walk off. In Brazil a skeleton framework of this kind is called a "squelette."

*Occasionally squatters move into "squelettes" and bring in some breeze-block, corrugated tin and plastic hoses, transforming squelettes into high-rise favelas. This doesn't work very well because it's tough to manage the utilities, especially the water...

*It bothers me to use clumsy circumlocutions like "unfinished ruins" or "partially built, yet abandoned structures" or "stillborn highrises" for a phenomenon that is so common and so obvious to billions of urban people, so henceforth I am going to call them "squelettes." They don't have to be Brazilian, French, or 80 stories tall, either.

*The thing I find most intriguing and modern about the squelette is the concept of living in a structure that never made it as a structure. Since I spend some time in Belgrade and Turin, I'm quite familiar with the idea of living in ruins. The idea of living in *abandoned prototypes* or giant failed larval husks is very contemporary, very New Depression. Very "Favela Chic."

Ruins of the Present

[#1 posted by Anonymous, June 23, 2009 10:41 PM]

For all you anglo-saxons out there, squelette is french for skeleton:)

[#2 posted by Anonymous, June 24, 2009 12:03 AM]

Being a fan of the way the name of the band Einstürzende Neubauten trips off the tongue how about Totgeboren Neubauten? Stillborn New-Build/ing...

[#3 posted by Ernunnos, June 24, 2009 1:34 AM]

"Favela chic"? Never mind stillborn buildings, can we just abort that term?

[#4 posted by saul goode, June 24, 2009 1:36 AM]

a word thats been floating around Philly for 20 years just landed on my right ear - ADBANDONMINIUM . not a perfect fit, but is replacing adbandoned-new-construction in my vocabulary. squelette? we'll see if it gets traction haha

[#5 posted by Odessa, June 24, 2009 2:52 AM]

Gramatically correct would be "Totgeborene Neubauten" :-)

Also, in German, there is a term for that kind of thing: "Bauruine" (which translates, quite simply, to construction ruin).

[#6 posted by Manko, June 24, 2009 4:04 AM]

I'm told in Bangladesh developers only pay real estate taxes on projects that have already been completed, so there's a strong incentive to build a building and move people in without finishing the top floor.

Back in Lesotho the landscape was studded with old huts that had lost their grass roofs in fires (either from accidents or to purge witches) and newer, unfinished cinderblock structures that ran out of money between the wall phase and the roof phase. This became a common metaphor for the Basotho's chronic inabiity to budget for sustainable projects - "Your house has no roof" also applied to the guy who opened a lovely little coffee shop but had no budget for inventory (e.g. coffee).

[#7 posted by bjacques, June 24, 2009 5:05 AM]

The Ryu-gyong Hotel in Pyongyang would have carried off the prize, but apparently Orascom Group of Egypt are resuming construction.

[#8 posted by Tangolomango, June 24, 2009 6:37 AM]

A skeleton framework in Brazil is called "esqueleto".

[#9 posted by Anonymous, June 24, 2009 8:01 AM]

"Favela chic", ah yes, and after that we can have "disaster couture" or perhaps "torture mode."

Git.

[#10 posted by Clay, June 24, 2009 8:10 AM]

@7 Bjacques:

Wait, what? The dead colossus known as Ryugyong is revenant?

Wow. Wikipedia's February 2009 photo indeed says it all.

Glass. on the Ryugyong. It's like the druids came back to finish Stonehenge.

[#11 posted by Halloween Jack, June 24, 2009 2:48 PM]

I seriously doubt that the Ryugyong is "revenant". Some sheets of glass and shrouding the upper floors do not a functioning hotel make.

[#12 posted by TPurton, June 25, 2009 11:48 PM]

The word at fualt here is "building" for something that has already been built. An incomplete structure should be called "building" because people are building it - we need a new word for the finished product, maybe a built?

[#13 posted by massimo.poti, June 27, 2009 3:46 AM]

You might find of your interest the works of DPPP (acronym for Dr. Porka's P-Proj) a group of artist from Italy specialising in exploring cities and suburbs looking for squelettes to use as a stage for a performance featuring their main character, you guessed it: Dr. Porka. Their aim is to make people aware of these monuments to illegality they often get used to and don't "see" anymore, while at the same time giving those squelettes a new meaning, a new sense, a new function (often their very first and only).

You can have a look at their work at their website, (www.porka.biz) where you can read their manifesto too.