The Towers look as if they’ve risen out of the desert itself in some strange, dystopian world. There are no trees, no cars, no bus stops, no parks, no playgrounds, no people. Just the towers. In a barren landscape 50km outside of Iran’s capital city, the Mehra Mer project in Pardis has been “under construction” for many years and by all accounts, it doesn’t sound like things are going quite according to plan. I’m not sure exactly the look they were going for, but it ended up looking like something out of a horror movie.

The plan was to build a readymade community equipped with public transportation, hospitals schools and even parks in the barren landscape. Little thought was given to the ecological conditions and it soon came to light that “some 200,000 units lacked access to water, heating and sewage systems”. Add in skyrocketing inflation rates in a struggling economy and it wasn’t long before the developers halted the project mid-construction.

The earthquake-proof towers were originally intended to help house the underprivileged, but Manolo says that goal has failed since only the middle class could afford to live in them with the worsening economy.

So now all that’s left is the empty shells of what should have been housing. It’s all gone to waste now, all that hard work for nothing. Mostly due to them not doing the proper research on the property before just making plans and putting these identical buildings up. Nothing would’ve or could survive here for long. Still a creepy sight to witness no doubt.