Fordlandia


I do like a good bit of Ozymandias-style hubris, and I stumbled across some this morning when I discovered some information on a failed utopia in the Brazilian jungle

- the improbably named
Fordlândia - a now-abandoned, prefabricated industrial town in the Amazon. Established in 1928 by American industrialist Henry Ford, the town was intended for the purpose of supplying his company with its own source of rubber for the tires on his Model T cars.

Unfortunately for Henry, his belief in his own omnipotence meant that the whole thing was doomed to failure from the very start. The rubber trees from Malaysia didn't like the soil, the indigenous workers didn't like being treated like slaves and then some bright spark invented synthetic rubber, making the whole place obsolete.


The ruins are now being swept from the face of history by the inexorable march of the jungle.




8 comments:

Gareth Williams said...

Should have got Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski involved - would have been fine then.

worm said...

aguirre? I always thought that the production of that film was as much a journey into the heart of darkness as the film itself?

good film though!

Brit said...

There have been a few semi-successes at this sort of thing - Cadbury's Bournville, Port Sunlight etc. There's something a bit uncomfortable and cultish about artificial model villages though.

worm said...

have you ever been to Poundbury Brit? I hear that thats pretty weird, full of royal cultists

Brit said...

No I haven't, but it looks interesting. Prince Charles is certifiable, isn't he?

Gareth Williams said...

Flap-eared tosser, he is.

worm said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
worm said...

he is a plonker

I've never been able to take him seriously since the 'tampon' quote from 'camillagate' - not because of the weirdness of the sentiment, but because I feel so crushingly embarassed on his behalf just thinking about everybody knowing about it.