Sicily's 'Archaeological Park of the Unfinished' showcases abandoned architecture

The collective Alterazioni Video, with Enrico Sgarbi and Claudia D'Aita, has identified Giarre in Sicily as the emblematic site of Italy's unfinished public architecture, coining the 'Parco Archeologico dell'Incompiuto Siciliano'. This paradoxical archaeological park contains structures built between the mid-1950s and early 2000s, left incomplete due to administrative changes, funding cuts, design errors, and electoral promises. Notable examples include a 49-meter Olympic swimming pool (instead of the regulation 50 meters), a flower market, a model car track, the Chico Mendez children's park, a theater under construction for 52 years, and an athletics stadium with unscalable stands. The phenomenon extends across Italy, with about 360 unfinished buildings cataloged, concentrated in the South but also present in the North, such as the Milano-Cremona waterway started in the 1960s and abandoned in the 1970s. Internationally, similar cases include the Kangbashi district in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, the Nova Cidade de Kilamba in Angola, and the propaganda village of Kijong-Dong in North Korea. The article references Freud's concept of derealization and Marc Augé's theories on ruins. A subsequent letter from lawyer Alfredo Grasso on behalf of architect Salvatore Patanè disputes the claim about the swimming pool's dimensions, stating it was designed as 25m x 33.33m and not intended for Olympic use; the project was abandoned due to contractor bankruptcy.