Mobutu Sese Seko. Or what remains of a community that is best described with "He built this city"...
![[Image: 984b77c6-0ee5-44e1-8933-160e3120f971-206...490887c191]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/2/10/1423563972550/984b77c6-0ee5-44e1-8933-160e3120f971-2060x1236.jpeg?w=1300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=c255c24f1c178d9581bac7490887c191)
He knew how to play the Cold War. Much like Ceausescu, he posed as non-aligned but adopted the worst ways of ornamentation paid for with his thieving. Unlike some of the other excesses of display, this is mostly in ruin. But the now-defunct Concorde flew to his Xanadu, a one-time village named Gbadolite (no, that is not the name of some obscure mineral) -- his birthplace.
His taste?
![[Image: 58a4b323-fee1-4003-9b6e-2dcbd2c0c829-206...9c9ddb70e6]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/2/10/1423568493908/58a4b323-fee1-4003-9b6e-2dcbd2c0c829-2060x1236.jpeg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=ec5a25dfec0c9e5cb58ba39c9ddb70e6)
One of the surviving bronze lions. Now the old "Here be lions" is almost appropriate for Gbadolite. Except that lions are not truly creatures of the jungle.
OK, so a tropical rainforest is hardly the place in which a grandiose place keeps the merit that Nazi esthetics deemed 'ruin value' -- that the ruins would impress people long after the building had largely crumbled. (That is a sick concept; it is more important that something built for other than temporary purposes, such as an Olympic venue for obscure sports or temporary housing for a temporary worksite have the desirability that allows it to be preserved long beyond the creator's lifetime. As an example, the White House is a high-maintenance building). The most impressive ruins are to be found in hot deserts like Egypt, or such hot semi-deserts like the Anatolian or Iranian plateaus or hot places that would be deserts but for a short, chilly, rainy season like the sites of Carthage, Rome, Pompeii, Athens. or Istanbul. Maybe after the USA is gone the gambling casinos of Las Vegas, the skyscrapers of Los Angeles and San Diego, and the Mormon Temple at Salt Lake City will outlast the skyscrapers of New York City and the petrochemical installations of Houston. But Gbadolite is in ruins within twenty years of the death of its 'builder'.
Article and images here.
Meanwhile the Trump Taj Mahal and the Trump Casino, places of ruin economic for many of their gulled guests, exist awaiting new buyers.
He knew how to play the Cold War. Much like Ceausescu, he posed as non-aligned but adopted the worst ways of ornamentation paid for with his thieving. Unlike some of the other excesses of display, this is mostly in ruin. But the now-defunct Concorde flew to his Xanadu, a one-time village named Gbadolite (no, that is not the name of some obscure mineral) -- his birthplace.
His taste?
One of the surviving bronze lions. Now the old "Here be lions" is almost appropriate for Gbadolite. Except that lions are not truly creatures of the jungle.
OK, so a tropical rainforest is hardly the place in which a grandiose place keeps the merit that Nazi esthetics deemed 'ruin value' -- that the ruins would impress people long after the building had largely crumbled. (That is a sick concept; it is more important that something built for other than temporary purposes, such as an Olympic venue for obscure sports or temporary housing for a temporary worksite have the desirability that allows it to be preserved long beyond the creator's lifetime. As an example, the White House is a high-maintenance building). The most impressive ruins are to be found in hot deserts like Egypt, or such hot semi-deserts like the Anatolian or Iranian plateaus or hot places that would be deserts but for a short, chilly, rainy season like the sites of Carthage, Rome, Pompeii, Athens. or Istanbul. Maybe after the USA is gone the gambling casinos of Las Vegas, the skyscrapers of Los Angeles and San Diego, and the Mormon Temple at Salt Lake City will outlast the skyscrapers of New York City and the petrochemical installations of Houston. But Gbadolite is in ruins within twenty years of the death of its 'builder'.
Article and images here.
Meanwhile the Trump Taj Mahal and the Trump Casino, places of ruin economic for many of their gulled guests, exist awaiting new buyers.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.