The Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano said, "In the history of mankind, every act of destruction finds its answer, sooner or later, in an act of creation". Architecture is, above all, construction. But sometimes destruction plays an important role. And on these occasions, one cannot be understood without the other. This case is one of them: the destruction of a group of skyscrapers that were demolished in just forty-five seconds.
The event occurred in 2021 in the Chinese city of Kunming, the capital of the southern province of Yunnan. As we can see in the footage, 15 buildings underwent an impressive controlled destruction process. Despite the ferocity seen in the video, one of them even managed to stay standing and was demolished a few days later.
Construction for this complex, called Sunshine City II, began in 2011. However, the developer, Kunming Xifang Company, soon ran out of capital and sold the unfinished development to another company, Yunxi Real Estate. Work on the residential project stopped in 2013, and the unfinished skyscrapers have been abandoned ever since. Another company, Yunnan Panheng Real Estate, bought the complex in November 2020, along with its $3.6 million debt. The new owners identified significant quality defects in the unfinished buildings, and demolition was requested to replace it with new lower-rise apartment buildings.
The complex was finally demolished on 27 August. Kunming Daily reported that 4.6 metric tonnes of explosives were installed in some 85,000 detonation points in the buildings. More than 5,300 surrounding residents had to be evacuated to carry out the work, and each household received about $23 in compensation. After the explosion, the entire neighbourhood was shrouded in dust, as seen in the live broadcast.
Aftermath of the real estate crisis in China
As shocking as the event was, it was not an isolated incident but a scheme designed by the country's authorities. For years, the government allocated land for large-scale infrastructure projects to boost economic growth, and developers received large amounts of debt to carry out the construction.
However, due to an aggressive urban development model and debt-driven construction, uninhabited or unfinished buildings started to multiply, creating ghost cities. With them came huge debt, as was the Evergrande Group's case, one of the country's largest real estate developers, with an outstanding debt of more than USD 300 billion in 2021.
To address the situation, the government made a U-turn and opted for a policy summarised as "build, pause, demolish, repeat". With this measure, it tried to limit supply, prevent property prices from falling and boost economic activity through more construction. As a result, to revive the stagnant property market, the government is halting construction projects and demolishing buildings, skyscrapers and housing projects that could house more than 75 million people.