Arnau Rovira is a photographer who found himself in Turkmenistan by accident. From Barcelona, he recalls the story of how he found himself in its capital, Ashgabat, accompanying sports journalists for the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games. This Central Asian country, a former colony of the USSR, is known not only for its strict access and control restrictions but also for its white and golden structures that create a futuristic city near the border with Iran.
"For some time, former President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov had a strong desire to set Guinness World Records and sought to build as many white marble buildings as possible," says Arnau Rovira. This ambition was supported by the country's wealth -one of the world's largest reserves of gas - which is likely to soon attract global media attention. "Portraying the reality unfolding there through architecture seems interesting to me."
In the photographs, no people are visible, only immense structures that appear empty, as if it were a ghost city. We also see part of the construction of the village and the Olympic stadium, which had an elevated railway but was apparently only used briefly for the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games event. At the moment, there doesn't seem to be a clear future for these facilities.
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The photographic report of Turkmenistan by Arnau Rovira is now featured in the photobook "A Trilogy of Unusual Architectures" (Noom Books 2020). In addition to the series "A Ghost City," it also includes "Fantasia Resorts" and "Los Cholets," distinctive buildings of Andean architecture developed in Bolivia. If you are interested, you can purchase "A Trilogy of Unusual Architectures" at the following link.
