Abandoned skyscrapers

“Paradise exists: it is here!” That was the tagline for Barra, an affluent area of Rio de Janeiro, in the 1960s, and the oddly named Torre Abraham Lincoln was supposed to offer a new, luxurious form of urban living to Brazilian residents who could afford it. The 37-floor circular tower suffered not just from the failure of the prestigious urban island lifestyle concept (74 similar planned towers were never built) but a host of other issues and has stood empty ever since. In 2004, more than 300 people squatted in the tower to highlight its plight and a 2010 art project by two Dutch artists attempted the same, but the tower may be demolished in the lead-up to the 2016 Rio Olympics.