Abandoned houses town.

For all those who thought the unlimited architecture of Reykjavík were an old thing: here's a brand new house being built and well, just look at it. Seriously, just look. I love it to bits and back. Now you'll wonder how come there's construction work of this kind right in the middle of the center of the capital city, well, there used to be a house there but it burned. A very common fate of old houses here. It used to be even worse when houses were still made of wood, because fire + narrow alleyways + Reykjavík usual wind = TROUBLE. Then someone taught Icelanders how to build houses out of concrete and for some reason they immediately became the masters of functional style architecture in Europe. One could say they saw the future and ran into it.

One could also say they were practical and knew a perfect solution when one landed on them.

However, not all locations are lucky enough to get something rebuilt on them. In fact the immediate city centre of Iceland's capital city has surprisingly many abandoned buildings that have simply been left to rot. Some are even potentially hazardous, like this example here.

This one's right next to a beautiful green building and I wonder how this doesn't bother the people who live there.

By all I can see it's been a cute little house once upon a time.

This one's boarded shut, one among three abandoned buildings in a row! 

Here's the second one of them. I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't be worth it to simply tear them all down and sell the land? I mean hey, these houses are right next to the main shopping street, Laugavegur. There's bound to be someone wanting to buy.

Annnd the third, you can probably see what lead to this one's abandonment. 

It may not be clear but this little house burned down too. It's on one of the busiest streets and very near Hallgrímskirkja, a huge tourist attraction. It's beyond strange that it's just been left there. It's likely not in any living condition anymore - just like the others I've shown in this entry - so there's no use in trying to fix it. Still, I'm certain the least productive thing to do about them is this. What good are they now, unused, dangerous to passers-by and ugly, when there's all that expensive land right underneath them. One could think of either selling that or building new houses in their stead and selling them for good money, one could.

Sadly nothing ever seems to get done about them. Since the first time I visited Iceland they've been like this and I don't see any changes for their future either. It defies belief that this is allowed to go on in - as mentioned - immediate city centre of Reykjavík. You would not see it in Helsinki, n-uh.

Conclusion: YES I MAD.