INCOMPIUTE

We have become accustomed to passing by construction sites and having to live or work next to noisy excavators and cranes. And we are always relieved when the gaping wound in the urban fabric is closed again and, in the best case, a congenial new setting has been created. Building projects are being planned, constructed and completed across the land. That’s just how it is these days. But what happens when these gaps can no longer be closed? When funds run out and the workers depart, leaving only skeletons behind? And not a breath of new life. For years, or perhaps forever? In Italy, there are nearly 900 government construction sites where buildings have been left uncompleted (“opere incompiute”) due to lack of funds, unrealistic schedules or the work having been arbitrarily awarded to incompetent construction firms. They include sports facilities, schools, hospitals and theatres as well as residential and infrastructure buildings. A law was passed in 2011 that requires Italy’s Ministry of Infrastructure to publish an annual list of all unfinished state-funded building projects. In the Lazio region alone, there are over 80 such projects that have ground to a halt, their finalisation still in the stars. In his photographs, Roger Frei explores the character and atmosphere of the affected settings and unmasks the unfinished building projects as a testament to profligacy and mismanagement.