Asian Mega Ports

Asia has become the dominant continent in terms of maritime trade. Dominated by China, it has most of the world’s most connected ports. Where the city sprawls on water, concrete and steel create a shifting megalopolis, made up of mega-structures that are out of scale. These cities within the city are devoid of human presence; its inhabitants are tubes, poles, beams, ladders, cohabiting with containers, boats and passing machines. Different parts form a large metal skeleton of cynical coldness.

Man has built it but seems to have been overtaken by these cities that keep growing. These artificial and technological territories of steel are only a product of the commercial globalization in which Asia has distinguished itself.

For two years, the photographer Manuel Alvarez Diestro explored these constructed landscapes, coloured in red, yellow, blue and grey. The ports of Busan, Ulsan, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Jakarta, Qingdao, Tokyo, and Kaohsiung appear to operate automatically, without human intervention. These infrastructures put into perspective the absurdity of the scale of these places, while sublimating the complexities and structural variations they inhabit. These ever-growing cities would definitely be envisioned by Archigram theories.