About 20 miles south-west of Buenos Aires, the edgy city of Gonzalez Catan is a long way off the tourist trail. But it’s the unlikely location of Campanopolis, the folly built by a self-made Argentine millionaire in the late 1970s. A crudely painted sign points to a litter-strewn entrance, the rusted gate giving away nothing about what lies beyond: a grand and fanciful medieval-inspired village, complete with a church and a windmill.
Alberto Campana was a successful businessman who ran supermarkets and a preserve business in Mendoza, the country’s wine capital, away to the west. Diagnosed with terminal throat cancer in 1976, he took the radical step of selling everything and purchasing 250 hectares of fallow land with the dream of building a fantasy town.
Despite many setbacks, construction work began in 1980, with the help of 100 labourers and truckloads of soil brought in to level out the terrain. Campana beat the odds to live a further 20 years, buoyed by his drive for the project. With no formal architectural qualifications, he improvised his designs, working 14-hour days, either on site or trawling auctions for bric-a-brac to decorate the buildings.
Several of the doors originate from the old Palermo hippodrome in Buenos Aires, while vintage leather seats were sourced from the now defunct Güemes cinema. Old coins line the walls of a room in one building, while a rusted array of typewriters adorn another. Campana forbade anyone from sleeping at Campanopolis, and the buildings remain largely unfurnished.
At the time of his death in 2008, the idea for a railway around the site was taking shape, but an arson attack reduced several wagons to rusted shells, which led to round-the-clock private surveillance and restricted visiting hours. It is only open on Saturdays, for just four hours (9am-1pm, guided tours obligatory but visitors are free to look around afterwards). The site now hosts private functions and in 2011 was picked by HBO Latin America to screen the debut episode of Game of Thrones.
• Entry about £8, campanopolis.com.ar
Follow Vanessa Bell @cremetoursba
