Wikipedia
Fordlândia (, Ford-land) is a district and adjacent area of 14.268 km² in the city of Aveiro, in the Brazilian state of Pará. It is located on the east banks of the Tapajós river roughly 300 km south of the city of Santarém. It was established by American industrialist Henry Ford in the Amazon Rainforest in 1928 as a prefabricated industrial town intended to be inhabited by 10,000 people to secure a source of cultivated rubber for the automobile manufacturing operations of the Ford Motor Company in the United States. Ford had negotiated a deal with the Brazilian government granting him a concession of of land on the banks of the Rio Tapajós near the city of Santarém, Brazil, in exchange for a 9% share in the profits generated. Ford's project failed, and the city was abandoned in 1934.
The town was mostly deserted, with only 90 residents still living in the city until the late 2000s when it saw an increase of population, being home to around 2,000 people as of 2015.
Fordlandia is the sixth full-length studio album by Icelandic musician Jóhann Jóhannsson. The album was released on 3 November 2008 via 4AD. The album is thematically influenced by the failure of Henry Ford's Brazilian rubber plant Fordlândia. On his official website, Jóhannsson explained the album's relation to the Henry Ford-owned location:
One of the two main threads running through it is this idea of failed utopia, as represented by the "Fordlândia" title – the story of the rubber plantation Henry Ford established in the Amazon in 1920s, and his dreams of creating an idealized American town in the middle of the jungle complete with white picket fences, hamburgers and alcohol prohibition. The project – started because of the high price Ford had to pay for the rubber necessary for his cars' tyres – failed, of course, as the indigenous workers soon rioted against the alien conditions.
Ford bought two and a half million acres for Fordlandia, costing him $125,000, and had many Brazilian workers and their families come to live in Fordlandia (most ended up complaining about it). Too much time and money were spent on recreating a beautiful, American town than working out how to successfully grow rubber in the Amazon, including building a 150-foot water tower (despite being in the middle of a rainforest). Fordlandia ultimately failed and Ford's dream was crushed without ever producing any rubber for his tyres. Around 20 million dollars was spent on the project.