Freedom Ship is a

floating city ''Floating City'' () is a 2012 Chinese-Hong Kong drama film directed by Yim Ho. Premise The story of a self-made man in a rapidly changing Hong Kong at the end of British Colonial rule. Reception ''Exclaim!'' writer Robert Bell said "...the sub ...

project initially proposed in the late 1990s. The namesake of the project reflects the designer's vision of a mobile ocean colony, such that it is free from the property, municipal, or federal laws of any nation states. The project would not be a conventional ship, but rather a series of linked

barge Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels ...

s. The Freedom Ship project envisioned an integrated city longFloating Cities
at

How Stuff Works HowStuffWorks is an American commercial infotainment website founded by professor and author Marshall Brain, to provide its target audience an insight into the way many things work. The site uses various media to explain complex concepts, termino ...

; a discussion of floating cities using Freedom Ship as its example with

condominium A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership structure whereby a building is divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned. The term can be applied to the building or complex ...

housing for 80,000 people, a hospital, school system, hotel, casino, commercial and office occupancies,

duty-free shop A duty-free shop (or store) is a retail outlet whose goods are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and duties, on the requirement that the goods sold will be sold to travelers who will take them out of the country, who ...

ping and other facilities, large enough to require

rapid transit Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be c ...

. The complex would have

circumnavigated Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical body (e.g. a planet or moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth. The first recorded circumnavigation of the Earth was the Magel ...

the globe continuously, stopping regularly at ports of call.

Construction

Freedom Ship International initially estimated the net cost for construction to be US$6

billion Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: *1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is its only current meaning in English. * 1,000,000,000,000, i.e ...

in 1999. However, by 2002, estimates had risen to US$11 billion. A July 2008 press release explained the difficulty of obtaining reliable financial backing. In November 2013, the company announced that the project, now with an estimated price of US$10 billion, was being resurrected, though that construction had not yet begun. In 2016, the project affiliated with Kanethara Marine in India.

Similar projects

The basic idea had been published by

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

in his novel ''

Propeller Island ''Propeller Island'' (french: L'Île à hélice) (also published as ''The Floating Island, or The Pearl of the Pacific'', and as ''The Self-Propelled Island'') is a science fiction novel by French author Jules Verne (1828–1905). It was first pu ...

''. No technical details were given, but the book includes the idea of building a gigantic raft. The main aim of the project was saving taxes, as the Island would move around the world on an annual basis. Other projects, such as the ResidenSea, have similarly attempted to create mobile communities, though they have conservatively limited themselves to the constraints of conventional shipbuilding. In regards to the economic flexibility and "freedom" created by such mobile settlements, these projects could be considered a realization of the avant-garde Walking City concept from 1964, by British architect

Ron Herron Ronald James Herron () was an English architect and teacher. He is perhaps best known for his work with the seminal experimental architecture collective Archigram, which was formed in London in the early 1960s. Herron was the creator of one of ...

of the group

Archigram Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s ⁠that was neofuturistic, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist, drawing inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality that was solely expressed through hypothetical ...

. The Freedom Ship also served as the inspiration for (and is closely resembled by) the ''Libertania'', a mobile ship depicted in Grant Morrison's comic book '' The Filth''. In the 1950s,

Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...

also proposed "floating cities" approximately a mile wide that could accommodate up to 50,000 permanent inhabitants. Mike Wallace interviewed Buckminster Fuller on TV regarding this "floating cities" concept, which Fuller explained would free up land needed for agriculture and industrial uses.

References

{{Reflist Proposed ships Proposed populated places 1990s in science

Construction

Similar projects

See also

References