The world's first planned drive-through mall is now a prison — take a look at its history

Amongst the small houses on a hill in Caracas, Venezuela, the massive Helicoide looks otherworldly — or at the very least, out of place.

The spaceship-like building was originally planned as a drive-through mall. Instead of walking, shoppers would have been able to drive right into the complex and park in front of the shops they wanted to visit. (Though, the shops wouldn't have drive-through windows.)

Construction on the mall started in 1956, but the project was abandoned a few years later because of funding woes.

Over the next few decades, the building transformed into a prison and, according to several former inmates, a torture chamber for political prisoners.

A new book by historians Celeste Olalquiaga and Lisa Blackmore, “Downward Spiral: El Helicoide’s Descent from Mall to Prison,” aims to bring its mysterious history to light.

Take a look below.

SEE ALSO: Photos of maximum-security prisons in Norway and the US reveal the extremes of prison life

Located in Caracas, Venezuela, the Helicoide — which translates to “the helix” — stretches 25 acres.

In the early ‘50s, architect Jorge Romero Gutiérrez designed the structure to be a modern retail destination inspired by the Tower of Babel and Frank Lloyd Wright's proposed planetarium, the Gordon Strong Automobile Objective, Olalquiaga told BI.

At the time, Venezuela’s state-owned oil company had made significant profits as a petroleum supplier to WWII allies. The government funneled some of this money into building the Helicoide.

Source: FiveThirtyEight

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