High in the mountains of Bolivia, there are houses that will make you believe in aliens

At an altitude of 4,000 meters above sea level, the city of El Alto is located in the mountains of Bolivia. Mostly ochre-red, it is full of thousands of low brick houses, like matchboxes, whose unfinished and unpainted facades line the dusty unpaved roads. The landscape is so bleak, monotonous, and depressing that the locals have begun to enliven it with splashes of color wherever possible. They began to decorate their homes, turning them into structures with strange shapes, more like the homes of aliens.

At the head of this small — town architectural revolution is the self-taught architect Freddie Mamani Silvestre, whose pretentious buildings and garish color combinations strive to capture the whole of El Alto. These buildings are called "chollets" - from the word" chalet "(chalet, big house) and" chola", an expression that is called by the local Aymara Indians.

The city of El Alto was founded more than a hundred years ago and was originally a slum in the suburbs of the capital of Bolivia, La Paz. But in recent years, the suburb has outgrown La Paz and become the second most populous city in the country after Santa Cruz. It is also one of the most highly located metropolitan areas in the world and the fastest growing city in South America.

The changes began in 2005 with the coming to power of the current President of Bolivia, Evo Morales. The President comes from the Aymara people, and his election has given the representatives more confidence. He gave the Indian ethnic groups more political autonomy and supported their participation in commercial activities. Under Morales ' leadership, the number of citizens living below the poverty line has fallen by one-third in the past decade. By 2012, about 1.2 million Bolivians were in the middle class. The architecture of Freddie Mamani Silvestre is a symbol of newfound self-confidence and economic recovery.

Some members of the Aymara tribe have improved their situation so much that they can afford to build their own chalet. Houses designed and decorated by Freddie Mamani Silvestre cost from 300 to 600 thousand dollars, and some are even more expensive. Among the wealthy merchants of the Aymara tribe, the architect's work is a symbol of high status.

Freddie Mamani Silvestre has designed sixty or seventy buildings in El Alto, and more than a dozen more are under construction. The architect has ambitious plans: he wants to design city squares, bus stops and boulevards.

Although critics scold him for his bright colors and extravagant design, calling it kitsch, others compare him to Friedensreich Hundertwasser, a New Zealand artist and architect of Austrian origin. Some people believe that Mamani can do for El Alto what Antonio Gaudi did for Barcelona and Oscar Niemeyer did for Brasilia-completely transform the shape and aesthetics of the city.

The architect himself is full of confidence in his abilities: "In 20 years, half of the houses here will be built in my style."