Shocking photographs show how Kanye West bought and destroyed a $53million beachfront mansion designed by a world-famous architect and replaced it with his twisted designs.
The rapper purchased the sprawling Malibu home in September 2021 after it was carefully created by revered Japanese architect Tadao Ando.
Ando’s designs are known for their pinpoint precision with a focus on glass exteriors which blend domestic life with nature.
But within a matter of months Ye – who has hit headlines for dressing his wife Bianca Censori in outlandish and flesh-baring outfits – took a sledgehammer to this vision and transformed it into a post-apocalyptic shell, causing its value to plummet $14 million.
‘This is going to be my bomb shelter. This is going to be my Batcave,’ Ye told one of the laborers employed to destroy the home from the inside out, as revealed in an interview with the New Yorker.
Ando’s Malibu building now consists of several gaping hollows where bedrooms, kitchens and an avant-garde gallery used to offer expensive artwork, ornate marble fittings, opulent wooden cabinets, and stunning views of the ocean
The once-stunning white mansion – finished in 2013 – has been left abandoned without doors or windows.
It has also been stripped of plumbing and electricity and the clouded glass which once cast a pale light across the gallery has been completely gutted.
Ando’s building now consists of several gaping hollows where bedrooms, kitchens and an avant-garde gallery used to offer expensive artwork, ornate marble fittings, opulent wooden cabinets, and stunning views of the ocean.
The blackened shell of the exterior perched atop stilts raising it from the golden sandy beach below now stands out starkly against surrounding homes.
With the help of Censori who hired some self-described ‘gonzo’ laborers from New Jersey, he set out to obliterate the mansion and create something befitting his 2010 album name, ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’.
Ye has long been interested in architecture, and Censori has a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture from the University of Melbourne.
The rapper once invited people he described as ‘architects and industrial designers who want to make the world better’ to work with him on his rumored desert igloo-like developments called Yeezy home.
The Carnival artist, who bought the home for $57 million in late 2021, is asking at least $18 million less than what he paid, after gutting the mansion in a troubled renovation attempt
West and Censori are seen leaving Ty Dolla $ign birthday party in West Hollywood in April this year
The controversial rapper, who has since rebranded as Ye, was drawn to the home partly due to his appreciation for the globally-renowned Japanese architect who masterminded the mansion – Tadao Ando (pictured)
He also personally met with several of the world’s most renowned architects, including David Adjaye, Toyo Ito, and Jacques Herzog, of the firm Herzog & de Meuron, according to the New Yorker.
And Ye has rapped about being ‘in Japan with Tadao Ando.’ In his days of dating Kim Kardashian, the couple visited the Chichu Art Museum designed by Ando n Naoshima.
An American real-estate agent who has met Ando recently told the Wall Street Journal ‘it was like working with God’. This could have been part of the draw for Ye, who has previously compared himself to ‘a god’.
In fact, Ye has cast parallels between himself and Ando, dubbing him ‘the world’s greatest living architect’ and ‘the Ye of al the architects’.
But architect Kulapat Yantrasast, who discussed the Malibu mansion with Ye, told the New Yorker: ‘To be honest, he did not like the house – he did not like the interior’.
Ye and Censori set to work ordering laborers to dismantle the majestic wide staircases which served as the home’s spinal chords, one indoors and one outdoors, separated by a glass wall, replacing them with – a foam slide.
The value of the 4,000 square foot three-story property has fallen from $53 million to $39 million under Ye’s reign of terror.
‘This is going to be my bomb shelter. This is going to be my Batcave,’ Ye told one of the laborers employed to destroy the home from the inside out, as revealed in an interview with the New Yorker
The Grammy-winning artist’s career has dipped amid a torrent of anti-Semitic remarks he’s made since the fall of 2022. Pictured in March in LA
New Jersey man Tony Saxon was among the workers who they summoned to transform the property from an architectural feat into a cadaver of a home complete with Ye’s ‘batcave’ bomb shelter.
The team started by dismantling the house’s interior. Saxon told the New Yorker he worked such long days he found himself sleeping on a mattress on the floor inside, sustaining himself with Clif Bars and Red Bulls.
He was tasked with painting over the ‘gorgeous black-and-white marble walls’ and expensive wooden fittings with gray paint to match the concrete walls. Later, he was asked to rip out the wooden cabinets completely.
Saxon said he would sometimes be woken just hours into sleeping by a call from Censori tasking him with another job to be completed immediately.
On another occasion, she summoned him back to the home not long after he left it. ‘I stink, I haven’t showered for two days,’ he recalled to the New Yorker. ‘I’m a lunatic.’
He eventually met Ye, and though he’s never heard his music because he prefers artists from the 1960’s, Saxon said he warmed to him straight away.
So when Ye asked him to dismantle the rest of the home while praising the impressive stamina and skills he had shown so far, he agreed.
Saxon shared videos with the New Yorker showing him helping topple one of the chimneys, while another shows someone smashing the bathroom’s marble walls with a hammer.
Along with another employee, Saxon also got to work smashing the glass balustrade with a sledgehammer and jackhammering a hot tub into oblivion.
‘There was so much rebar in the concrete,’ Saxon told the New Yorker. ‘It was absolutely brutal.’
Ye also gradually tasked Saxon with completely gutting the house of any utilities – including the kitchen, bathrooms, AC, windows, light fixtures, heating, water and power – even removing the cables and wiring.
‘He wanted everything to be his own doing,’ Saxon told the New Yorker. Ye wrote to Saxon in one text: ‘Let’s gooooo . . . Simple fresh and cleeeeeean.’
Saxon said they agreed on a fee of $20,000 per week with additional funds to pay colleagues and buy materials. At this point, Ye was 44 and his wealth was estimated to be almost $2 billion.
The house was left in a skeletal state, with the surf of the nearby ocean audible through the holes where windows had once been. A dark blemish marks where a hot tub used to stand.
The standout feature is now Ye’s ‘Batcave’ bomb shelter, and large imposing ramps where the stairways used to be.
Ye’s Malibu neighbors told TMZ that his mansion was ‘left to rot’ and that they had not seen ‘seen anyone around for many months’
The inside of the house appears to be crumbling and the metal railings are rusting after being exposed to the salt air, wind and water
The mansion has remained barren, as seen in new photos (pictured) The floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the sea have been removed, leaving that side open to all the elements
The Grammy-winning artist, whose career has dipped amid a torrent of anti-Semitic remarks he’s made since the fall of 2022, brought Selling Sunset realtor Jason Oppenheim, 46, into the fold in his effort to sell the home late last year, according to TMZ.
Meanwhile, Saxon launched a lawsuit claiming he was never properly paid for his back-breaking work, which remains an open dispute.
The Malibu mansion now stands as an oceanside eyesore – and a reminder of a time Ye might prefer to forget.
