Stories On Design // Empty & Abandoned Buildings.

Ever since my late teens, I’ve had the best line to shut any conversation down – “It’s cool, I can handle it. I’ve been through the war”. My friends used to say I was the youngest person they knew who could legitimately make such claims. The truth is that I ain’t that young any more, and unfortunately – in the last 20 years in this crazy world we live in, many more young people can nowadays make these same claims. Which obviously really sucks. A lot. But why do I begin today’s Story with such a hardcore opening line? Well, as someone who has been through the civil war, escaped, then regularly returned to her home country over the last two decades, I’ve witnessed first hand the true meaning of empty and abandoned – be it homes, buildings, neighbourhoods and entire towns. In fact, I once shared a little vignette from my hometown over on Instagram, where twenty years on, the effects from the civil war are still very much felt, seen and talked about. Large areas of my home town till this day feel surreal, and full of moments where war and death meet real beauty.

Perhaps it is because of this personal experience that I’ve had a profound fascination with empty buildings and abandoned spaces. I’m also well aware I’m not the only one with this interest, albeit for different reasons. After all, it’s difficult to look at these sorts of images without a whole bunch of mixed feelings rising to the surface – a sense of wonder, confusion, awe, curiosity…

What binds this eclectic and epic collection of Empty & Abandoned Buildings is a pervasive melancholic atmosphere and environments of unlikely and baffling beauty. There is something so incredibly mesmerising about the decay of pristine spaces, and the idea how a space becomes full of character because someone stopped caring about it’s character in the first place. The palpable sense of nostalgia and layers of memories and lives that have come and gone through these spaces ricochet around the corners of my mind like a Streisand song. But perhaps I’m experiencing some of these images far to intensely than I ought to? (Who? Me intense? Naaah!)

On a brighter side, it’s important to note there are also plenty of upbeat images in this Story, that carry with them a real sense of optimism. Some examples showcase buildings and interiors that have been repurposed and adapted for the new era. Personally, I can’t imagine anything more special then being inside a beautiful old building that’s been given a new lease on life having been carefully restored in a way which brings in modern conveniences we can’t seem to live without. This is one of my personal interests and my greatest dream as an interior designer – getting my hands on derelict and abandoned buildings, fusing them with thoughtful contemporary design and making them relevant today. And in the process creating coveted buildings and interiors for the future.

See More ‘Stories on Design’ Curated by Yellowtrace.

Photography © Philip Jarmain.

American Beauty by Philip Jarmain, The Opulent Pre Depression Architecture of Detroit // Since 2010, Canadian photographer Philip Jarmain has been documenting the rapid destruction of Detroit’s early twentieth-century buildings. His emphasis in this work is on the architecture itself of these vanishing edifices: the form and the detail.

Photography © Rebecca Litchfield.

Abandoned Soviet Architecture Photographed by Rebecca Litchfield // Photographer Rebecca Litchfield has toured former Soviet countries to document the once-monumental structures around the Eastern Bloc that have fallen into decay. Litchfield took a road trip through east Germany, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Croatia and Russia to capture the crumbling architecture, built throughout the 20th century and abandoned following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

She visited hospitals, military barracks, prisons, spy stations, sports halls and more – dodging security and military personnel, and risking radiation exposure to gain access to the derelict structures and find “beauty in the decay”. The series is collated into a book titled Soviet Ghosts – The Soviet Union Abandoned: A Communist Empire in Decay.

Image courtesy of Jan Kempenaers.

“Spomenik—The End of History” by Jan Kempenaers // An amazing book by Antwerp-based photographer, Jan Kempenaers, who spent almost three years photographing “spomenik(s)” [monuments] in former Yugoslavia. Back in the 1980’s, all the dutiful school children in the “old country” took bus trips to visit these extraordinary monuments. I too was one of those children, and I still remember my school excursions so vividly. Writing about this leaves me intoxicated with memories and melancholy.

“Spomenik(s)” were commissioned by the Communist government in memory of victims of the Second World War. Hardly anyone outside of the former Yugoslavia is aware of their existence, and with Yugoslavia no longer being a country, no one really wants to be reminded they are there. Twenty years ago there were thousands of them scattered throughout Ser­bia, Croa­tia, Slove­nia and Bosnia. They have become completely irrelevant in today’s age — their symbolism has been entirely lost in translation. For myself and many others, they serve as a painful reminder of the Balkan tragedy. To the current generation, “spomenik” is nothing more than a bizarre architectural sculpture. Nevertheless, I find these images powerful and profound.

Read the full article about this project & see more images here.

Buzludzha Bulgaria by Guéorguy Stoilov // This monument located on Mount Buzludzha is the biggest ideological building in Bulgaria. It was built as a tribute to the creation of the Bulgarian socialist movement in 1891.

The site was built by civil engineering troops from the Bulgarian army and volunteers. The master builder was General Delcho Delchev who was in charge of the Stara Zagora civil engineering section. Several famous painters and sculptors have participated to the decoration. The building is slowly disintegrating; raiders are consistently breaking windows and stealing mosaics and ornaments. Nowadays, the monument is abandoned and no public institution seems to be concerned by the conservation or renovation of the building.

Hashima Island, Japan // Located off the coast of Nagasaki in Japan is an eerie island that has long been abandoned, commonly known as Gunkanjima (‘Battleship Island’) or Ghost Island. For nearly a century (from 1887 to 1974), the island was a bustling coal mining facility that housed thousands of workers. Mitsubishi bought it in 1890 and built Japan’s first large concrete building, at nine stories high. With a population of 5259 people in 1959, the 6.3ha island was the most densely populated place per square metre in the world. When the busy mine closed, Hashima Island fell into ruins.

The concrete wall that surrounds the entire island has partly collapsed due to the force of typhoons. Decaying buildings and structures found inside including a school, hospital and restaurants. The attraction has been featured as the backdrop of several films, one of the most famous ones being James Bond movie Skyfall.

Forgotten Heritage by Matt Emmett // British photographer Matt Emmett spent three years traveling Europe, exploring abandoned buildings, forgotten factories, dilapidated libraries, and grimy industrial plants. He referst to his photos as “a form of preservation, of preserving history”. Top two images show the epic condensing pond inside the IM cooling tower in Belgium. The tower was able to cool around two million litres of water per minute.

Photography © Neil Brown/flickr.com.

The Maunsell Sea Fort // Located off shore on the Thames estuary (where River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea), the Maunsell Sea Forts had a very short but intense life during World War II when Great Britain faced serious attacks from the Luftwaffe. The towers are named after Guy Maunsell, the civil engineer that designed them. The forts were built in 1942 and decommissioned in the 1950’s. They were abandoned in 1958 but some of them still stand to this day.

Splendore, Italy, 2011.

Furo Hotel, Japan, 2009.

Enogu Factory, Japan, 2011.

Shizuka Hotel, Japan, 2011.

Meikyu Calcium Carbonate Mine, Japan, 2008.

Palma Villa, Italy, 2010.

La scala rossa Villa, Switzerland, 2009.

Kyokou Museum, Japan, 2011.

Hikari Hotel, Japan, 2009.

Combustion, Italy, 2011.

Chaudiere Pantin Moulin, France, 2005. Photography © Thomas Jorion.

Abandoned Buildings Captured by Thomas Jorion // Thomas Jorion photographs urban ruins and condemned buildings, spaces that no longer serve the purposes for which they were built. His work explores the built environment from Japan, to France, Italy and beyond in state of entropy, inviting viewers to reflect on the relationship between the material and the temporal.

Photography © Karen Knorr.

Indian Song by Karen Knorr // Karen Knorr celebrates the rich visual culture, the foundation myths and stories of northern India, focusing on Rajasthan and using sacred and secular sites to consider caste, femininity and its relationship to the animal world. Interiors are painstakingly photographed with a large format Sinar P3 analogue camera and scanned to very high resolution. Live animals are inserted into the architectural sites, fusing high resolution digital with analogue photography. Animals photographed in sanctuaries, zoos and cities inhabit palaces, mausoleums, temples and holy sites, interrogating Indian cultural heritage and rigid hierarchies. Cranes, zebus, langurs, tigers and elephants mutate from princely pets to avatars of past feminine historic characters, blurring boundaries between reality and illusion and reinventing the Panchatantra for the 21st century.

Photography © Candida Hofer.

Empty Public Spaces by Candida Hofer // A selection of photographs made by famous German photographer Candida Hofer. Well-known for interior architecture photography, she captures empty historical places showcasing their sumptuous structures and decorations.

Images courtesy of Christopher Rimmer.

‘Sign of Life’ by Christopher Rimmer // Christopher Rimmer is a Melbourne-based fine art photographer who’s exhibition, Sign of Life, is a visual examination of the tragedy of two abandoned towns slowly being buried by the sands. The images were shot on location in the diamond mining towns of Elizabeth Bay and Kolmanskop in South Western Namibia. Local institutions such as the hospital, ballroom, power station, theatre, casino, ice factory and the first x-ray-station in the Western Hemisphere are all shown in a surreal and almost unrecognisable state.

Read the full article about this project & see more image here.

Photography © CHINAFOTOPRESS/GETTY.

Abandoned Chinese village overtaken by nature // Creeping vines and other flora have enveloped a small, formerly inhabited fishing village on Shengshan Island,  approximately 65 kilometers east of Shanghai. The village along the northern bay of Shengshan Island was abandoned after its residents, mostly fishermen, left in the early 1990s. What remains now is a lush, green ghost town overgrown by nature.

Images © Tyree Guyton.

The Heidelberg Project in Detroit // The Heidelberg Project is an open-air art environment in the heart of an urban community on Detroit’s East Side. Tyree Guyton, founder and artistic director, uses everyday, discarded objects to create a two block area full of colour, symbolism, and intrigue. Now in its 29th year, the Heidelberg Project is recognised around the world as a demonstration of the power of creativity to transform lives.

‘Souvenirs de Famille’ © Charles Pétillon.

‘Invasions de Ballons’ Series by Charles Pétillon // In his Invasions series, Paris-based photographer and installation artist aims to use balloons to alter the way people perceive familiar things and spaces. The installations have been photographed empty of people, with the balloons becoming the ghostly occupants of the spaces. Pétillon chose white balloons to create a contrast with the locations.

Read the full article about this project & see more image here.

Buffalo State Hospital Photographed by Richard Nickel // Richard Nickel has photographed the Buffalo State Hospital, compiling the extensive series of images into a book. In addition to the photography, the book provides a comprehensive history of the hospital – from its planning, site location, and construction onward, exploring the moral treatment philosophies of Thomas Story Kirkbride, the mental health pioneer responsible for the layout of the hospital, and the landscape design of Frederick Law Olmstead.

Bureau Betak’s Knockout Mirrored Installation // Marking the 10th anniversary of Felipe Oliveira Baptista’s fashion line, this exhibition took place at Museu do Design e da Moda (MUDE), the design and fashion museum in Lisbon, Portugal. Set inside such an incredible derelict space, the installations sat in stark contrast with it’s raw surroundings – sharp angles, crisp edges, mirrored surfaces and pure geometric forms delineate areas for display.

Read the full article about this project & see more image here.

Images courtesy of KNOL Ontwerp.

SKINNED by KNOL Ontwerp: Latex casts of buildings // SKINNED is a collection of mould-casts of abandoned buildings in Amsterdam by design studio KNOL Ontwerp. The skin-like casts are as delicate as fabric, and are embedded with the place they represent. The casting process picks up dirt and patterns, meaning the smallest details are captured in each ‘skin,’ telling the building’s history in their layers.

See the full article about this project and see more image here.

Photography © Martino Zegwaard.

‘Castello di Sammezzano’ by Martino Zegwaard // Photographer Martino Zegwaard has captured a sumptuous abandoned castle in Tuscany. The photographs reveal majestic rooms decorated with beautiful mosaics, ceilings and carved arches. How can an abandoned castle still look this extraordinary?

Photo © Klaus Frahm.

The Fourth Wall by Klaus Frahm // Hamburg-based photographer Klaus Frahm takes us behind-the-scenes of European theatres with his jaw-dropping image series The Fourth Wall. Shot from the stage looking back at the space an audience would usually occupy, the photos reveal an extreme contrast between the comfort of the auditoriums and the harshness and non-glamour (that’s a word, right?) of backstage. The main idea behind the project is to give way to a new perspective on a familiar subject, and reveal something that lies under the surface. My favourite kind of insight!

Read the full article about this project & see more images here.

Photo © Bart Synowiec.

Abandoned Places by Bart Synowiec // Toronto-based photographer Bart Synowiec loves to capture and immortalises places and environments forgotten, abandoned and neglected. With great attention to detail, the artist offers stunning images, playing with talent on the contrast between the traces of man and his absence.

Photo © Katherine Westerhout.

Abandoned Buildings Photographed by Katherine Westerhout // Katherine has been photographing abandoned buildings since 2003 as part of her ongoing series of urban landscapes. Her images are taken throughout the US – Detroit, Buffalo, Eastern State, Deep South, New York, San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

Read the full article about this project & see more image here.

Photography © Simon Butterworth.

‘A Quiet Passing’ Photography by Simon Butterworth // Simon Butterworth has been a regular visitor to Scotland’s Western Isles for the last twenty years. Many traditional crofts have become vacant and fallen into disrepair. The occupants have passed away and the houses are left open to the elements, often containing relics of a past time they are left to rot. This series documents some of these buildings in various states of decay, shot over the last ten years in the Inner and Outer Hebrides.

Related Post: Australia’s Salt Fields Captured by Simon Butterworth.

Carlo e Camilla in Segheria Milan Restaurant // Three creative partners – Carlo Cracco, Tanja Solci and Nicola Fanti – and a dramatic vintage-industrial setting have come together to create a new restaurant and cocktail bar Carlo e Camilla in Segheria, situated in Milan’s Navigli area. Tanja Solci is an art director in Milan and the owner of the venue. She is the patron of the restaurant concept and the woman behind the interior, housed in an old sawmill acquired by her grandparents in the 1930s. The soaring structure and raw industrial interior is given a sexy edge with big crystal chandeliers.

Read the full article about this project & see more image here.

Photo © Massimo Listri.

Silent Halls of European Palaces by Massimo Listri // Let’s position ourselves behind the lens of Italian photographer Massimo Listri as his incredible images peer into the vast, silent halls of European palaces. This is the colossal Palazzo Pitti in Firenze, mid curation. I love it when these grand gestures to the vanity of princes loosen up like this – a bit like catching the Baroque off guard. Magnificent, but that little bit friendlier for having been seen with its daks down.

Read the full article about this project & see more image here.

Photo © Daniel Torrello.

Hub Offices in Madrid by ch+qs arquitectos // Seriously handsome space, right? Located in Madrid, this old warehouse was barely touched, the new interior was hardly “designed” – it was rather used as a stage set for a dramatic workspace with oodles of character. Can you just image throwing a party in this space? Nice.

Read the full article about this project & see more images here.

Image © Georges Rousse.

Installation Art by Georges Rousse // Georges Rousse is a French photographer who takes photos of abandoned spaces. Before taking a photo, Georges paints precise geometrical shapes which produce the illusion of a simple, flat design floating on the surface of the photo. Extreme awesomeness!

Read the full article about this project & see more image here.

Photography © Johnny Joo.

Mike Tyson Abandoned Mansion Photographed by Johnny Joo // An abandoned mansion stands in rural Trumbull County, Ohio. It is a larger-than-life structure for a larger-than-life person. In the 1980s, it was home to professional boxer Mike Tyson. Local photographer Johnny Joo says he recently had permission to take photographs inside the abandoned estate. He also recorded an interview with the home’s current owner, who plans to turn it into a church.

Photography © Ian Ference.

Photography by Ian Ference // Ian Ference is a traveling photographer of modern ruins who primarily studies America’s abandoned architecture. He has been traversing old buildings for about 18 years now. On his blog, The Kingston Lounge, he pairs sets of photos taken on his adventures with historical context for the sites he studies.

Images courtesy of Herbert Baglione.

1000 Shadows by Herbert Baglione // For 15 years, this Brazilian artist has produced shadowy installations on the streets, in galleries and in abandoned places all over the world. His ‘1000 Shadows’ installation series began in these spooky, subterranean chambers and expanded to a collection of locations across Europe – including the Celles-sur-Belle in France, where Baglione occupied a 16th century church and an abandoned psychiatric hospital. Given their delicate arrangements, the works are temporary and fragile, designed to live on in the images he creates even after they have been disrupted. Creepy or creative? You be the judge.

Read the full article about this project & see more image here.

Photography © Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.

Decline of Detroit by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre // In downtown Detroit, the streets are lined with abandoned hotels and swimming pools, ruined movie houses and schools, all evidence of the motor city’s painful decline. The photographs of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre capture what remains of a once-great city – and hint at the wider story of post-industrial America.

Pullpo Advertising Agency by Hania Stambuk // Located in Santiago, Chile, an abandoned salt factory was transformed into a creative workplace for an advertising agency Pullpo. The project was designed by a local architect Hania Stambuk and completed in 2008. That image of the vista through a partially demolitioned wall… wow! What a gutsy move. Superb.

Read the full article about this project & see more image here.

Images courtesy of .

Latin American & Spanish Art takes over Abandoned Marble Factory in Brooklyn // These images show a contemporary art exhibition in an abandoned marble factory in Brooklyn, NY. The exhibition “Paradise Syndrome” is the latest pop-up event from PEANA, a platform for contemporary Latin American and Spanish art founded by Ana Perez Escoto, and was on display at the former factory of “Puccio European Marble Works” earlier this year.

Photography © Philipp Lohöfener.

Abandoned Stasi Prison in Berlin // 20 years after the fall of the Eastern Bloc, Philipp Lohöfener photographed Berlin’s abandoned Stasi Prison, former secret police hub, and home to unimaginable horrors. In his photos he captures its haunting spirit and leaves us with an overwhelming discomfort.

Photography © . Espoo suite at Eyes/ Nights Only Temporary Hotel.

Eyes Nights Only Temporary Hotel set within an abandon building in Belgium by DIFT // For last year’s Biennale Interieur in Kortrijk, Belgian creative agency DIFT introduced EYES/NIGHTS ONLY – a temporary hotel concept set within in an abandoned heritage building. EYES/NIGHTS ONLY was located in one of the oldest parts of the city’s Broelschool, formerly a nunnery. The Broelschool’s original features – including colourful walls, ornate cornicing and patterned tiles – are different in each room, with each one slightly dilapidated.

Read the full article about this project & see more image here.

Photo © Jordi Surroca.

Dilapidated Sant Francesc Church Reinvented by David Closes // Jagged glazed stairwells climb the stone walls of this eighteenth century church in Catalonia that architect David Closes has converted into an auditorium. The church is all that remains of a Franciscan convent that spent over 150 years in ruin in the town of Santpedor.

Read the full article about this project & see more images here.