Mix of beauty and depressing decay.
First thing I am doing after I am rich is probably build a big greenhouse. I don't get why that isn't more of a thing in the northern hemisphere in winter.
Oh and trivia about this description:
"“Cosmic Greenhouse”, somewhere in Germany, exact location not given."
I was somehow not surprised that just googling this gives the exact location.
Exactly… the location was not given by the named photographer. Doesn’t mean they’re incompetent or evasive, just respectful to the source and the way the information was provided.
There are some examples in germany, among the well todo, to wrap old houses and the garden in one big greenhouse. Basically with automated roof glass doors and shade- its basically one prolonged summer/seasonshift and it safes on heating. Only problem is condensation and moisture
Something tells me that that's more of a "a dozen parties get their pound of flesh if you want an enclosed porch or an addition, but only half a dozen if it's a greenhouse" type thing.
You see the same thing with movable awnings in my jurisdiction.
how do you properly clean after contamination of the soil with broken glass?
> “The Steampunk Greenhouse”, photographed by Nicola Berlotti. The location has been kept quiet but seems to be a popular spot for urbex photographers, more incredible shots of the interior can be found here.
My pet peeve as someone who enjoys visiting abandoned places occasionally, but is not part of some s3cr3t clique that hoards the details of cool spots.
I get the reflex to preciously guard the location of a beautiful place, but none of these places are really secret. Locals know of them, and knowledge of any interesting place will have spread all over the internet. So what you get is some folk selling databases of urbex places, and some folk acting as if you need to prove your worthiness to even get a hint of where it might be.
And it is all completely pointless.
Vandalism is a problem for many urbex sites. But vandalism is not caused by photographers, explorers, and kinksters¹, although plenty of people would do well to study the basic leave-no-traces-but-memories philosophy. Vandalism in lost places comes in four types:
* Tagging every surface with spray paint (so graffiti, but without any artistic pretence). This is done by local bored kids who already know the place is there.
* Fly tipping (dumping garbage to avoid paying for the privilege). This is done by local assholes who already know the place is there.
* Breaking stuff, starting a fire. Again, locals. Mostly kids or young adults, who already know the place is there.
* Property developers buying the place up and then leaving it to rot for years², while actively resisting even legal access.
The problem with the 'let's keep this place secret and only share it with people we trust' standpoint is that you deprive others of the decaying beauty. And crucially, with locations like these, there is no way to preserve the experience for decades. A place can either get bought up and redeveloped or restored (end result: lost place is no longer lost), or decay into rubble (end result: lost place is no longer beautiful and potentially dangerous).
And also, there won't be many more places like these in the future. An ancient block of high rise flats from the 2000s will be mostly boring. An old office block from 2010 will be mostly boring.
I like people in the community like the keeper of the Abandoned Berlin website (https://www.abandonedberlin.com/). Their stance is: enjoy these places while you can, and allow others to do so too. These places will be gone tomorrow. Share the experience, don't pretend you are in a secret club.
1: Urbex locations tend to be favoured as a backdrop for erotic photography.
2: Such locations may not always be torn down because of a monument protection status. A tried and true tactic to get around this without actually restoring the place is to simply let time and the elements do their work until the place can no longer even be restored. This is a long term investment plan.
> 2: Such locations may not always be torn down because of a monument protection status. A tried and true tactic to get around this without actually restoring the place is to simply let time and the elements do their work until the place can no longer even be restored. This is a long term investment plan.
Protection laws that don't pay for the protection have this unintended side effect. Another example in the US is the Endangered Species Act: if you know your property might have such species you have the incentive to prevent anyone from surveying it, and to bulldoze it before anyone does.
The solution is to respect property rights and, if something needs preserving, pay for it. We see this with conservation easements and land preservation charities. But that would eliminate the free ride society experiences with current laws and would limit the amount of preservation actually done, even if subjecting preservation to market discipline is probably a good thing overall. Is preserving building X or species Y really worth the cost?
I will not be surprised if the current US Supreme Court rules things like historic building preservation laws to be unconstitutional takings without required compensation.