WebUrbanist » Abandoned Places

Abandoned Hollywood Theater Hidden Above NY Shop

Steph — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:00:09 +0000

As a bodega in New York’s East Village closes and questions arise about the historical building’s fate, a photographer has captured a hidden gem located on the floor above the shop: an abandoned theater, which was in operation between 1926 and 1959. The photos, by Kevin Shea Adams, show what has become of Avenue A Theater above East Village Farm.

The exterior, which is a blank wall of windowless brick, gives little clues as to what may be inside, but neighborhood residents who remembered the old theater longed to get a glimpse of what might remain.

Adams’ photos reveal that the theater has been in use as a functional store room for the bodega. Ornate details like ceiling tins and relief carvings contrast with pallets covered in cardboard boxes. Without attention and restoration, the theater has inevitably fallen into disrepair. Sadly, as the bodega closes, the owners of the building reportedly plan to demolish the whole structure to make way for new development.

Another person who got to see the inside told EV Grieve, “I’m not sure the building is worth saving—the cool parts of it seem really run down and unusable—but the ornate period works need to be preserved as best as they can. I would love to have a theater there, but I suspect it’s headed for new housing.”

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High Anxiety: Rooftop Excavators Tear Down from Up Top

Steve — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:00:38 +0000

Rooftop excavators? On my multistory highrise building? It’s more likely than you think, especially in China where painting one’s self into a corner is no longer just for painters anymore. The difference here is, the corner in question could be several hundred feet above the ground.

Demolition, Man

(image via: ChinaSMACK)

Hydraulic excavators are often used in Chinese demolition projects to quickly bring down roofs. This can be somewhat problematic when the roof – and the building beneath it – just happens to be supporting the multi-ton excavator being used to do the demolition.

(images via: Ynet.com, Skyscraper City and QQ.com)

Consider also that high-rise roofs aren’t designed to support great concentrations of weight, and the roofs doing the supporting belong to buildings being knocked down because (generally) they’re having trouble staying up.

(images via: RobertG69 and Dog Brothers Forum)

The situation is even more problematic in China, where a combination of lax workplace safety laws and shoddy construction has given rise to a world where buildings are slapped together, sold, condemned and torn down – often within just a few short years. Sometimes the buildings don’t wait for the demolition men: what goes up too quickly, often comes down even quicker.

Don’t Claw Us, We’ll Claw You

(images via: ChinaSMACK)

Here’s a lone excavator hard at work on top of the 12-story Shanxi Science and Technology Hotel in the Chinese city of Taiyuan. The slender, triangular building has a very limited amount of roof space in which the excavator’s driver can manoeuvre, yet manoeuvre he must if the building is going to be eaten away down to ground level.

(images via: ChinaSMACK)

Click here to watch a short video from CNS News that shows the rooftop excavation project from various angles, including from the roof itself. It’s in Chinese but as they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words!

(images via: Sina Weibo and NetEase)

One assumes that the excavator claws a certain amount of material from one side of the roof, and then drives over to the reduced area and does the same to the place he just left, over and over again.

(images via: AcidCow)

Alternatively, a ground-based crane might just pick up the excavator and plop it down (not too hard!) on another portion of the roof. It’s not rocket science, though working atop an unsteady platform honeycombed with rooms and open areas may still end up with the worker flying through space.

Knocked Up, Sold Off, Knocked Down

(images via: Sweet Cherry Cake)

Readers surely must be asking, “why not just dynamite the building such that it collapses in on itself?” Ask any expert, controlled demolition is a precise and delicate operation which, if unsuccessful, cold result in extensive collateral damage to surrounding buildings and nearby construction workers – not to mention TONS of dust to sweep up. Believe it or not, in China at least, demolition via rooftop excavator is the safer, cleaner, and above all cheaper option.

(images via: Daily Mail UK and Sweet Cherry Cake)

The 18-story residential apartment building depicted here in mid-demolition a few weeks ago was built in the city of Taizhou, located in eastern China’s Zheijiang Province… in January of 2011! Yes indeed, the highrise didn’t even last one full year before the ground beneath it began settling unevenly, eventually causing the building (and several others nearby) to be deemed unsafe.

(images via: Sweet Cherry Cake)

Consider the plight of a Mr. Zhan, who bought a unit on the building’s 16th floor yet had to move out just 17 hours after moving in when a structural support pillar cracked. “I heard loud banging sounds like an explosion,” explained Zhan to reporters from China Daily, “it was really scary. I bought my unit because of the beautiful ocean view. It’s such a pity I can’t live in it.” Hope you’ve got Collapsing Building Insurance, Zhan.

Deconstruction Wizards of Oz

(images via: Riotact)

Rooftop excavation is not exclusive to China, it seems, as these images from several demolition projects in Australia indicate. The above scene from earlier this year showed demolition underway in central Canberra.

(images via: Riotact and Brisbane Times)

Unlike similar building demolitions in China, however, the Aussies use smaller excavators on lower buildings which are wrapped in protective covers to corral debris.

Rooftop Excavators, How Do They Work?

(images via: 2DayBlog and AcidCow)

You might be wondering how these huge hydraulic excavators get up to their precarious perches in the first place. Giant helicopters? The service elevator? Disassembled, brought to the roof and reassembled? Maybe each highrise was built with an excavator entombed on the roof in anticipation of its eventual demolition, or perhaps the excavators simply climb up the balconies, floor by floor.

(image via: ClubSNAP)

Actually, if the building isn’t too high the excavators can be lifted to the top by much larger, ground-based construction cranes as shown above. The ground-based cranes are designed to lift, not dig, so using them to reduce the heights of condemned buildings is not a viable option.

(images via: Crushing Machine and AcidCow)

Once in place up on the roof, it’s dig, dig and dig some more… which leads to the next question: where does all the excavated dirt and debris go, especially in a crowded urban environment like that of Datong City in China’s Shanxi province? Either it’s going down the central elevator shaft, or (more likely) dumped over the side.

(image via: AcidCow)

A word of advice: if you wake up one morning, look out your window and see an excavator of the roof of the neighboring building, be sure to wear your hard hat before walking out your front door. Better yet, call in sick and don’t go out at all lest a rooftop excavator turn you into an ex-person.

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Surreal Estate: China’s Village of Empty Villas

Steve — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:00:42 +0000

China‘s ever-expanding real estate bubble is spawning empty cities, abandoned resorts and other such “bridges to nowhere” but few of these white elephants are as eerie and gloomy as this unusual, unfinished and unoccupied village of empty villas.

Boom, Bust and Echoing Hallways

(image via: BBS.HSW)

China these days is awash with empty, abandoned and overbuilt housing, office and resort space. This is really saying something, considering China has a population of over 1.3 billion and overpopulation was so great a threat to future prosperity, the nation had to enact a draconian “one child law” to put the brakes on reproduction.

(images via: Caixin, Law.Dahe and 95191.com)

If there’s one thing modern China has more than people, however, it’s money… money that begs to be invested (some might say, laundered) in a virtual Pandora’s Box of get-rich-quick schemes. Many, if not most, of these investment “opportunities” are based on land speculation fueled by easy credit and a vast pool of nouveau riche who have been the prime beneficiaries of China’s great economic leap forward. Unlike many other nations, China’s financial system doesn’t provide many venues for cash investment – a concept that itself would be incomprehensible a generation ago. One might say that China’s financial infrastructure hasn’t yet caught up to the money-making machine that China’s economy has become.

(images via: XYBTV.com, Japanorama and Caixin)

In some ways, China’s construction boom is following in the footsteps of Japan’s real estate bubble – which, as we all know, ended rather badly. Even as Japan’s boom turned to bust, the nation’s government sought to cushion the construction industry by continuing to fund bizarre theme parks, unnecessary shoreline remediation and odd “musical highways”… projects that provided short-term employment only.

Villages of the Damned Speculators

(images via: Designerly Thinking and American News Post)

A similar wasteful pattern is being played out in China. Construction is funded for the sake of construction, regardless of any local need. Cities like Ordos sit virtually empty since without any accompanying manufacturing activity nearby, people have no reason to live there (and no income to pay for living space).

(image via: BBS.HSW)

China also suffers from a lack of regulation which has allowed pyramid schemes and official corruption to flourish. Take the unfinished resort complex at Lan Jia Village, in the Baqiao District of Shaanxi province, west of Beijing. The 160-acre complex sits on former farmland, thus depriving farmers of their occupation and markets of fresh and processed food.

(images via: ChinaHush and BBS.HSW)

On the face of it, the idea for a resort at Lan Jia Village isn’t a bad one and it wasn’t bad back in 1997 when developers first presented their plans to local authorities. Situated at the junction of three rivers (Ba River, Wei River and Jing River), the complex features a group of two-story, Mediterranean-style villas highlighted by a central domed conference center. Winding paths and canals weave amongst the villas and artful landscaping lent the resort a pleasing, pastoral vibe.

The Lost Resort

(images via: ChinaHush and ChariWeb)

So much for best intentions. Unbeknownst to the developers (or perhaps knownst, who can say?), regional authorities presented a plan for remodeling the shores of the Wei River, preserving wetlands and instituting a green belt along the shore. “The land belonged to Lan Jia Village at that time,” explained Yan Gaochao, an official from Ba Qiao District, to an independent reporter. “The developers had to apply to the homeland department for approval to nationalize the land before using it for other purposes, which began a series of processes. At that time, the developers took a short cut, signed the draft with the government and started the construction right away, never expecting the process to be stuck and/or contradicting with another government project. That’s why the villa cluster is left unfinished.”

(images via: Gaoling, BBS.HSW and ChariWeb)

One might expect the 160 acres to be cleared and returned to the farmers who originally occupied it but of course, that’s just too easy. While Yan assured the reporter that demolition of the villas “is inevitable”, he was unable to provide any further information. “There are no guidelines, no laws or regulations to follow through, or to decide whether or not to compensate the developers.” Indeed, nearly 15 years after construction began, the developers are nowhere to be found – perhaps they decided to cut their losses and move on to the next scheme.

(image via: Caixin)

In the meantime, the erstwhile Lan Jia Village resort continues to deteriorate. Windowless buildings offer ingress to sheltering wild animals, inclement weather and local children who play among the ruins. The village does have one tenant, however: a man named Li who lives in the domed conference center building. “I have been living here for 7 years,” stated Mr. Li, who said he was hired to oversee the buildings and do some light gardening. “My boss is only a project manager, I have never seen the real boss.” Odds are he never will.

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Architectural Archaeology in Antwerp’s Abandoned Tunnels

Steph — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:00:08 +0000

Beneath the bustle of Antwerp, Belgium, empty tunnels lie still and silent, forgotten by most of the inhabitants above. Meant for a metro system, the tunnels have been abandoned since they were built in the 1970s, but American-based designer Jon Martin imagines a novel use for them: housing an archaeological museum that doubles as an underground network connecting various buildings throughout the city. The melancholy mood of the project was inspired by W.G. Sebald’s novel, ‘Austerlitz.’

Starting at Antwerp Central Station, the tunnels would transform from disused concrete remains into a sort of artificial archaeological site housing a massive skeleton that twists and turns throughout the subterranean system. Visitors would descend down a staircase into a sort of daylight-illuminated lobby that is open to the sky above, and from there, wind their way through the tunnels to various exhibits.

Keeping the tunnels largely untouched would preserve the gritty, eerie atmosphere that urban explorers currently see first-hand when they surreptitiously infiltrate the system to take photographs. The project would add staircases, walkways and sculptural skeletal installations, with a main gallery housing architectural artifacts and revealing historic and foundational walls of the city.

‘The Descent’ into the museum entrance at Antwerp Central Station is “a stylistic plunge into the melancholy of a forgotten past,” and the first gallery consists of three tunnels that start and end at the same place, leading into the main gallery which is near the Flanders Opera. From there, visitors proceed on a diagonal into the Diamond District to see ‘Cinematic History’ in the form of films projected on the walls of the underground spaces. As they reach the end, the tunnels narrow – “The closer one gets to secrets of the past, the narrower and more isolated one becomes.”

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Art in Abandoned Places: 14 Inspiring Projects

Steph — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 18:00:43 +0000

Abandoned places often seem like art in themselves; there’s a certain beauty in decay, and urban explorers go to great lengths in order to capture decrepit remains on film. But some take it one step further, turning abandonments into eerie, haunting settings for wholly unexpected art that can be surprisingly vibrant and inspirational.

Guerrilla Guitar String Art on Paris Bridge

(images via: paris.untappedcities.com)

Imagine clambering onto abandoned train tracks that look out over the city of Paris. One photographer, Mary-Jane Lee, did just that, and found this beautiful and surreal sight: guitar strings, attached to the rails in an X. This guerilla work of art is so unlikely, it almost looks Photoshopped.

Tape Art by BUFFdiss

(images via: buffdiss flickr)

Berlin-based tape artist BUFFdiss creeps into abandoned spaces and beautifies their walls with wholly unexpected scenes like human hands and geometric arrangements. Some of his newer artworks combine tape and paint.

Crocheted Gas Station

(images via: make zine)

An eyesore of an abandoned gas station got a colorful makeover in the form of crocheted cozies, quilt squares, blankets and other fabrics. Artist Jennifer Marsh enlisted professional and amateur artists from 15 countries as well as over 2,500 grade-school students in 29 states to cover the 50-year-old former Citgo stations with more than 3,000 panels.

Deserted House to Light Installation

(images via: luisa alvarez)

Lighting designer Luisa Alvarez transformed an abandoned house using old color-tinted photographic negatives and gels which were wrapped around chairs and other objects. Alvarez captured her temporary project, called Habitando, on film and removed it that night. The project also featured ropes of LED lights, giving warmth to a home that hasn’t seen living inhabitants for years.

Underbelly Project: Graffiti in NYC’s Hidden Subways

(images via: gothamist)

An unused subway station beneath New York City was secretly infiltrated by artists starting in 2009. The illegal Underbelly Project gave each artist, including ROA and Mark Jenkins, one full night to cover a designated space. According to the show’s curators, Workhouse and PAC, the Underbelly Project is a statement on the increasing commercialism of street art, as works by well-known artists like Banksy are often removed from their urban environments and sold at galleries. The entrance to the forgotten, abandoned subway station was closed up when the project was completed in the hopes of preserving this art from money-hungry exploiters.

Marjan Teeuwen’s Destroyed Houses

(images via: saatchionline)

From WebUrbanist: “Dutch artist Marjan Teeuwen creates eerie, unsettling spaces by reclaiming the wreckage of destroyed abandoned buildings and re-assembling it in studios or museums for aesthetic and artistic effect. She also occasionally creates these installations within the abandoned spaces themselves, at one point hacking down an entire exterior wall and bringing the pieces inside to arrange.”

Defenestration in San Francisco

(images via: foundsf.org)

At an abandoned four-story building in San Francisco, furniture is leaping for its freedom from open windows – clocks poking their heads out and looking up at the sky, chairs making a run for it down the peeling brick walls and tables pitching themselves off the roof. The project is called Defenestration, a word meaning “to throw out of a window”, and was created by 100 volunteers.
Artist Brian Goggin describes it on his website thusly: “Located at the corner of Sixth and Howard Streets in San Francisco in an abandoned four-story tenement building, the site is part of a neighborhood that historically has faced economic challenge and has often endured the stigma of skid row status. Reflecting the harsh experience of many members of the community, the furniture is also of the streets, cast-off and unappreciated.”

The Airport Phoenix by Xavier Juillot

(image via: the moscow news)

French artist Xavier Juillot installed inflatable chutes and other sculptural elements in a derelict airport in the SIberian town of Kansk, Russia for the 10th International Kansk Video Festival.

Reassembled Structures by Dennis Maher

(images via: assembled city fragments)

Buildings that became abandoned due to industrial collapse in the city of Buffalo, New York have morphed into sculptural installations that immortalize this decay. Buffalo-based artist Dennis Maher has taken some of the city’s all-too-common abandoned residential and industrial structures and crafted their remains into sculptures that give them a new place in the world.

Enormous Graffiti on Abandoned Buildings in Lisbon

(images via: lost at e minor)

A massive abandoned building on the streets if Lisbon, Portugal is now a beautiful public mural thanks to the ‘Crono Project’, which brought street artists from around the world in to decorate abandoned structures. These particular images were created by BLU and Gemeos.

Beaded Spiderwebs

(image via: favim)

While abandoned churches no doubt have plenty of spiderwebs without the help of an artistic visitor, you can’t deny that this beaded installation is anything but charming. Information on this particular work is hard to find – if you have info, let us know!

Abandoned Messages by Rero

(images via: urbanartcore.eu)

Rero, a conceptual artist with a graffiti background, applies minimalist typography to gritty abandoned surfaces in cities like Paris, London and Berlin. This series, ‘Image Negation’, was carried out in the latter. See more at Rero’s Flickr stream.

Detroit’s Ice House

(image via: detnews)

The decline of Detroit is a depressing sight, with abandoned houses dotting nearly every street. These houses are a visual reminder of the sorrow of economic depression, reminding everyone nearby just how bad things have gotten. But photographer Greg Holm and architect Matthew Radune believed they could change that, at least for one such house. In creating Ice House Detroit, they turned a blight into a crystalline castle, giving it a sense of magic, but also helping to raise awareness about the problem. Once winter ended and the ice began to melt, the house was demolished, its components reclaimed for other projects.

Before I Die Project

(images via: candychang)

In this transformation, a street-side abandoned building is turned from an emblem of hopelessness to a place that actually inspires hope for the community. The Before I Die Project is an installation by Candy Chang which began in New Orleans, turning a building into a massive chalkboard where community members are invited to write down their aspirations and share their dreams. The project has since spread all over the country, and Chang encourages artists in other cities to try it out for themselves.

Abandoned Lego Houses by Mike Doyle

(images via: twisted sifter)

And in a work of art that’s the exact opposite of all of those featured on this list, artist Mike Doyle creates super-creepy abandoned houses out of unlikely materials: little plastic LEGOs. The top house alone took Doyle over 600 hours to complete using standard LEGOs that have not been painted or altered in any way. No foreign materials like wood or glue were used, and the photos were not retouched.