Churches, prisons, psychiatric hospitals and courthouses given over to the elements can sometimes taken on a mythic significance, given a haunting, creepy beauty by the passage of time. Removed from their former functions, these institutional buildings become both architectural skeletons and snapshots of human activity, frozen in time. In their emptiness, the echoes of past patients, prisoners and parishioners seem louder than ever.

Carabanchel Prison, Spain

(images via: alex//berlin_alexander stübner)

One of the biggest prisons in Europe until its closure in 1998, Madrid’s Carabanchel Prison was built by political prisoners after the Spanish Civil War between 1940 and 1944. During the ten years of its abandonment, the prison was inhabited by homeless people and other marginal groups, and covered in elaborate graffiti. Despite its historical significance and the protests of many locals, the prison was demolished in 2008.

It represented one of the most impressive examples of the repressive panopticon design, which allows a watchman to observe all inmates without them knowing when they’re being watched. The panopticon arrangement was initially envisioned not just for prisons, but also for hospitals, sanitariums and daycares.

St. Agnes Church, Detroit

(images via: memories_by_mike 1 2, erik_mauer)

Abandoned in 2006 due to financial troubles, Detroit’s St. Agnes church remained in fairly good condition for three years, though it had been stripped to its bare bones. Even once all of the organ pipes, chandeliers and stained glass windows were gone, the church displayed much of its old grandeur.

But the structure underwent a striking transformation in 2009, when leaks in the roof led to extensive water damage and mold, causing the masonry to crumble. Textural details are revealed in stark contrast by a black grime of dirt and mold. Today, the church looks like much of the rest of Detroit; it has been looted and vandalized to the point of being unrecognizable.

Gartloch Mental Hospital, Scotland

(images via: strike4th, bigcagwell, justified sinner, skin-ubx 1 + 2)

In service for over a century, Gartloch Hospital is a sprawling Victorian complex located just outside the city of Glasgow, Scotland. From the time of its opening in 1889, it served as an asylum for the poor people of the city. Though its primary purpose was as a psychiatric hospital, it temporarily served as an emergency medical facility during World War II. It was the subject of many a Scottish ghost story long before it closed in 1996, and today its dark, empty hallways feel more haunted than ever.

Hellingly Asylum, Sussex

(images via: howzey)

Has any creepy old mental hospital ever been more fittingly named? Hellingly Asylum in Sussex, England opened in 1903 to relieve overcrowding at other institutions during a time in which people could be thrown into hospitals for the rest of their lives for being gay or having a child out of wedlock. Located on 400 acres, the complex included sex-separated wards, a villa for ‘mentally defective’ children, and a small isolation hospital for infectious diseases, which stood in the woods at some distance from the rest of the buildings. The hospital even had its own electric tramway.

Hellingly closed in 1994 and most of its buildings fell into rapid decline. Fires, vandalism and theft took their toll. Medical equipment and furniture could still be seen among the ruins during the years in which the only people who ever entered were urban explorers, graffiti artists, photographers and people with questionable intentions.

Today, only a few buildings remain. Most have been demolished to make way for new housing.

Next – Pripyat Schools, Bronx Borough Courthouse and Gary, Indiana’s City Methodist Church

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7 Abandoned Wonders Of Institutional Architecture

Detroit is arguably one of the most fascinating modern cities in the world. This is thanks to the city’s unique balance between its former identity as a manufacturing mecca and its current state of sectional abandonment  and iterative renewal. It is neither deserted nor wholly occupied, but exists in tension between destruction, creation and everyday living, with beautiful stories on all of these fronts. French photographers Yves Marchand  and Romain Meffre saw the abandoned parts of this compelling urban landscape as no less fascinating than the ruins of ancient civilizations and set out to document it in their 2010 book The Ruins of Detroit.

(all images via: Marchand Meffre)

Despite the empty neighborhoods, abandoned buildings and crumbling structures – or perhaps because of them – Detroit still possesses a kind of indomitable magic. The city exists in a state of flux, balancing somewhere between its former glory, its current semi-abandoned status, and pockets of fresh new life and creative directions springing up from the ashes.

The city, so rich with history both industrial and individual, was once the fourth largest in the United States. It housed some of the country’s brightest engineers and most promising entrepreneurs. The city grew and its residents continued to expand their living areas into planned suburbs.

But the automobile industry which had such a large part of the city’s early days also proved to play a part in its undoing. White middle-class residents used those automobiles to move out of the inner city and into their new suburbs. Segregation increased steadily until the violent race riot in 1967.

Following the riot, the city continued its rapid decline. The industry that built Detroit moved on to other locations. Inner-city residents fled their homes by the thousands. Every race and every economic class was affected by this exodus; the city simply bled away until it held less than half its former population.

Unlike almost any other place in the world, Detroit’s abandoned buildings and ruined structures are not isolated in one part of the city. Grand, well-kept buildings can exist just meters away from crumbling ruins. Inhabited and abandoned homes exist side by side in neighborhoods – this as tragic in some sense, but has also provided the seeds of fresh slates throughout the city. New projects happen rapidly in this fluid urban environemnt.

What is so compelling about the images in The Ruins of Detroit is the seeming urgency of the city’s abandonment. In civic buildings, papers and boxes still occupy offices. In abandoned libraries, books continue to line the walls. Schools still hold desks and police stations are stuffed with forgotten and moldering mug shots. Chairs are tipped over as though the former occupants of these buildings suddenly evacuated due to an emergency.

Given the slow but steady decline of the city’s population, this urgency is baffling. Surely there was more than enough time to clean the buildings out, remove anything that could be reused or salvaged and clean the buildings up. But it seems that no one cared to take the time to do so. Perhaps the reasons behind these rapid abandonments are lost to the ages. In some cases, however, the intact interiors can be transformed again when a new use is presented.

The photographers point out that this state of partial ruination is ephemeral – eventually it must give way to complete ruin or rebuilding. Their goal was to photograph the city’s current state of abandonment before fate tips one way or the other.

For the sake of everyone who has ever lived in or loved Detroit, there is and should hope that there is rebirth in the city’s future. The once-great city is still capable of captivating us with its strength and resilience if we only care to watch it bounce back. Already, new industries and urban plans have freer reign than in almost any other major city – projects shoot from start to finish with amazing speed.

One of the sweetest sounds to students is when that last bell in the last class rings to signal school is out for summer. In the words of Alice Cooper, “Out for summer. Out till fall. We might not go back at all.” No one will return for classes to these schools; they are out permanently. The once busy halls and classrooms are lifeless and lonely. Not all schools are filled with laughter; some have a very dark past. These abandoned and decaying schools are out forever.

Bus

(image credit:ScallopHolden.com)

Tax payers may want to cuss at this overturned and graffiti-covered bus. However, there is something satisfying to the rebel soul to see the urbex image. Like these schools, this bus will never experience high school drama, laughing, or arguing kids again.

Abandoned School

(image credit:Atelier Teee)

Once upon a time, in Bradford, Illinois, this school was new and filled with hopeful teachers and laughing kids. Now it is a lonely and sad dilapidated building.

Detroit

(image credit:the chive,doobybrain)

Detroit is a rustbelt city with population loss, rising crime rates, high loss of jobs, and a declining urban environment. Nearly 30 schools have permanently closed their doors due to budget cuts. Most were left unsecured and scrappers have plundered the computer monitors and the buildings for any precious metals. The school buildings are full of discarded textbooks and office paperwork, peeling paint, and overall destruction.

Holley High School

(image credit: www.motionblurstudios.com)

The Holley High School auditorium with stuffed animals as the audience is located in New York. The school was closed in 1976. 10-15 years ago, asbestos clean-up costs were estimated at $1 million. This abandoned school and auditorium will never again be filled with applause or cheers. No high school student will be struck with stage-fright or give the performance of their life. The guests in the moldy seats are gifts from superstitious urban explorers.

Class Dismissed

(image credit:opacity,ScallopHolden.com)

The lecture hall in an abandoned Belgium university is cast in an eerie light. Forlorn and deserted now, the college was built in 1930 on the site of an old abbey.  In the abandoned school library, on the right, a librarian will never again shush someone. The floor is littered with dead presidents.

Art School

(image credit:ScallopHolden.com,ScallopHolden.com)

The abandoned art school in Buffalo, New York, has bright splashes of color mixed into the beautiful decay. No aspiring artist will ever again paint their heart out to create a masterpiece here.

Piano

(image credit:Micheal Peterson)

The dejected and overturned piano in a rural Nebraska school is hauntingly beautiful. The forgotten keys are forever silenced.

Abandoned Girls’ School

The scenery on the decaying stage is from the last play before the UK school for girls was abandoned.

Beautiful architectural bones will slowly disintegrate.

Below the dome, the pentagram on the floor seems to gives this room a sinister atmosphere.

A lone chair sits amid rotting floorboards of a classroom. With no more catty or chatty girls, the halls, corridors, and stairways are silent.

(image credit:howzey)

Sections of this abandoned school for girls now resembles a school from a war-torn country.

Pennhurst State School

Pennhurst State School opened in Spring City, PA, in 1908. The facility was dedicated to treat people with mental and physical disabilities, but in 1946 there were only seven physicians serving over 2,000 patients.

Reports of beatings by staff and other patients, assault, and extended periods of isolation were uncovered. Residents regressed into mentally disturbed states of mind. In 1977, the institution was found guilty of violating patient’s constitutional rights in a class-action lawsuit.

Among the debris and destruction are reminders of the students who attended school here. The school is seeped with trauma. Instead of finding broken desks, the atmosphere is heavy with broken spirits.

Kids were not happy and well cared for. The children despaired in the “Candycane Dungeon.”

Ex-patients and many other reports were documented, including abuse, patient case studies, and behavior modification. Pennhurst State School was closed in 1987.

(image credit:opacity)

In October 2010, the school will be reopened as a “haunted attraction.” It will be called “Pennhurst Institute of Fear.”

Gas Masks

(image credit:Timm Suess)

The ghost town of Pripyat near Chernobyl is a derelict wasteland. The floor is littered with gas masks. “School’s out for summer. School’s out forever. School’s been blown to pieces…”

Stalker School & Popash School

This old abandoned school in Bedford, Indiana, looks eerie. However it has an even creepier name, Stalker School.

(image credit:cindy47452, tantrum_dan)

“No more pencils. No more books. No more teacher’s dirty looks.” In Florida, the decaying Popash School is under demolition.

Exit

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Both of these schools are seeped with trauma, instead of happy school days. From 1922 to 1992, the developmentally disabled children in Massachusetts could not run for the exit. Belchertown State School was permanently shut down after publicized investigations that proved overcrowding and poor living conditions. On the right, the abandoned training school consisted of 87 buildings on a sprawling 1,000 acre campus. It was founded in 1917, but forced to forever close its doors in 1990 after violating patients’ 1st, 4th, 5th, 9th and 11th amendment rights. Another court case was won by a woman who charged deprivation of her human rights and slavery.

Abandoned Washburne Trade School

This is a zippy, trippy tour through an abandoned vocational school before it was demolished. School’s out forever!