Before it was abandoned in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Pripyat was a thriving Ukrainian city with a population of nearly 50,000. The relatively sudden exodus of its inhabitants left behind a physical snapshot of the times, preserved by the absence of humans intervention for fear of fallout.

Despite the dangers of returning, urban explorers have been visiting the place for years. Some photographers use cameras mounted on aerial drones to maintain a safer distance. Other in-person visitors less concerned about safety have gone in and looted old buildings. Most, though, go simply to observe, drawn to the deserted city by those mysterious forces that attract people to derelict places — embodied history, transgressive impulses and human curiosity among them.

Such dangerous or hard-to-reach abandoned places can particularly alluring, especially when their stories are compelling. Take Hashima, just one of many Japanese islands but unusually packed with old buildings. A thriving coal-mining city in times past, “Battleship Island” once had the highest population density on planet — until a drop in coal production led to its desertion. In recent years, more and more photos and videos of the place have proliferated thanks to the internet, in turn raising questions about how much to repair, restore or change it in order to make it more accessible for an increasing number of people visiting by boat.

While some architectural artifacts in remote locations like this have been left largely alone by visitors or modified simply to accommodate tourists, others have gone through generations of much more radical change. Off the coast of Great Britain, army and navy sea forts have been turned into everything from private retreats and luxury resorts to pirate radio stations and rogue micro-nations. Here, a combination of factors, including abandonment by the government and somewhat more accessible (yet still aquatic) locations have conspired to make these structures more appealing for different kinds of adaptive reuse.

Preservation, Restoration & Contention

In central locations with more people (and thus opinions) the fate of historical places has often been the subject of controversy. In many cities, preservation of a current state tends to win out. Even such a seemingly neutral position can be contentious, though, particularly when efforts to preserve are partial or seem superficial, as in the case of ‘ghost facades‘ where only thin surfaces are saved.

Rote historicism is a simplistic default that can lead to strange and unexpected results and extreme scenarios, like cities demolishing entire buildings to “preserve” the appearance of historical skylines.

In other cases, restorations are pursued, though choosing a target point of time or period can be fraught — some buildings have been changed substantially over centuries, making it challenging to decide what aspects to restore. Either way, renovations involve modifications, which can quickly divide people who crave a kind of physical authenticity from those who embrace the notion that architecture necessarily changes over time — the situation of Notre Dame after the fire illustrates the point. Supporters of extensions and additions that don’t match the original argue that visible differences will help people in the future understand what is truly old and new, while critics note that most famous old structures have already been damaged, rebuilt and changed for centuries. There is no single solution.

Ruination, Rediscovery & Reclamation

There are people, too, who think that historical ruins should simply be left alone to decay. Along those lines, many building infiltrators and urban explorers in the United States, Europe, Asia and other parts of the world where urbex is popular follow an unwritten code to leave no trace of their presence, allowing subsequent visitors to experience a disused space as they did. There is beauty in glimpsing snapshots of history and watching nature slowly reclaim a structure.

Some abandoned places endure through careful consideration and the avoidance of further damage, but many persist in their current form simply because they are less accessible in the first place — the latter status applies to many underwater towns and archaeological sites as well as underground tunnels, crypts and caverns.

Once rediscovered, though, the fates of such places depend on where they are located and current attitudes toward ruination, preservation and restoration, which continue to change over time, much like the locations in question will do … with or without further human intervention.

Left in the hands of nature by residents fleeing Tehran, these ordinary houses have become backdrops for an extraordinary series of photographs by Gohar Dashti, born during the Islamic Revolution.

Dubbed Home, the series is about the power of nature in the wake of human absence. She was inspired to begin the project after returning to her hometown and discovering a single plant on the deck of a neighboring house.

“It had flourished in their absence,” she recalls, “and its neck now curved against its own weight. It had the power to stay there. Left alone, it would eventually consume and conquer the home.” From there, she began to shoot organic scenes as well as staged setups to illustrate the overwhelming forces of nature, extrapolating reclamation based on a combination of reality and imagination.

More about the artist: “Gohar Dashti received her M.A. in Photography from the Fine Art University of Tehran in 2005. After studying photography in Iran, she has spent the last 14 years making the large scale of her practice concerning in social issues with particular references to history and culture through a convergence of interest in anthropology and sociology.”

“She tries with her own means to express the world around her. Her starting point is always her surrounding, her memory, but with her very personal perception of things. She tries to trace her relationship to society and the world in it’s most sensitive way. Her practice continuously develops from life events and connection between the personal and the universal, the political and the fantasised.”

Cracked open like a coat (or pair of pants), the walls of this structure in England, have been opened up to expose its abandoned interior ahead of its scheduled demolition.

“Open to the Public” is an art installation by Alex Chinneck located in Kent that deconstructs a mid-century tannery to create a mind-bending, giant-sized illusion of flexibility alongside solid surfaces.

Wood columns, glass windows and plaster walls all seem to bend and morph in uncanny ways. Along one face, the building is zipped down the center — along another, a zipper seems to slide sideways just below the roof.

The artist describes the work as “theatrical and surreal,” and notes that the zipper approach is a nod to the clothing that was fabricated inside the architectural shell.

“When introducing a narrative, we take complex paths to get to simple moments, which are quite accessible and conceptually light – we kept it playful with the zipping element.” This is also not his first deconstruction project.

Tentatively titled “Toilets at Dawn,” this photo series documents the strange phenomena of underground public bathrooms of urban London, now deserted but many dating back to Victorian times.

Photographer Agnese Sanvito has taken to capturing these abandoned urban relics in the best light possible, often by shooting them in early-morning hours.

Living, at the time, in a cesspool of industry and publicly-discarded human waste, Victorian Londoners gladly paid a penny or two to get out of the streets and into subterranean restrooms. Though most of these were neglected in the years following World War II, their surface remnants still stand in many places.

“They’re part of the fabric of the city, but because they’re not in use no-one pays attention to them, they are forgotten spaces,” says Agnese. “At the moment, I have just photographed those in the area that are near to me. It’s a work-in-progress, I don’t know where it’s going. Now my friends call sometimes and say, ‘I’ve found another one.’”

Once prominent and highly functional, most of these remainders go largely unnoticed in the bustle of the city, until you start spotting them, then searching out more.

Some are obscured trees, weeds or rubbish, but underneath you can still find gorgeous detailing and meticulous ironwork. Others have even been converted into everything from restaurants to private homes.

Today, more conventional, above-ground, and generally less-exciting restrooms (some for free, others for a fee) have largely replaced these vintage curiosities.

Bought at auction by a florist last year, this dilapidated multifamily home was destined to be demolished but given a last chance to blossom thanks to a team of florists and array of volunteers packing the place inside and out with a flowers.

Deserted houses in Detroit are famously sold for as little as a dollar by the city, giving florist  Lisa Waud (photos by Heather Saunders) an idea.

She purchased this place for just $250 at auction, then turned a trash-filled abandonment into a work of art as well as a fundraiser for a flower farm and design center on the site.

The Flower House was given over to contributing florists, each encouraged to turn a space, wall or ceiling into a blank canvas for their creations. The results are remarkable.

Following the project, “the house that held the exhibition will be responsibly deconstructed and its materials repurposed. the land will be converted into a flower farm and design center on their formerly neglected properties.”