Realm of beautiful decay: Haunting photos of abandoned mansions, shuttered ...

By

Snejana Farberov



Published:

21:14 EST, 19 June 2014


|
Updated:

08:35 EST, 20 June 2014


Dutch photographer Niki Feijen has criss-crossed the world looking for crumbling beauty lurking beneath a thick layer of dust inside long-forgotten buildings.


Feijen, who made headlines last year with his first self-published book of photographs titled Disciple of Decay, is now preparing to unveil to the world his latest project titled Frozen.


The new book, which is due to be released on September 17 at the Berliner Liste art fair in Berlin, features 184 pages of stunning interiors of abandoned mansions, mental institutions and churches from around the world.


Exploring decay: Dutch photographer Niki Feijen has traversed the world looking for crumbling beauty lurking beneath a thick layer of dust inside private bedrooms and public buildings



Globe-trotter: For years, the Dutchman has been traveling the world looking for boarded up buildings



Sequel: Feijen is now preparing to unveil to the world his latest project titled Frozen as a follow-up on his self-published book Disciple of Decay



Hallowed ground: Feijen has always been interested in religious spaces, such as deserted chapels and small churches that haven’t been in use in years



Time lapse: This image shows what appears to be a deserted old movie theater with rows of folded chairs still in place



Phantom music: The keys on this dusty old piano clearly have not been touched for many years


The most

poignant and unnerving images in the series depict rooms that look as if

their inhabitants had just left, with pillows thrown carelessly on the

bed and bath towels still hanging from a railing over a tub.


Besides

derelict old mansions ravaged by time and debris-strewn hallways,

Feijen documented some more unusual spaces for his second book.


One

image shows what appears to be a deserted old movie theater with rows

of chairs still in place and vegetation peeking through open

windows.


Another

image shows a weathered roller coaster covered in a thick layer of grime in

an abandoned amusement park, where the photographer also stumbled upon a

water slide overflowing with plants and draining into a chipped

blue-tile pool filled with standing rainwater.


Feijen has made a name for himself in the art world as a photographer specializing in Urban Exploration, or Urbex for short.



Delusions of grandeur: This colonnaded ball room decked out in marble looks like it could be the site of a grand reception, if it weren’t for the gaping hole in the roof



Just push play: The feeling one gets from looking at Feijen’s images is that someone had pressed the pause button on life



Sacred spaces: Feijen’s ideal shooting locations are ghost towns, insane asylums, dilapidated churches and castles frozen in time



Journey into the past: Looking at these image, one cannot help but think that the owners of these personal items have just stepped out for a minute and will be right back



Water world: In his travels, Feijen has come upon this abandoned water park with a slide draining into an empty pool overgrown with vegetation



Ghosts of the past: A water park that was once crowded with happy children and parents has been reconquered by nature



Last stop: This roller coaster covered in a thick layer of grime has not heard children’s terrified and joyful squeals in many years


For

years, the Dutchman has been traveling the globe looking for boarded up

buildings, decrepit chapels and family homes where everything is still

in place.


In

Frozen, one particularly unsettling and thought-provoking image shows

dusty old jackets and a woman’s black leather purse hanging from hooks

in a foyer, and a pair of dirty slippers left next to a rusty bicycle waiting for their owner to come home.


The feeling one gets from looking at Feijen’s images is that someone had pressed the pause button on life. 


His

ideal shooting locations are ghost towns, long-shuttered insane

asylums, dilapidated hotels and castles frozen in time and looking like

at any moment their inhabitants will walk through the door and

reclaim their personal space.



Crumbling beauty: Even though Feijen’s interiors are being eaten away by time itself, much architectural and aesthetic beauty remains



Bleak: Some of the shooting locations look especially gloomy, like this image

of what appears to be a deserted jail or a mental institution



Eerie: This vast bedroom still bears the marks of its previous inhabitants, with white pillows resting on the two single beds joint together



Cavernous: This dizzying image shows a view from the top overlooking multiple flights of concrete stairs



Worse for wear: Time has not been kind to this humble hotel room where everything is covered in moss and debris



Attention to detail: In this badly damaged bathroom towels are still hanging from a railing over a tub



While some of the interiors in Feijen’s photos have retained an air of grandeur, like the airy colonnaded ballroom adorned with marble, everything in sight has been touched by decay.


In 2010, Feijen ventured into the ultimate deserted location, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in the Ukraine, where time stopped in 1986 after a deadly nuclear accident that resulted in a rapid mass evacuation.


 




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Comments (325)


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The comments below have not been moderated.




ladyjj,


London,


moments ago


Brilliant




Star,


Surrey, United Kingdom,


8 minutes ago


Great photography




Meqmac,


Newcastle, United Kingdom,


40 minutes ago


These are like a different take on the very fine haunted house exteriors published by my friend the late Simon Marsden and still available as prints from his website. They form perfect contrasts in creepiness. These are more visceral, but the two sides are perfectly complementary. I’d love to use one for the jacket of my next ghost story (as Jonathan Aycliffe).




Allie,


Warwickshire, United Kingdom,


47 minutes ago


Just don’t read the inane captions.




Jimmygoldfish,


Glasgow,


1 hour ago


amazing pictures usually everything is just demolished for the next housing project if any of these were in the uk they would be burnt down i bet




Welshmans_wife,


Cardiff,


1 hour ago


Beautiful




Clyde the Rabbit,


London, United Kingdom,


1 hour ago


Photographing rubbish, yawn.




keitho82,


Dublin, Ireland,


1 hour ago


HDR not paintings, a type of photoshop editing. brainiac




Graham1973,


Southampton,


1 hour ago


Blackpool?




stelle,


Los Angeles, United States,


1 hour ago


Beautifully haunting pictures.



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Realm of beautiful decay: Haunting photos of abandoned mansions, shuttered ...
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