Urban Exploration

I was really happy, when I noticed the latest murals by a French crew of urban artists called Animae Dementia. As they report on their blog, they are exploring Berlin right now - After they hit the old NSA station Teufelsberg they recently left their marks on the walls of the abandoned Bärenquell Brewery! Being well equipped with straps and other climbing stuff, they are able to abseil themselves from the roof and paint formerly inaccessible wall parts. Nevertheless it’s not just the technique, but also the resulting murals, showing crazy, comic-like animals, which are just amazing! ...

As all of you already know, Australian graffiti artist Matt Adnate recently opened his Point of View show in Berlin and after my photo-series of his studio work, the Berlin Collective created this pretty nice documentary of the rest of his Berlin trip! As a graffiti artists I always had to work in the night, had to run around and I never really had the freedom to just paint. (Adnate) Combining nice footage and some statements by Adnate, the video gives some interesting insights into the artists world and explains why he likes to paint for galleries or in abandoned buildings. ...

Today I have a nice hint for urban explorers or urbex enthusiasts who are fascinated by abandoned architecture: Matt Lambros is a photographer based in New York City, urban explorer and runs the After The Final Curtain blog, a photographic documentation of the effects of years of neglect and decay in some of America’s greatest theaters. What first sounds like a time-consuming obsession is just a great way of preserving and presenting forgotten and lost cultural symbols! ...

Ostkreuz station is was one the tradition-richest train stations in Berlin. With its (rusty) structural steelwork, old brick-built houses, fantastic stairs and other architectural peculiarities Ostkreuz was the mother-of-all old-school interchange stations in the Eastern part! Since winter 2007/08 it’s now under construction - the plan is to build another ugly glass palace station - for what reason it’s just superb for me to get the chance to look back and enjoy the old days by watching the nice Ostkreuz documentary by Laura Geiger and Tom Kretschmer who filmed Ostkreuz’ everyday-life between 2005 and 2007. ...

Building theme parks and never using them is not just a Chinese problem (remember the abandoned Wonderland)! Also in the US you can find abandoned and decayed amusement parks like the so-called Joyland in Wichita, Kansas, which comes with fabulous sad images of forgotten days with a lot of fun… Opened in 1949, the Joyland Amusement Park was once the largest theme park in central Kansas and operated for 55 years until it closed in 2004 due to financial problems. With its wooden roller coaster, Western buildings and other attractions this abandoned theme park seems to be a playground for urban explorers and photographers. ...

Located in Chenzhuang Village, Nankou Town, Changping district, this abandoned theme park near Beijing looks like a lot of fun! Back in 1998 a lot of money was invested in this massive theme park project, with the aim to create the biggest amusement park in Asia, but somehow the investors and the Chinese government never finished their work. Nowadays, the ghost Wonderland theme park looks like a Disney wasteland including archaic Western buildings, an abandoned castle and other attractions… ...

Berlin is well-known for its abandoned places and for that reason a great playground for urban explorers! My first post about abandoned places in Berlin featured the old Bärenquell brewery in Schöneweide and the old ice fabric in Mitte. Today I’m going to introduce you to some other, decayed buildings in and around Berlin and a nice urban exploration blog… Abandoned Olympic Village Half of the village which was built for the 1936 Olympic Games near Berlin (Elstal, Wustermark) can still be visited (they other half was kept in good condition and is some kind of a museum nowadays) and although the trip takes some time it’s definitely worth to go! ...

It seems the international anamorphic art scene has some new superheroes! Italian art collective Truly Design just created one of the best and most impressing anamorphic paintings I’ve ever seen… In an old factory in Turin, the crew composed of Rems182, Mach505, Ninja1 and Mauro149 showed how to use spray-paint, perspective and space to generate mind-blowing effects. This masterpiece is definitely an eye-catcher and I hope to see some more of those artworks in future! ...

Berlin-lad and street artist Irgh and New York City’s street artist Erik Burke aka Over/Under recently teamed up in Staten Island, NYC for a painting session in an abandoned warehouse! Over/Under’s latest work can be seen in the book Street Art New York (2010), his solo exhibition Building on Building, Minneapolis, MN (2011), or on the streets of NYC whereas Irgh’s murals can mainly be found in decayed buildings and old factories in and around Berlin. ...

Two days ago, the first episode of the urban exploring video series Crack The Surface was published, giving some interesting and also spectacular insights into the small but exponentially growing, worldwide urban exploring scene and its culture. Those who risk it all to access and infiltrate closed, abandoned or forgotten spaces explain the what, whys, and how to’s of exploring urban space… Garnished with some extraordinary film sequences, showing people entering underground drains and stations, climbing on roofs (Check out 12:37 - I think it’s taken from the top of The Shard tower’s construction area in London, the upcoming tallest building in the European Union!) or wading through sewage, the interviews reveal not just but also difficulties and other things urban explorers should think about. ...