Urban Exploration

Urban exploration peels back the city’s visible layer to reveal abandoned buildings, derelict factories, and forgotten spaces hiding urban history. Photography and documentation of decay, industrial sites, and architectural ruins—places that were once thriving but now stand abandoned.

Discover ghost towns, theme parks left to decay, Berlin’s urban exploration scene, and the stories these places preserve. Urban explorers document disappearing architecture and industrial heritage before demolition, capturing the layers of history that official records often miss. Explore the hidden geography that shapes how we understand urban evolution and what cities leave behind.

Robbie Rowlands’ Urban Cuttings

Melbourne-based artist Robbie Rowlands seems to be obsessed by cutting through things, e.g. rooms, trees, houses, chairs, walls, further things and other stuff. The Australian explores notions of stability and vulnerability through the manipulation of objects and environments as Amir knows to report… The artist takes spaces and objects and shapes them in a form that makes them almost unrecognizable, and of course there is certain violence, an element of destructiveness in the process. But the effect is productive. (about Robbie Rowlands) ...

Rallito X - Abandoned Monster Art

I personally met Spanish street artist Rallito X first when I visited Madrid earlier this year. Yesterday I hook up with him again, this time in an abandoned area in the eastern part of Berlin, to explore the rooms of this old sausage factory and to extend my photo-collection of urban artists in action… In the end, Rallito, whose dirty monster paintings are often garnished with comic-like dicks and provoking slogans, found a nice spot on the very top of the building, for what reason I had some special butterflies in my stomach during the whole action. Nevertheless the results are great again: Berlin has a new crazy monster character and my collection has some nice, new photos! ...

Urban Artbase Grabowsee Impressions

john reaktor - grabowsee A month ago, I already posted about the upcoming urban art festival at Artbase Grabowsee near Berlin and informed you about the big line-up of local and international urban artists participating. Now, I had the chance to get a more detailed idea of this very interesting abandoned urban art project by visiting the area with its beautiful decaying buildings and bugging mosquitoes, talking to artists and of course photographing some of the already finished artworks… ...

Abandoned Urban Art

Out of Sight - Urban Art / Abandoned Spaces, which was published just this month, is the book you want to have if you’re an urban explorer and urban art enthusiast in equal measure! The book features those artists who appreciate the privacy of and feeling in abandoned spaces and presents in that way mind-blowing urban artworks in decayed factories, abandoned warehouses and industrial sites! Not all art craves attention, some of it hides in secret places. Some of it is buried treasure, out in the urban wilderness, left scattered in empty rooms of derelict buildings like strange markings left by an unknown tribe… ...

Subway Worldwide

subway networks Subway Systems | Did you know that our planet has now 178 metro systems including 84 metros and 21 subways, and that the rest has other official names, such as MRT, Metrorail, or U-Bahn? Or that trains on 34 circle lines are orbiting through 27 cities, 33 systems run on the left track, 113 on the right and that 33 cities have driverless lines? These and much more interesting facts as well as all the original schematic rail network maps, logos, news, statistics and a lot more about Metro, Subway, MRT, Rapid Transit, U-Bahn, Metrorail or whatever you like to call it, can be found on metrobits.org, a brilliant source for info about all subways around the globe! ...

Irgh - Crazy Abandoned Murals

Abandoned Murals | Berlin-based urban artist Irgh is one of the most active artists in Berlin’s abandoned environments, for what reason I decided to start to document his often colorful and crazy murals! As a member of the Wurstbande street art crew, Irgh has been part of Berlin’s street art scene for years and developed further his style from simple forms and styles to more and more complex, interwoven wall paintings showing crazy knots of extremities. Those can be found all over Berlin, mainly in abandoned, decayed areas like old factories and warehouses and will also be part of the Artbase Grabowsee urban art festival… ...

Artbase Grabowsee - Urban Art Festival

Art Festival | This is an urban art Easter egg for you: The urban exploration team of go2know is currently organizing an urban art festival in an abandoned sanitarium near Berlin! The Artbase Grabowsee (how it’s called) will bring together street artists, urban art painters, musicians, DJ’s, VJ’s and light artists to create an amazing festival of creativity in an interesting location. There’s already a big line-up of local and international artists including for example 44flavours, Alias, Gogoplata, Herr von Bias, Irgh, Klub7, Prost, SP-38, Tika and many more! What I like is that the list is still open, for what reason you just have to drop them a message if you also would like to participate! The location seems to be big enough for some more artists and there’s also enough time to get everything done - the festival will take place on the first weekend in August… ...

Uebergrund 2 - Urban Photo Mag

Photo Magazine | Do you remember the new urban magazine Uebergrund by Sebastian Linck? A short time after I posted my review, the first issue was almost sold out! Now, the second issue has been published and again Sebastian was so kind to send me his new urban photo mag… In Uebergrund 2 everything is about the underground, for what reason the mag includes nice shots of subway tunnels, basements, catacombs and other dark places in Darmstadt, Lisbon, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Berlin. With this issue, Sebastian is following the trend of urban exploring and created a nice, small work which is a must to have for all who love abandoned places and the underground! ...

Light Painting WiFi

Urban Light Art | Yeah I know, the results when art meets technology are often strange, but sometimes also groundbreaking and interesting. Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen and Einar Sneve Martinussen recently showed that the Graffiti Research Lab is not the only agency which combines urban arts with technology by developing a four meters tall light art tool which makes WiFi visible! This project explores the invisible terrain of WiFi networks in urban spaces by light painting signal strength in long-exposure photographs. A four-meters long measuring rod with 80 points of light reveals cross-sections through WiFi networks using a photographic technique called light-painting. (About the project) ...

Detroit - Decayed Buildings & DIY Paradise

City Documentary | Do you remember the ruins of Detroit, which are a paradise for urban explorers and artists from all over the globe? Right after I published that post I got a message by Bixentro from London, who informed me about a small documentary by Palladium Boots about the city of Detroit, in which Mister Knoxville himself explores abandoned areas and the new generation of creative people restructuring and reorganizing the public life… ...