Re-inhabited Circle Ks - an exhibit of identical storefronts abandoned by a national chain of convenience stores and re-purposed by new businesses. [more inside]
posted by mullacc on Nov 10, 2009 - 61 comments

For the last two years, Flickr user HK Man has been collecting old photos of Hong Kong, finding the exact spots at which they were taken, and taking them again. The result, from his first photo of Victoria Harbor to a more recent one of Nathan Road, comprises a chronicle of Hong Kong's unrestrained vertical development over the past few decades. In a similar vein, Gwulo is a community site for "for everyone that is interested in old Hong Kong" and includes photos, mysteries, and discussions -- such as this one about old Kai Tak Airport. [more inside]
posted by milquetoast on Aug 30, 2009 - 28 comments

Urban exploration has been featured here once or twice before, but Jim Griffioen's site photo-documenting his discoveries in and around Detroit deserves a look. Griffioen was recently interviewed [direct mp3 link] on the American Public Media radio program The Story. [more inside]
posted by Item on Jul 25, 2009 - 14 comments

A website has been launched to preserve the history of Danvers State Insane Asylum. The Asylum, which opened in 1878 in Danvers, MA (site of the Salem Witch Trials) and closed in 1992, was featured in the horror movie Session 9, and may have been the inspiration for HP Lovecraft's Arkham Asylum. Its Kirkbride Wings, which once held the institution's living quarters, now house a 400+ unit apartment complex. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jun 30, 2009 - 35 comments

Breach. Photographer Richard Mosse's pictures of Saddam Hussein's palaces.
posted by homunculus on Jun 10, 2009 - 11 comments

100 Abandoned Houses. A photo essay from Detroit-based photographer Kevin Bauman.
posted by dersins on Apr 3, 2009 - 71 comments

NPR article and slide show of the works of Julius Shulman. If you've seen anything by Shulman, you've seen this one. Gas station buffs probably favor this. And, if this one wasn't in Playboy, it should have been! And, bunches more though a google image search. And, at 98, he's still capturing images!
posted by HuronBob on Mar 26, 2009 - 5 comments

A survey of London's remaining professional darkrooms
posted by nthdegx on Jan 28, 2009 - 34 comments

Jørn Utzon, the architect who designed Sydney Opera House despite the project being plagued by controversy and scandal, died today. While the rest of us are posting photographs of our drunken friends or the poetry of a plastic bag caught in the wind, one Flickr user is busy with pithy, insightful, considered and often witty architectural commentary supplementing exquisite architectural photography. This obituary for Utzon captures the cost of that project to the man himself and to the world. [more inside]
posted by carbide on Nov 29, 2008 - 21 comments

Dionisio González makes photographs of imaginary favelas, Filip Dujardin makes photographs of imaginary buildings.
posted by jack_mo on Nov 9, 2008 - 6 comments

24 Stunning HDR Photographs of Abandoned Places. 42 Essential Flickr Abandonments Groups Dedicated to Abandoned Places, Properties and Buildings.
posted by homunculus on Sep 22, 2008 - 39 comments

10 Incredible Ancient Oases.
posted by homunculus on Aug 24, 2008 - 21 comments

Perhaps you think you've had your fill of photographs of decaying architecture and abandoned buildings. If so, the rich color and play of light in Michael Eastman's beautiful body of work from Cuba, Europe, and the U.S. may change your mind. His site is flash - for non-flash folks, the Duane Reed Gallery has additional works, including his B&W portfolios on horses, landscapes, and succulents. (no relation to the Kodak family; via BB-Blog)
posted by madamjujujive on Aug 23, 2008 - 15 comments

Mimar Sinan; 16th century Ottoman Architect Mimar Sinan born a Christian in Anatolia, from either a Greek or Armenian background, was conscripted into Ottoman service in 1511, and converted to Islam. He was the chief Ottoman architect to four sultans. Sinan worked in seismic, as well as political, fault zones, and his buildings are famous for their earthquake resistance. His extraordinary output included 146 mosques. [more inside]
posted by adamvasco on Aug 14, 2008 - 7 comments

Keith Thorne has stunningly colored pictures of decaying urban spaces on his Flickr stream, including some taken at an abandoned German military hospital that once treated Adolf Hitler. A few pictures feature himself. Via.
posted by Hollow on Aug 4, 2008 - 26 comments

Liberty City vs New York City
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on May 14, 2008 - 42 comments

Love thy Neighbor Photographer and author Steven Hirsh has photographed the homes of registered New York State sex offenders. A wonderful writer and photographer, this work is chilling, alarming, beautiful. I get that Quentin Tarantino feeling of beauty and disgust. Look at me, nooooo look away. The series of 24 images are on Hirsch's website.
posted by doug3505 on Jan 7, 2008 - 41 comments

One Wall Away: Hidden Spaces. Jan Theun van Rees photographs secret spaces in Chicago landmarks to allow us to access to what we normally never get to see. My favorites: the old heating ducts for Unity Temple, and inside the Bean. He other series explore Amsterdam's disused theaters, galleries and museums and various personal looks at public spaces.
posted by hydrophonic on Nov 6, 2007 - 7 comments

7 Deserted Wonders of the (Post)Modern World. 7 More Deserted Wonders of the Modern World. 7 Submerged Wonders of the World. 7 Underground Wonders of the World.
posted by homunculus on Oct 4, 2007 - 36 comments

"First we kill the architects..." Photographer Danny Lyon [1, 2, 3, 4] offers ten suggestions for New York City. Suggestion #6: "Leave the World Trade Center excavation exactly as it is and use the space as a freshwater pond planted with pink, white, and yellow lilies..." His essay is only one of many from names you'll recognize in a book called Block by Block: Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York. An associated exhibition opened yesterday [museum, NYT review]. Is New York City moving in the right direction? Is your city? [via] [more inside]
posted by salvia on Sep 26, 2007 - 19 comments

Unintelligent Design. The History Images of Sze Tsung Leong. "Then there's the other type of history that is recorded in the fabric of cities. This includes the houses that are being destroyed; it has to do with the history of quotidian things, really, the layers of history that have slowly accumulated. The loss of this fabric the spaces and histories particular to different cities means that the particular cultural value and artistic qualities they contain, are lost." also here and here.
posted by arse_hat on Feb 6, 2007 - 8 comments

Carl Zimmerman's Landmarks of Industrial Britain is a photographic series of fictional public buildings derived from small scale architectural maquettes. BLDGBLOG has an informative and entertaining writeup of these vaguely surreal works. There's something oddly compelling about photographs of things that don't quite exist.
posted by sidereal on Jan 5, 2007 - 5 comments

Amazing collection of several galleries full of Japanese "urban ruins" photos, including abandoned amusement parks, refineries, apartment blocks, hospitals, schools, bowling alleys, & much more, including Battleship Island, the (previously posted) abandoned coal mining island off the coast of Nagasaki. Via.
posted by jonson on Dec 5, 2006 - 34 comments

Esfahan is home to the Blue Mosque and other buildings with their unique blue tiles which are beautifully shown in photographs by flickr's horizon. Esfahan is a world heritage site and is home to many examples of traditional Persian Architecture which is made up of eight traditional forms which taken together form the foundation on which it was based in the same way that music was once based on a finite number of notes.
posted by adamvasco on Aug 10, 2006 - 19 comments

Quicktime VR photos of Tokyo - tunnels - night - large drains - buildings - etc. The nav is mainly in Japanese but the "VR List" link, lower right, seems to be the main index.
posted by carter on Jul 26, 2006 - 9 comments

Postwar architecture of Berlin. Photographing architectural icons before they disappear. Some I kind of like. Some I don't. Others, I just don't know what they were thinking.
posted by tellurian on Apr 3, 2006 - 27 comments

Rephotographing Atget: Eugene Atget photographed Paris from 1888 until his death in 1927. Christopher Rauschenberg retraced Atget's steps in 1997 and 1998, photographing the same scenes, and documents his project in a gallery at Lens Culture. The gallery includes an audio discussion of the project. [more inside]
posted by monju_bosatsu on Feb 24, 2006 - 19 comments

Carlo Mollino [Polaroids section NSFW] A student of the occult, he was an Architect, Designer, race car enthusiast and photographer [NSFW]
posted by tellurian on Feb 1, 2006 - 11 comments

Inside metros. Cities with interesting stations [with links]. Some have works of art. Some are works of art. I notice Sydney, Australia is not on the list - no surprise there.
posted by tellurian on Sep 29, 2005 - 39 comments

Industrial and architectural photography. With both black and white and colour. I wish I could read German.
posted by tellurian on Sep 26, 2005 - 13 comments

Encyclopedia of Cultural Detritus, c/o the Bridge and Tunnel Club.
posted by xowie on Aug 27, 2005 - 10 comments

Polar Inertia is an online photojournal devoted to exploring and documenting contemporary nomadism, urban architectural typology, and the oft-hid-in-plain-sight infrastructure of contemporary existence.
posted by Chrischris on Jun 14, 2005 - 6 comments

Virtual Reality Tours of Seven European Churches Beautiful quicktime panoramas taken inside and outside of the churches. Navigate using maps or image hotspots. I really like the Sant' Andrea Mantova, built by Alberti between 1470 and 1476.
posted by carter on Feb 26, 2005 - 4 comments

Photographs of London Underground Stations Taken on black and white film, then coloured in photoshop. A nice example.
posted by carter on Jan 25, 2005 - 34 comments

Architecture of Density, by Michael Wolf • Dizzying photos of Hong Kong high-rise buildings. Think of bamboo stalks, Lego pieces, spinal columns, circuit boards...
posted by dhoyt on Jan 22, 2005 - 35 comments

Fabulous images of the Moscow Metro underground, also known as "the people's palaces". Click "M"s on the entry map to view gorgeous (often architecturally surreal) panoramic images, and visit the picture gallery for sweet details. Via Jorgen at Viewropa.
posted by taz on Jan 14, 2005 - 24 comments

Charles Eames (1907-78) and Ray Eames (1912-88) gave shape to America's twentieth century. Their lives and work represented the nation's defining social movements: the West Coast's coming-of-age, the economy's shift from making goods to the producing information, and the global expansion of American culture. This Library of Congress exhibit outlines major themes of the Eames' life and voluminous works, including architecture, furniture, and the film Powers of Ten. It is wonderfully illustrated with artifacts, photos of their life and work, and examples from the Eames' collection of 350,000 slides.
posted by carter on Jan 12, 2005 - 14 comments

you-are-here.com: Los Angeles Architectural Photo Bonanza. Pictures of buildings in Los Angeles, organized by period (1818 - 1939, 1939 - 2004), building type (theatres, skyscrapers, Victorian homes), or by architect. Also, aerial photos!
posted by ar0n on Sep 15, 2004 - 7 comments

Kampung: 60 photographs of Singapore architecture.
posted by sgt.serenity on Apr 20, 2004 - 10 comments

Derelict London. A gently melancholy collection of photographs of abandoned shops, hospitals, housing estates, public lavatories, and much more. See also Britannia Moribundia, on the national obsession with dinginess and decay. This is where England most truly excels: in all the characterful shabbiness of its drizzled parks, soiled launderettes, frayed tailors, abject chemists .. and cowed solitary cafes.
posted by verstegan on Apr 16, 2004 - 13 comments

Psychophysical spaces - the tuberculosis sanatorium of Paimio, Finland from the beginning of thirties. Explore Alvar Aalto's soothing Scandinavian functionalism on a detailed virtual tour.
posted by inkeri on Feb 9, 2004 - 5 comments

Welcome to ArtServe: Art & Architecture mainly from the Mediterranean Basin and Japan.
posted by hama7 on Nov 29, 2003 - 7 comments

Asian Historical Architecture. 'Here you can view over 6500 photos of 462 sites in seventeen countries, with background information and virtual tours. '
posted by plep on Aug 24, 2003 - 12 comments

Chinese Pop Posters. More :- Guangzhou's racing track, patrolling despair, Cuba, under New York, Bombay bazaar, and Chinese rural architecture. All from the excellent Atlas magazine - more here.
posted by plep on Jul 21, 2003 - 10 comments

The Vertically Inclined Photographer: Shooting Paris, Rome, the French Riviera and the Loire Valley from a low-flying plane is Patrick Durand's photographic obsession. It's an interesting flat alternative to Horst Hamann's [click on "Gallery" and go to "New Verticals"] tall vertical New York. There's something very exciting about looking at familiar sights from an unfamiliar point of view. [Both sites very, perhaps too Flash.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jul 4, 2003 - 14 comments

The Russian Avant-Garde Book is an online version of the MoMA exhibit, featuring 112 books originally published in Russia during the intensely creative period between 1910 and 1934, before Stalin outlawed any style but social realism. The site is separated into three chronological themes and includes examples of futurist works, constructivist graphic design, children's books, propaganda, photography and photomontage, revolutionary imagery, architecture and industry, war themes, folk art and judaica...
posted by taz on Oct 8, 2002 - 16 comments

A Tale of Two Cities: Chicago and New York This exhibition of more than 150 black-and-white photographs represents a cross-section of the thousands of significant buildings that are protected by local landmark designation in Chicago and New York City. The story of how this came to pass is both as similar and as different as the cities themselves.
posted by vacapinta on Sep 7, 2002 - 3 comments

To be a great photographer, Garry Winogrand liked to claim during the 1970's, it was first of all necessary to be Jewish Why didn't they tell me this in art school? (via NYTimes)
posted by mrhappy on Jul 7, 2002 - 11 comments

Things Fall Apart. Particularly in urban environments. Individually, the moments of entropy-in-action caught here may not mean much; collectively, they recite a visual poem about decay. A slightly melancholy site for you insomniacs out there. (By the way, you have to scroll right to get to the thumbnails.)
posted by BT on Apr 3, 2002 - 8 comments

3-D imagery from NOAA of the crater at ground zero, engineers are using them to find the location of elevators and support structures located beneath the rubble.
posted by owillis on Oct 2, 2001 - 6 comments