Beauty in Decay / UrbEx

Browsing through Respublica shop photo album section, I came across this absolutely stunning book called Beauty in Decay. Though it was firmly sealed in cellophane, and it was impossible to peak in, its cover gave a vivid preview of what's inside – a photo trip into numerous derelict buildings, industrial, public sector, private, you name it.

The book has no author – it has 49 different photographers contributing their pictures, and certainly not all of them professional – but this is the part where content can beat the author. Abandoned places are made of magic, it seems, full of ghosts of the past long gone, and it's not something that you see – it's something that you have to imagine that sticks most with you.

Not all, but some of us hate splendor mummified – I've been to Paris half a dozen times or more, but never, never visited Louvre and never intend to – and my recollections from my visit to Palacio Real in Madrid are a nightmare – in contrast to my trip to, say, abandoned hotel Berengaria in Cyprus Trodos mountains, a vivid say symbol of decay, uninhabited since mid-70s, which was a beauty every time.

The book has a perfect Stalker / Silent Hill feel – and you have to love it to love it, I guess. And I do love it. Awesome book. The best picture book I've had in ages – and the only architectural one – as I typically like mostly press photos, like war conflicts, refugees, African mines, Soviet plants, and other world's miseries.

So, what's up with radiation level in Pripyat now?