Decay of time

Provinciaal Ziekenhuis Santpoort

Niels — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:47:32 +0000

In 1853 the doors of this psychiatric hospital opened. Mental patients used to got locked away with criminals but due to a change in the law in 1851, they got their own institution.

Due to a change of the term ‘lunatic’ to ‘psychiatric’, Meerenberg changed their name into Provinciaal Ziekenhuis.

Rumors go around that a some extreme things have taken place here; shock therapy, isolation cells, exchange baths, tapping blood. The outside had no idea what was going on here. In WW2 this place also functioned as a hiding place for Jews.

Many people say that you can still hear footsteps or even voices in this building; we only heard some coughing. That was probably another visitor, at least, that is what we hope.

‘De Toekomst’

Niels — Mon, 05 May 2008 10:24:36 +0000

You can’t say that this is a abandoned factory, it’s more a ruin. Unfortunately a couple of years ago this building was set on fire. Because of this the ruin is a bit dangerous, but hey, living on the edge right :)

Getting in wasn’t a big problem, except for the sign ‘Watch out: bull’. So Gerben and I walked very carefully to the site. You could feel the adrenaline pumping :)

The last two shots I took with my Yashica D camera.

Nice fact, Paul Verhoeven used this location for his movie ‘Zwartboek‘.

Potato-flour factory

Niels — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:54:57 +0000

Gerben and I went to a abandoned potato-flour factory in Ter Apel. This factory is left alone in 1982 and after twenty-six years most of it still exists. Nature is trying to take over a structure that was build by man. I find that pretty amazing.

Trees grow out of the walls, plants climb through the window frames, doors that are complete covered in rust, floors are taken over by fungus. You get the point, this is a cool location.

I also took my old Yashica D camera with me, it totaly fit this location. The last 6 shots of this series were taken with this camera.

Leeuwarder Paper Factory

Niels — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:21:03 +0000

The company ‘Boxes LPF’ in Leeuwarden left this somewhat old factory in 2005 for a bigger factory somewhere else in Leeuwarden because this location was getting to small.

One year later, in 2006, a group of almost fifty graffiti artists put their art on the walls. The theme was ‘Wallstreet’.

A couple of months ago a huge fire destroyed a big part of this building. Because there are not many abandoned locations in Leeuwarden, many junkies live there and a lot of vandalism is going on.

Getting in was quite hard because a security company locked the place down to prevent vandalism and fires so I could only make a couple of shots of the ‘Wallstreet’.

OK oil depot

Niels — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 21:10:13 +0000

The old, abandoned oil depot of OK and Calpalm in Leeuwarden, Netherlands.

Fryslan used to get his heating from this company. The oil was stored from 1958 in the depot.

This was my first urbex trip. Quite exciting I must say, but that may also come from the fact that I explored this site alone.

It’s not a big location to shoot but interesting enough for a first time. Not just the eyes get a nice treatment, the nose too. I guess the sun hitting on the big tank and wells produces some strange smells.

Gaining access was not a problem as you can see, but to stay unnoticeable was harder; it was situated at a busy road. I say was, because nowadays (June 2008) the site is wiped clean and all evidence of oil is removed.