7 Comments Posted by fallen

Awesome gallery. I've always wondered if there was something about the energy of people living/working in a space that keeps it from falling in decay so rapidly. Like the energy of living reinforces a place... something like that. Because I think of my condo, its 35 years old. And yeah, Ive had to do little repairs here and there over the years. But it seems even without vandalism a place falls into ruin insanely fast once abandoned. Like 5-10 years.

A place like this, you can tell they really tried to make it as healing and pretty for the occupants as possible. Such a far cry from the ugly industrialized hospitals & mental wards of the 60s and 70s.

I love the names on the cubbys. Although I generally view graffiti as ugly, destructive and totally taking away from the joy of exploring abandoned places, sometimes theres something beautiful or clever enough to be worth it. This is one of them. The random crap on the mid right door can go to hell tho.

I believe very strongly in don't take dont break (graffiti, theft and vandalism of abandoned places disgusts me) but if there was any way I could have taken the frescos in these images, I would have. Just to save them from destruction so other people could enjoy their beauty.

Darlene, I think its the reversion to chaos and desire to act out that exists within all humans. To play armchair psychologist, I think its because clean new buildings often represent an orderly society and the pinnicle of mankinds achievment and life experience, so then a rotting abandoned building represents the decay and failure of society. So because society puts strictures of "proper" behavior on humans, people are more tempted to break those strictures when confronted with a symbol of the failure of "orderly society", they get a thrill from doing a forbidden act. Its just a theory, but it makes sense in my mind. In all my years of fascination with and exploration of abandoned places, it always seems that a building that is abandoned but in good repair doesnt attract as much wanton vandalism as a decrepit one.

In an abandoned mental hospital, the lonely wheelchair. In the abandoned car plant, the lonely bucket seats...

Wow. Just stumbled across this site, spent hours perusing. Its cool to see an oldish mental hospital in good repair.
What I want to know after looking thru all these pics is how a place like this is supposed to make people "sane". The tiny rooms, no privacy, heavy locked doors, small windows etc. I have no mental illness, but I think if I was put in this place, it'd cause one.
Theres nothing about this place that says "a safe place to gather your grip on consensual reality". Instead it says "we are going to lock you away and control you...for your own good of course..." Yeesh.