Beauty in Decay: Urbex: The Art of Urban Exploration [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Street art is exciting. We know that but we might be so deep in it, that we forget it every once in a while. Untitled III reminds us. It also reminds us that we're far from there yet. Wherever there might be. To take some words from the book: Street art is ill defined, street art is a thin line between good and evil, street art is the occasional stroke of genius --CFYE

Now I'm lucky enough to have part I and II here as well, and I read through both again to find if there is something that sets `This is Street Art' apart from its predecessors, except the obvious of course. I'm happy to inform you that there isn't. They found the perfect formula to document and question what is happening, and to provoke the mind. --Arden de Raaij

Just who decides which doors are closed in our world and whose interests do they serve? Do we wish to be kept in the dark, permanently safe, free from either harm or adventure?
For all of us there is a deep attraction to be found in opening these doors. They open a rift in our collected experiences and throw new light on the boundaries we've all been forced to accept. There is only one way to find out what's hidden behind these barriers. Sit back, hold on and surrender to your imagination as we unlock the door to an extraordinary unseen world of beauty in decay.

What's the Story with Urban Exploration?
It's easy to describe what an Urban Explorer does; they infiltrate into abandoned buildings and industrial sites and explore them, often taking photographs along the way. They don't steal, vandalise or even leave graffiti behind them. In fact their code of honour is reminiscent of the rambler's way: Take only pictures, leave only footprints. It is, on the other hand, not so easy to describe the whys and wherefores.

Think back to your childhood for a moment and it all begins to make sense. Do you remember the terrifying yet seductive draw of the archetypal haunted house? Every neighbourhood and every childhood has one. At the very point we cross the border from childhood into adolescence we cross real physical borders too. It's the moment in our lives when we test the boundaries. We finally pluck up the courage to break into the haunted house and take a look around. You can probably remember your own experiences of this. And there will be at least one.

The Urban Explorer feels that we, in the comfortable and over-protected `first world' are living in an enforced and extended state of childhood. They have remembered that they are capable of having unmediated experiences of reality and they welcome the fear that may (or may not) come with those experiences. The fear itself is the gateway to go through. It's the gateway that leads for many to `wonderland'. This is the world through the looking glass that in some dark corner of every soul, we are all looking for.

The strange thing then is not that Urban Explorers exist; it's that the rest of us have forgotten that we are Urban Explorers too.

The Urban Explorer feels that we, in the comfortable and over-protected `first world', are living in an enforced and extended state of childhood. They have remembered that they are capable of having unmediated experiences of reality and they welcome the fear that may (or may not) come with those experiences. The fear itself is the gateway to go through. It's the gateway that leads for many to `wonderland'. This is the world through the looking glass that in some dark corner of every soul, we are all looking for.
The strange thing then is not that Urban Explorers exist; it's that the rest of us have forgotten that we are Urban Explorers too.

Keep Out. Verboten. No Trespassing
Just who decides which doors are closed in our world and whose interests do they serve? Do we wish to be kept in the dark, permanently safe, free from either harm or adventure?
For all of us there is a deep attraction to be found in opening these doors. They open a rift in our collected experiences and throw new light on the boundaries we've all been forced to accept. There is only one way to find out what's hidden behind these barriers. Sit back, hold on and surrender to your imagination as we unlock the door to an extraordinary unseen world of beauty in decay.
Walk in the eerie footsteps of long departed souls through haunted houses turned to dust and industrial complexes surrendered to nature. Take a glimpse inside the UK's abandoned asylums and Belgium's ghostly chateaux. Visit the ghosts of Chernobyl and step inside the relinquished German big top where circus animals lie in a macabre sleep waiting for resurrection.
Through dilapidated tunnels, spectral crypts and bizarre futuristic settlements see through the eyes of the Urbex Explorer the chilling sight of nature taking back its own.