Friday, 23 November 2012

Mixtape: An Ode to Abandoned Buildings





I don’t know why, but to me there’s nothing more relaxing than looking at pictures of abandoned places. There’s something so beautiful about the stillness, the quiet, the dilapidated emptiness. Knowing that a place that was once crawling with people, busy and noisy is now only home to some plants and maybe an animal or two… that’s real peace. Pair that with a cup of tea, some soft music, and if possible, a gray, rainy sky, and you have my perfect Sunday morning. 


I come from a town with quite a few abandoned buildings. I don’t think we have many more than the average town, but since we’re so small the ones we do have stand out. So I grew up with empty places, and urban exploration was a part of my life since I was old enough to explore the city on my own. We have abandoned factories both old and new, stores, theatres, houses, train trestles; we even had a huge boarding school, all completely void of life. I never realised the effect they had on me until I started writing, when I started to notice that I tended to talk about abandoned places a lot, and set a lot of my stories in places like that. 



All this probably sounds a little negative, talking about emptiness and dilapidation and whatnot, but I really don’t mean it that way. I really do think places like that are beautiful, even if they’re a little creepy or sad. It’s always great to know that one of these places is going to get redeveloped into something useful again. And it’s always even sadder to hear when they get torn down, but good to know that where they used to be something better is going to be made. 

So, I made a mixtape of some of my favourite songs to listen to while I urban explore through my computer. Something I can listen to after a long hard working day, for a good night’s sleep, or in the morning before I dive into a pile of homework. You can listen to it here:



No comments:

Post a Comment