> “The Steampunk Greenhouse”, photographed by Nicola Berlotti. The location has been kept quiet but seems to be a popular spot for urbex photographers, more incredible shots of the interior can be found here.

My pet peeve as someone who enjoys visiting abandoned places occasionally, but is not part of some s3cr3t clique that hoards the details of cool spots.

I get the reflex to preciously guard the location of a beautiful place, but none of these places are really secret. Locals know of them, and knowledge of any interesting place will have spread all over the internet. So what you get is some folk selling databases of urbex places, and some folk acting as if you need to prove your worthiness to even get a hint of where it might be.

And it is all completely pointless.

Vandalism is a problem for many urbex sites. But vandalism is not caused by photographers, explorers, and kinksters¹, although plenty of people would do well to study the basic leave-no-traces-but-memories philosophy. Vandalism in lost places comes in four types:

* Tagging every surface with spray paint (so graffiti, but without any artistic pretence). This is done by local bored kids who already know the place is there.

* Fly tipping (dumping garbage to avoid paying for the privilege). This is done by local assholes who already know the place is there.

* Breaking stuff, starting a fire. Again, locals. Mostly kids or young adults, who already know the place is there.

* Property developers buying the place up and then leaving it to rot for years², while actively resisting even legal access.

The problem with the 'let's keep this place secret and only share it with people we trust' standpoint is that you deprive others of the decaying beauty. And crucially, with locations like these, there is no way to preserve the experience for decades. A place can either get bought up and redeveloped or restored (end result: lost place is no longer lost), or decay into rubble (end result: lost place is no longer beautiful and potentially dangerous).

And also, there won't be many more places like these in the future. An ancient block of high rise flats from the 2000s will be mostly boring. An old office block from 2010 will be mostly boring.

I like people in the community like the keeper of the Abandoned Berlin website (https://www.abandonedberlin.com/). Their stance is: enjoy these places while you can, and allow others to do so too. These places will be gone tomorrow. Share the experience, don't pretend you are in a secret club.

1: Urbex locations tend to be favoured as a backdrop for erotic photography.

2: Such locations may not always be torn down because of a monument protection status. A tried and true tactic to get around this without actually restoring the place is to simply let time and the elements do their work until the place can no longer even be restored. This is a long term investment plan.

A Compendium of Abandoned Greenhouses