I’ve featured photographs from this long abandoned apartment complex before. Situated up in the mountains, it once housed employees from a cement company, but it has stood quiet and uninhabited since the early 1980s.
The thing I find most fascinating about abandoned homes is what’s left behind. The personal items that hint at all manner of stories, along with details about what the former residents liked and did with their time. Even who they loved in some instances. Elements that this place unfortunately doesn’t really have. However, visiting again, I realised that what did interest me about it was simply the very visible passage of time. An aspect of existence that we are continually surrounded by, but rarely are we confronted with it in such a stark, wholly unsentimental way.
For over four decades then this building has stood empty, meaning no people and none of the usual day-to-day experiences it once provided, such as buying food, getting a haircut etc. So much was once contained inside these walls, meaning the decay that has occurred since its abandonment makes it even harder not to think about the intervening years. There’s personal consideration involved of course. One’s own losses and gains during that period. Experiences both good and bad. Plus, it has to be said, the inescapable future that in so many ways this structure represents. Even more prominent though are thoughts about the people who once lived here. How many are still with us? Has the time since they went elsewhere treated them well? And also, the question I have about every place like this — do the former residents ever think about the building they once called home?
YesterdaysHero says
Great work Lee. This is very poignant from the clock to the Good Life poster. I find it amazing what 40+ years can do to a building.
Lee says
Thank you very much. It’s a special place in many ways, and yeah, the poster in particular is so very apt.
Agree about the decay too. It is up in the mountains, but still, the scale of it is something else.
Damien says
Very cool. Sci-fi almost (those plots where a mission encounters the seemingly abandoned living pod or craft of an earlier mission). The rotting curtains are quite something aren’t they? Peak rot, one might say. A damp and cold day enhances the ambience. And the inclusion of a 1979 wall calendar – priceless.. Well played Lee. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Lee says
Thank you very much. That’s really kind of you.
Totally afree about the sci-fi vibe, and yes, those curtains are incredible. Like none I’ve ever seen.
That calendar is quite something. Faded yes, but otherwise hard to get over it has been there for so long.
cdilla says
Nice to see another set from this location, especially with the overcast wet weather pervading outside and in.
What you said about those that lived there thinking back to it struck a chord. I’m pretty sure the kids will. Their childhood home are forever imprinted on them. Occasionally my brain still uses mine as a setting for dreams. I noticed once that my old home had had its windows replaced and thought it would have been nice to retrieve some of the glass I had spend countless hours gazing through. So when a pigeon flew through my (long left home) daughters old room window I collected one or two of the fragments and kept them for her.
On a related note I still have the second hand Bobson hoodie I bought after seeing that Good Life poster of a brand I had never heard of, and just now saw a Japanes lady wearing one of their teeshirts on a TV documentary.
Lee says
Thank you. The weather definitely helped. The perfect conditions for this place. Lovely soft light too.
That’s a good call about the kids. No doubt lots of fond memories of ice cream from that wonderful looking freezer.
Ah yes. I forgot you got the hoodie. Nice coincidence with the t-shirt appearing on TV too.
Paul says
Thoses are the exact questions I have in mind each time you post pictures like that.
If I was one of the people who used to live there, for sure I would go back at least one time just to be overwhelmed by memories and nostalgia (good or bad). That’s what I do when I go back to my hometown : always stopping my motorcycle in front in my former childhood home for few moments (some may find it a little bit creepy). If it was abandonned, I would enter and walk around for hours.
Thank you very much for sharing, again.
Lee says
You are very welcome. Going back was a lot more interesting than I expected. A sort of nostalgia of my own in a way.
And yes, so many questions. But in many ways that makes such places even more intriguing.
Linda says
GOOD LIFE. Hope it was.
Lee says
Yes, exactly. That poster, in that room, hits me every time.
Ted T says
Great as always, Lee. And you hit that point exactly about possessions. I often encounter abandoned homes on my own rambles, and the sight of photographs left behind always breaks my heart. It’s as of the person walked away from their own life history.
Lee says
Thank you very much. And yeah, I have the same feelings about the photographs. So many of them are so incredibly personal, and yet there they are, just left behind. Really does make you wonder…
Sean says
Very thought provoking photos. It could easily be a movie set. Awesome work as always!
Lee says
Thank you very much. That’s really good to hear. And yes, it really could. A special place for sure.
Richard says
Very evocative photos, thanks. My favs are the calendar and the Good Life because they demonstrate that people really lived there. I am old enough to recall many aspects of my life in 1979 pretty well. I suspect/hope that some of the people who lived there then can do likewise.
After the second of my parents died in 2008, I went through their photo albums. I took about 2 dozen of their photos which had personal meanings for me. I scanned and stored them. Now I share them with our immediate family on their birthdays, wedding anniversary, etc. It is my way of honoring their legacy for us offspring.
Thanks, Lee!!
Lee says
Thanks a lot, and as always, you are very welcome. thoroughly enjoyed my visits to this place.
Yes, thankfully calendars are such common things in Japanese homes that invariably they can be used to date when the last residents left.
That’s such a lovely idea. Something I’m sure your family always appreciate.
Matthias says
Zooming in on the calendar I saw that the weekdays this January and February are matching those of 1979, what a coincidence. Thank you again for these photos and for sharing your personal thoughts. Last year was a year of loss for me as well, and now I have to take care of my childhood house and the truckload of objects and memories inside it. So it is very nice to read what ways other people have in dealing with the houses they grew up in. Very strange to let it go, but move on we must. One knows the time will come, yet there is no preparation. So thanks again for your posts.
Lee says
Ah, interesting. I hadn’t noticed that. A real coincidence indeed.
You are welcome. I always find it good to write stuff like this. And I’m very sorry to hear about your loss. I hope clearing everything up isn’t too difficult, and maybe even proves a little cathartic.