Expedition Site 4, Expedition 6, May 30th 2009, Belgium

This time our trip is closer to home. Not far from where I live a few jewels are preserved and waiting to be photographed.

 

In 1895, a man called EDP and his sons created an enterprise driven by a steam mill. In 1927 a weaver was added on the site that counted 300 workers at that time. During the second world war, the factory was heavily damaged in bombardments and was reconstructed and started operating again despite of that destruction. The company was flourishing and in 1963 a company, that was property of the same owners, joined the factory grounds. They were manufacturers of undergarments. The weaver closed its doors in 1976, but the lingerie company continued to work for another six years after until in 1982 it had to close down as well.

The principal feature of the site is a cooling tower. That tower represents perfectly how enforced concrete is used for cooling and it replaced an old tower made from wood. The old tower was destroyed in 1967. The tower is considered as an remarkable achievement as part of the construction that is very rare in Flanders. The whole place is part of steam turbines linked to a cooling system that feeds the tower.

Since 1982 the whole grounds were purchased by the city that uses the place as a sort of stockade or warehouse. The original technical installations of the company have disappeared from the site. The big boiler and the chimney were demolished by the city in the end of the eighties.

The demolishing works in and around the factory will start soon in march or june 2009. The objective is creating a housing project with about 70 houses, a sports center and a small green park for having a small section of nature around. From what I gathered the parc will keep a remains of the cooling tower, a steam turbine and the base of the chimney. They will be the last witnesses of a soon to be disappeared weaver.

 

Around 9 a.m. a couple of friends arrived at my house. We had an urbex day planned and so it shall be done!
We knew our first objective and after picking someone up we went onsite to check it out. Getting on the grounds wasn't so difficult, but getting inside was a somewhat harder task. After finding our way in (involving crawling underneath some fences), we were in detail-walhalla! All remnants of old factories, old machinery and paperworks left behind there. It was just magnificent.
One person was along for the first time as she had to do an open assignment for school. She is studying photography and tought that urbex was a nice branch to have an assignment on. She had a blast as well and I think another one got infected with the virus...

We had a great time there and after a couple of hours we were finished and went back home to see what the afternoon had in store for us.

 

 

 

Expedition Site 1, Expedition 1 - 2, August 3rd 2008 - October  5th 2008, Netherlands

My first ever urbex experience was in the Netherlands at a place near my in-laws. I was fascinated by this building and decided to have a look there...

 

Reesink was an old factory of all sorts... It was more a collection of buildings with various applications. There was a steelfactory, a cooling house, etc.
The cooling house was built in 1919 so that butter could be stored in cooling cells there that were made in the summer so that it could be sold in the winter at higher prices with factories that were joined in the Dutch Cooperative Dairy Association.  After the cells were erected however, the market wasn't quite ready for storage of butter. In the season of 1921 - 1922 all the cells were freightfully empty. In 1923 there were problems with that Association and it turned out into liquidations and plans were made to sell the cooling house in public. At that point the Overall Dutch Cooperative stepped in as they wanted to preserve the house and put in an tremendous amount of effort in it. More so because the latter cooperative wanted to expand and organize the whole dairy industry in that region. A letter was drafted and sent to surrounding farms and factories underlining the importance of the coolhouse. A plead to keep the housings in benefit of exporting their goods was sent and resulted in the forming of a coorporation called "De Landbouw" in 1923 in The Hague. The preservation was a fact. It began with 3000 square metres of cooling places but expanded to 18000 square metres of cooling cells that were able to maintain temperatures of -18 to -20 degrees celcius. Next to that another 3000 square metres were able to maintain temperatures of -30 degrees celcius. It was finally closed in the summer of 2005

 

I was fascinated by this building since I met my girlfriend (wife since 2005) Three years later when I was fully equipped with good photographic material and I saw that building again I figured it was about time I got in there and took some pictures. Since a big part was demolished (due to safety hazards) I only had the chance to visit the cooling house. It's a bit of an creepy place with all the dark rooms and corners, but all in all with a flashlight it's very manageable. My first Urbex expedition was a fact. Trough a forum I was on I met a person from the same town who was in to Urbex Photography. Since that day I was bitten with the bug! I went 2 times to that site as I was new in the whole urbex stuff and wanted to revisit to have a do-over with newly learned skills photography wise. Pretty straightforward. Have a look at the gallery.I have most in black and white and3 in color as those were grafitti and needed the color in order to work out nice on picture.
Enjoy!

 

 

 

Expedition Site 5, Expedition 7, May 30th 2009, Belgium

After Filature EDP, we went on a search for another location in the afternoon and found this one...

 

The mill driven on steam called "De Nieuwe Molens of Ghent and Bruges" was founded in 1897. At the site that we visited a mill was exploited from 1898. The oldest buildings were erected by "Meunerie Duyckers & Connors" and tought of by architect E. De Weerdt.
In 1904 important expansions were realized. De buildings were heightned and somewhere in the 1930's a new chimney was designed for the site by the Brussels architect Thilly. In 1958 the plant  was expanded with concrete silo's. 

In 2004 the mill was closed and is currently being reconverted for housing projects.

 

Before noon we went to EDP and we searched for a new location to fill our afternoon with.
Driving around a bit we found a site that we thought was very worth while. After going in a bit we found that we stumbled upon a once great location, but now completely destroyed by nature. If we only knew then what we have learned now, we would have stayed on that site (an urbex will follow soon of that site).

We went on and saw another building. One I knew is abandoned not so long ago. We decided to give it a go.
Inside we found lots of empty places and nothing really worth while to photograph. On the other hand, since we were there, we might as well just take some pics. I took a few and selected from those to put on this site. In retrospect, they didn't really turned out so bad.
Have a look below!

 

 

 

Expedition Site 6, Expedition 8, June 10th 2009, Belgium

I saw a series of this place and figured I had to go there... some searching and I found the place, .... and someone to go along during a normal weekday...

 

This brewery has a rich history of making special belgium beers. Build in 1851. It brewed the so called Geuze beer, a very heavy beer. Inside the brewery-offices you can find the remains of the cashregisters, with books which dates back to 1884! The brewery was closed in 1989.

Nice to tell is that after Eylenbosch closed another brewery in the neighborhood was looking for secondhand barrels. In the goods that were left behind they found 160 of them, but... they were not empty.Investigation learned that a beer called Lambiek was inside the barrels, 15 years old! Most of it still tasted very well! 

 

After a good workday I met with someone on site there who knew the way in. After spending about an hour (maybe 2) there I got some shots I wanted. Very nice location and who knows I might go back there for a revisit...