Abandoned Monuments

cuz i just stumbled across this: http://ffffound.com/image/a4b978706b756297b9c3a6e2b6aee93e2549a876.

i have the sense that these images have been posted and discussed somewhere around here (sites for noize colonies?), but i couldn't find any mention. amazing, at any rate:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eB4Oz0OnWng/TahXsg9RJTI/AAAAAAAAYIE/JieRNJJhXjo/s640/Spomenik_01.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VqN8Rw-3pV4/TahX0G7r2-I/AAAAAAAAYIM/4fLJz8W4qu0/s640/Spomenik_03.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J1BzkXYTIh0/TahX4N6-QFI/AAAAAAAAYIQ/F-76dIHkD0w/s640/Spomenik_04.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0c0pbEfzJbA/TahYl9QPS1I/AAAAAAAAYJA/e2k07xJzWiY/s1600/Spomenik_16.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3q6iacCKLtY/TahYvN17iQI/AAAAAAAAYJI/ySYQ9dJgDbs/s1600/Spomenik_18.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oxwBUypUPkw/TahYEH0WA1I/AAAAAAAAYIc/ozezWajMWJM/s1600/Spomenik_07.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7qTePB_-0wM/TahYKmkESfI/AAAAAAAAYIk/8zCNDPrB7wg/s1600/Spomenik_09.jpg

http://vivalaresolucion.com/inspiration/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/1000px-Spomenik_revoluciji-Podgaric-500x375.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eB4Oz0OnWng/TahXsg9RJTI/AAAAAAAAYIE/JieRNJJhXjo/s640/Spomenik_01.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VqN8Rw-3pV4/TahX0G7r2-I/AAAAAAAAYIM/4fLJz8W4qu0/s640/Spomenik_03.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J1BzkXYTIh0/TahX4N6-QFI/AAAAAAAAYIQ/F-76dIHkD0w/s640/Spomenik_04.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0c0pbEfzJbA/TahYl9QPS1I/AAAAAAAAYJA/e2k07xJzWiY/s1600/Spomenik_16.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3q6iacCKLtY/TahYvN17iQI/AAAAAAAAYJI/ySYQ9dJgDbs/s1600/Spomenik_18.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oxwBUypUPkw/TahYEH0WA1I/AAAAAAAAYIc/ozezWajMWJM/s1600/Spomenik_07.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7qTePB_-0wM/TahYKmkESfI/AAAAAAAAYIk/8zCNDPrB7wg/s1600/Spomenik_09.jpg

http://vivalaresolucion.com/inspiration/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/1000px-Spomenik_revoluciji-Podgaric-500x375.jpg

these are genuinely incredible. 3rd/4th is awesome.

from a similar but earlier entry on the human scribbles blog:

Recently, I spotted a book by Belgian photographer Jan Kempenaers called "Spomenik: The End of History." There are 26 photos of 25 weird but powerful structures, seemingly under poor maintenance, standing eerily on completely deserted lands.

Spomenik literally means monument. These structures were commissioned by former Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito in the 1960s and 70s to commemorate sites where WWII battles took place (like Tjentište, Kozara and Kadinjača), or where concentration camps stood (like Jasenovac and Niš). They were designed by different sculptors (Dušan Džamonja, Vojin Bakić, Miodrag Živković, Jordan and Iskra Grabul, to name a few) and architects (Bogdan Bogdanović, Gradimir Medaković...), conveying powerful visual impact to show the confidence and strength of the Socialist Republic. In the 1980s, these monuments attracted millions of visitors per year, especially young pioneers for their "patriotic education." After the Republic dissolved in early 1990s, they were completely abandoned, and their symbolic meanings were forever lost.

i wonder who designed this one because it is mindblowing

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0c0pbEfzJbA/TahYl9QPS1I/AAAAAAAAYJA/e2k07xJzWiY/s1600/Spomenik_16.jpg

i wonder what the scale is. 20m high?

these are genuinely incredible. 3rd/4th is awesome.

― jed_, Sunday, August 19, 2012 5:25 PM (8 minutes ago)

yeah, and that's the right word. i'm in awe. for some reason, i'm reminded of this grade-school art exercise where we poured a mixture of plaster and vermiculite into milk cartons and let it harden. then we peeled the cardboard away, leaving more or less cubical blocks of hard/soft stuff. the assignment was to carve something abstract out of the block - ideally something that didn't look like it had started out as a cube. 3/4 looks like a really, really good solution to that exercise.

the exact scale is hard to discern, but yeah, i'd guess about 20m for that one

wonder if there are similar structures in other parts of the world. of more-or-less recent vintage i mean.

the one jed posted looks like it could hold up the lacma levitated mass.

http://www.lacma.org/sites/default/files/styles/Exhibition_Main/public/image/LevitatedMass.jpg

i have the sense that these images have been posted and discussed somewhere around here (sites for noize colonies?), but i couldn't find any mention.

yeah they've definitely been posted before but i can't find the thread either. but they are incredible. i wonder if they're still tourist attractions at all? the mystique works best when you imagine that they go years at a time without anyone seeing them.

Yeah, love these - - - also don't miss this whole thing...former Bulgarian people's assembly whatever, now abandoned in the snowy, snowy mountains:

http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/wp-content/gallery/buzludja/thumbs/thumbs_unknown-origin-02.jpg
http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/wp-content/gallery/buzludja/thumbs/thumbs_bulgaria-timothy-allen-20.jpg

wow, the distance between those two - in time, worlds, dreams, just incredible. love that whole photo set.

these pictures are fucking next level

are there high-res i wonder

i thought this one was great too:

http://img.ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/7ef3324fc487058e43424b09ba426937d40d6e35_m.jpg

holy cock

http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/wp-content/gallery/buzludja/thumbs/thumbs_bulgaria-timothy-allen-01.jpg

Looks like a dramatic promo shot for a cinematic PS3 game

i think this is our homegrown equivalent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOn7eg4Ct54

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_of_Fame_for_Great_Americans

Today the Hall of Fame for Great Americans is largely forgotten. For twenty years [viz., prior to 1997], in fact, it lacked the funds to hold new elections or to commission busts of the people it elected two decades ago, including Louis Brandeis, Clara Barton, Luther Burbank, and Andrew Carnegie. It took nineteen years to raise the $25,000 needed to commission the bust of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In 1973 NYU abruptly abandoned its Bronx campus and, with it, the Hall of Fame. Eventually New York State purchased the complex and it is now under the auspices of Bronx Community College. In the late 1970s the state spent $3 million restoring the colonnade's crumbling foundation; more recently, it spent another $200,000 to restore the 98 bronze busts, many of which had deteriorated badly. By that time private gifts, which were always the Hall of Fame's primary source of support, had effectively ceased.

There's a reason these monuments are abandoned. Maintenance represents a much more significant outlay of effort and money than construction. It costs peanuts to build something. That's a one-off cost, and a one-off effort. But to keep the damn thing in running order, functioning, clean, freshly-painted, is a vast undertaking.

The Forth Rail Bridge is the classic example. It cost just £3 7s/6d to build, and took a couple of afternoons of non-committal labour by men who spent a lot of that time frisking around with daisy chains and cutting paper dolls from accordion-folded copies of The Scotsman. That would be about three million pounds in today's money - still a snip - and about two months on a Beijing construction site in today's time.

But to maintain the Forth Rail Bridge since its construction has cost more than six million trillion pounds. To put that into context, that's more than the entire output of China, America and Japan put together, over a span of three centuries. And that's just for the cost of the rust-proof paint. Factor in the bolt replacement program and we'd have to factor in the economies of France and Germany too.

The moral is: If in doubt, abandon! The moral is: If it's ruinous, ruin it! Better yet, build only what you can afford to maintain. And that means anticipating not only the cost of keeping decay away from your monument, but also anticipating the effects of inflation on its various parts and pieces, and the spiraling costs of forgotten trades and skills as artisans die off, taking their knowledge to the grave with them. Then there's the issue of unscrupulous new suppliers who have a monopoly and realise they've got you over a barrel.

Remember, a building is like a shopaholic wife on a spending spree, trailing you with a private gumshoe as she plans the divorce settlement to end them all. You may still be on your first date with her, you may really want to make out, you may be reaching for the condoms. But stop, buddy! First reach for the calculator and the laptop. Draft a tough, hard-headed prenup, get her to sign it, estimate your likely assets seven years ahead, divide that by two or three, calculate the alimony payments and the cost of supporting the two kids, one of whom is already skidding his uninsured car across a salted road, while the other, on holiday on the planet Venus, didn't quite hang up her phone right and is about to be charged at roaming rates for the entire duration of her holiday, which, by the way, lasted six centuries, because time on Venus goes a lot slower than it does here on Earth.

With respect, old timer, might it be worth decloaking for this kind of thread? I sense an interesting point swamped by Grampsification there.

what's got two thumbs & inspires brutalist awe THISSSS GUUUYYYYYYYYY
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0c0pbEfzJbA/TahYl9QPS1I/AAAAAAAAYJA/e2k07xJzWiY/s1600/Spomenik_16.jpg

hahaha

HI DERE WAHT IS AWESOME

Deserves its own thread tho

okay, THAT'S where this has been discussed! i knew it was around here somewhere and searched several keyword combinations before starting this thread, but to no avail. wondered if it had been on the sandbox.

Love that the thumbs joke had already been made. Still cracks me up.

How do you think I remembered what thread it was on?

http://www.offthepost.info/wp-content/uploads/Mick-McCarthy-gif.gif

Look I know this doesn't belong here but I couldn't find an 'Abandoned island in the middle of the world's largest city' thread.

deaths head soup and 'i am being held against my will' wall scratchings! NYers have you been here??

http://likes.com/misc/an-abandoned-island-in-the-middle-of-nyc?s=eyJleHBfaWQiOiA2MDA0LCAiZl9uIjogImZpbmlzaCIsICJ2X2lkIjogNDI2OTY4NDU0OH0&pid=113145&page=15&v=eyJjbGlja19pZCI6IDIzNTg1MjQ5NDksICJwb3N0X2lkIjogMjg1NTIxNzEsICJjIjogImZhY2Vib29rIiwgImkiOiAiYW1hemluZ3RoaW5ncy5tZSJ9