Read in 2022 - 1: Lost Places in der Region Stuttgart

This was a book I had explicitly named when asked what I wanted for Christmas. I had come across it in an article of our local paper and thought it was probably going to be very much my kind of book.

Lost Places in der Region Stuttgart by Benjamin Seyfang is not so much a book to read, but one to browse for its pictures and let imaginagion do the rest.

Some of you know me well enough to recall that I have a "thing" for what are generally known as lost places, although I hesitate to call them that. Those places are not lost - they are exactly where they have always been. But they are usually lost to their former use, and sometimes their existence has been forgotten, making them lost to memory as well. Therefore, I shall stick with the term generally used, even though I do not fully agree with it. (In German, the English term is used as well.)

The area where I live has Stuttgart as its capital and centre, and so I am familiar with some of the towns and places in the region, not just my own town of Ludwigsburg.

The author calls himself an Urban Explorer and has, like me, a long-going fascination for abandoned houses, industrial ruins and so on. In the foreword of this book, he states the basic rule everyone should observe when visiting such places: Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but foot prints.

He is 20 years younger than I and has been photographing lost places around the world for 10 years now, whenever his day job allows.

Often, the places he visits are not easily accessible. If possible, he gets special permission of whoever is the current owner or custodian. Some of the photos come with only a vaguely named location, because the places are hidden and should remain so in order to protect them from further vandalism and damage. Others are well known and their location is clearly stated.

I sat down with this book in my favourite reading spot (my yellow armchair, as seen here) one evening after work this week and went through it page by page. With one of the "secret" places, I am pretty sure I know where it is. Another one is indeed just outside my hometown, a place I have been to myself a few times in the past. 

The most touching ones for me are the photographs of inside a house where the owner, an elderly lady who had not changed anything since the 1970s, was taken to hospital and died there. After her death, someone at the hospital packed her belongings into her bags and deposited the bags just inside the front door, where they still are. The living room is exactly as it was left, with the paper still on the table and the remote control still on the settee. A small stuffed panda sits on the settee's back rest, smiling.