Abandoned Belgium

These outstanding photographic reports aim to draw attention to the often dramatic fate of a country’s abandoned heritage and its frequently forgotten beauty. The locations featured all have their own stories to tell, in a variety of voices, but with one shared theme: the fall from grace

---

Beautiful, haunting photographs of abandoned places in Belgium. The ultimate visual reference in Belgian urban exploration.


These outstanding photographic reports aim to draw attention to the often dramatic fate of a country’s abandoned heritage and its frequently forgotten beauty. The locations featured all have their own stories to tell, in a variety of voices, but with one

shared theme: the fall from grace.


The old blast furnaces from the province of Liege, an old textile factory in West Flanders, or Europe’s first commodities exchange – a Gothic Revival gem in the province of Antwerp …

These architectural monuments have been left to weather the elements and pass into oblivion, offering a unique perspective on abandoned Belgium. At the threshold between life and death, and immortalised by Francis Meslet, these structures radiate a silence that speaks volumes. These pictures have extraordinary secrets to tell. Between 2010 and 2023, Francis Meslet travelled around Belgium looking for abandoned places – witnesses to history and the socio-economic changes that have shaped the country. What began as a way of documenting the neglect of industrial and urban monuments, quickly expanded to include other dispossessed places: factories, industrial wastelands, schools, churches, Roman baths,

swimming pools, theatres, mansions, castles, and hospitals, for example. His photography captures the grandeur and decadence of one of the oldest European nations.