The Abandoned Children's Hospital

Closed down in 1997, these buildings have been exposed to the weather and the vandals for almost 20 years now.
The complex was built in 1911, after in 1908 the Prussian government decided to build the first municipal children's hospital in Berlin.
It even had its own cow stables to be independent from other milk suppliers.

I think this was the most thoroughly destroyed location I have ever been to. There have been various fires more or less recently. The scent of smoke and ashes was still all around. The graffiti "artists" have also left their mark on the buildings. Although in this case I have to say, there were a couple of graffiti that kind of got me.

The mood was eerie, it was early morning and the high fog made for a weird twilight when I got there. Luckily, there was also some sunlight which made some nice shadows through the windows. I know, I'm not all the way through with the photos from the revisit of the chocolate factory, but I wanted to share these with you first, so here they are.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

The Abandoned Chocolate Factory Revisited

Since we didn't have enough time to thoroughly explore all the buildings in the chocolate factory during our first visit, I took advantage of the good weather two weeks later and went on another trip.

The location is not as secret as I had thought; I met three other people there, two guys and a girl walking through the dark basements and taking pictures. The girl was pretty mad at herself for not bringing a tripod...
Anyway, I could see that the two weeks that had passed since my last visit hadn't been kind to the old factory. A bunch of stuff was missing from the lab and a lot of the piping has been torn out. During my research on the internet I found newspaper articles about the factory. Apparently, three Romanian metal thieves that were raiding the factory have been apprehended by the police after neighbors called the authorities when they saw people walking around on the property.

Here are the first photos from my second visit.

The Abandoned Chocolate Factory (Part 4)

These are the last pictures from my first visit in the abandoned chocolate factory.
I was there again yesterday to check out the areas we hadn't explored the last time and I found a lot of stuff is missing from the lab. The centrifuge is gone as well as the big round-bottom flasks.

But you'll see that in the following posts, here is the next bunch of photos from the first tour.
The sun was beginning to set, so the light became warmer and made for a nice mood. Before we left, we went into the basement workshops to take a couple of pictures there.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Revisit

The Laboratory - The Abandoned Chocolate Factory (Part 3)

There are so many buildings to explore in this factory complex.
We were in there for about three or four hours and have not nearly seen everything, so I'm planning to take another tour there tomorrow and take a look at the things we've missed the last time...
...and maybe get some more photos from the lab...

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Revisit

The Abandoned Chocolate Factory (Part 2)

The history of the company that owned this factory reaches back as far as 1857, when the company was founded by a pharmacist who had discovered chocolate as a valuable luxury product during his studies. He hired an Italian chocolate maker and together they manufactured and sold up to 400 bars of chocolate a day in the pharmacy.
The products that exist today still carry the same brand name as the chocolate bars more than 150 years ago.
To cut a long story short, the chocolate was widely successful, the company expanded and opened up this factory in northern Germany in 1951.
In 2010, the production was moved abroad and the factory was closed down.

Here are the next photos.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Revisit