From imperial residences and aristocratic estates to hotels and urban
mansions, Abandoned Palaces tells the stories behind dilapidated
structures all around the world.
Built to impress, built with style and grandeur, built, above all, to
last: it's all the more remarkable when buildings such as these fall
into disrepair and become ruins. From ancient Roman villas to the French
colonial hill station in Cambodia that was one of the final refuges of
the Khmer Rouge, Abandoned Palaces charts the decline of what were
once the homes and holiday resorts of the super wealthy. Ranging from
crumbling hotels in the Catskills or in Mozambique, to grand mansions in
Taiwan, to an unfinished Elizabethan summerhouse, to a modern
megalomaniac's partially completed estate, they were deserted for
reasons including politics, bankruptcy, personal tragedies, natural and
man-made disasters, and changing tastes and fashions. Filled with
stunning, nostalgic images, this volume is a brilliant and moving
examination of worlds left behind.