Architecture nominee

This urbex architecture series explores what happens when a building loses its function, yet keeps whispering its story. I photograph abandoned interiors as portraits of spaces once driven by rhythm, faith, labour, knowledge, and authority. With people gone, proportion, line and material take the lead. Tile, steel, wood and stone carry the marks of neglect. Natural light filters through frosted windows and broken skylights, sculpting silence. It reveals symmetry and perspective, while exposing the fragility of structures slowly returning to dust.

The intent is not sensation but attention. A respectful look at architecture as memory. Each image balances grandeur and decay, asking how we treat the places we abandon and what they continue to say about us long after we’ve left.

Marieke Berkelaar is a photographer and graphic designer from Leerdam, the Netherlands. The combination of her photography and her passion for the past takes you back in time. In recent years, Marieke has mainly focused on capturing a piece of history; old and abandoned buildings. Places that give the impression that they have been abandoned from one moment to the next, who want to tell the stories of their time and where no one has been for years. She wants the viewer to wonder what happened. Wants them to unravel the how, what, and why behind the photo and feel the melancholy. She is ready to start the dialog.