The history of Urbex
The history of Urbex is linked to the curiosity towards hidden, abandoned and no longer used places.
However, there's no precise date when Urbex was born. The exploration of underground spaces, abandoned buildings, and normally inaccessible places predates the term itself.
The modern form of Urban Exploration developed mainly between the 1970s and 1990s , while the expression Urban Exploration dates back to 1996 .
In this article
The origins of urban exploration
The idea of exploring hidden places within cities is much older than the term Urbex .
One of the best-known examples is the Catacombs of Paris , which were created inside the city's ancient underground quarries at the end of the 18th century.
The quarries had been exploited for stone extraction and subsequently abandoned. Remains from Parisian cemeteries began to be transferred from there in 1785, and the site was officially consecrated as the Paris Municipal Ossuary in 1786.
Over time, these underground environments became objects of curiosity and exploration, anticipating some of the elements that would later characterize Urban Exploration.
The Catacombs of Paris and the first explorations
The Catacombs represent one of the places most associated with the history of urban exploration.
As early as the 18th and 19th centuries, Paris's underground galleries attracted the interest of visitors and explorers.
During the 20th century, a real culture developed linked to the exploration of the underground parts of the city not accessible to the general public.
The phenomenon of the cataphiles , the explorers of the Parisian underground quarries, developed particularly during the 1970s and 1980s .
The experiences in the Catacombs therefore constitute one of the most important historical precedents for understanding the development of contemporary urban exploration.
Urbex in the 70s
During the 1970s, the exploration of hidden urban environments began to develop outside of Paris.
In 1977 , the Suicide Club was founded in San Francisco, a group that organized activities related to the exploration of abandoned or normally inaccessible urban environments, along with performances and other artistic activities. The group is considered one of the first organized examples of urban exploration as a social and recreational activity.
At this stage the term Urbex did not yet exist in the sense in which it is used today.
However, interest was already turned towards the discovery of a city different from the one normally known: underground spaces, forgotten buildings and hidden places.
When the term Urban Exploration was born
The term Urban Exploration is generally traced back to 1996 .
It was used by Jeff Chapman , a Canadian explorer known by the pseudonym Ninjalicious .
That same year Chapman founded Infiltration , a publication dedicated to exploring normally inaccessible urban locations.
The birth of the term represents an important moment because it allows us to identify with a common definition activities that until then had been indicated in different ways.
From Urban Exploration comes the abbreviation Urbex , which is used today to indicate this phenomenon.
The spread of Urbex
From the second half of the 1990s, Urban Exploration began to spread more widely through publications, websites and later forums and social networks.
Photography played an important role in spreading the phenomenon, allowing places normally hidden from public attention to be shown.
With the spread of the internet, interest in abandoned buildings and forgotten places gradually transcended the confines of individual cities and local groups.
Urbex thus became an internationally known phenomenon, associated above all with the discovery and documentation of abandoned places.
Conclusions
The history of Urbex does not have a precise birth date .
Its origins can be traced back to forms of exploration of hidden and underground spaces that developed long before the term was coined. The Catacombs of Paris represent one of the most important historical precedents, while in the 1970s, more organized forms of urban exploration began to develop.
The fundamental step occurred in 1996 , when Jeff Chapman, known as Ninjalicious, used the term Urban Exploration and helped define the phenomenon in its contemporary form.
Since then, the term Urbex has spread internationally, becoming the most common definition to indicate the exploration of abandoned, disused or normally inaccessible urban places.
Comments