Post-Apocalyptic Rolling Stones

This nice painting by Rodney Matthews from the 1970s with the title "Another Time, Another Place" shows the Rolling Stones as post-apocalyptical highwaymen.

And because Rodney Matthews is as British as the Stones, in the back there is Big Ben to be seen and not Lady Liberty.

Anticipating Disasters

The Historic Museum in Ningbo (China) by Wang Shu of Amateur Architecture looks like an earthquake or a tornado have passed by. The walls are asymmetric, inclined and composed of different materials.



The architect Wang Shu explained, that fragments of demolished buildings from all over the region were used to construct the walls of the museum. This is part of local traditional building techniques called "wa pan", developed by local farmers to cope with frequent natural disasters.

Jewish Cemetery

A Jewish cemetery in Berlin. Many of the graves are in art nouveau or art deco style. But because of many families there is no one left to take care of the graves they are falling apart.



Ivy, moss, fern and other plants are covering the monuments of death uniting them with nature: Ashes to ashes dust to dust.

Beksiński’s Nightmares

Zdzisław Beksiński (1929–2005) was an important Polish artist who became famous for his surrealistic post-apocalyptic paintings.


In many of this disturbing sceneries ruins are playing an important part as symbols of death and decay. Also interesting is that he combines sometimes ruins with body parts which underlines the death metaphor of the ruins.

Old India

Ruins south Old Delhi. Two steel engravings published c.1860. These typical 19th century and very romantic pictures are already presenting ruins as exotic artifacts.