It can seem like a shame sometimes (especially if you’re a little architecturally sentimental, like us), but as progress marches on, old buildings get renovated and torn down. In the best cases, though, older buildings can get new leases on life, being transformed rather than relegated to the dustbin of history. In the very best cases, that transformation produces some amazing, otherworldly photographs in the process. That’s what happened to the erstwhile Chicago headquarters of the Fulton Market Cold Storage Company. As the company moves on to bigger and better digs, a bike parts company is taking over their old space, which includes ten stories of deep frozen cold storage that had fallen into years of disuse. Converting the space into more modern lofts made for what is essentially the biggest refrigerator defrost in the history of mankind, which is apparently a totally beautiful and surreal thing. Thankfully, the architectural firm that oversaw the renovations made sure to get the icescapes documented by photographer Gary Robert Jensen. Feel free to get your gawk on in the slideshow below — it’s a totally appropriate reaction to images like these.
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(via Colossal, Gary Jensen was originally referenced as Gary Robert)
- Here’s a chunk of ice as big as two Manhattans that just broke off of Greenland
- Lake Vostok hosts some of the oldest ice on the planet
- This is a burger made of ice cream, your argument is invalid
