Urban exploration at its finest.

I have been lucky to feature some outstanding urban exploration photography here, both from England’s SilentUK and from the American master Jonathan Haeber and his team.

But it will come as no surprise that when it comes to Urbex, or UX, at its finest, that Paris should be the source, as profiled in a simply gripping article in Wired magazine. Along with London, Paris is the location of the finest subterranean Victorian-era civil engineering and UX does for Paris what SilentUK does for London.

Click the picture for the story.

UX is appealing in so many ways. The sheer spontaneity of the movement, the act of finding something beautiful and bringing it back to life, the process of exploring recent and neglected industrial history, the rebellion against ‘The Man’ and the opportunity to make fools of inept administrations, while showing those of us above ground some of the magic that went into the making of great cities, UX is all of that and more.

The article from Wired is long, it’s filled with mystery, excitement and romance, and who can resist the appeal of gazing at stolen Legers, Picassos and Cezannes located but feet from their original location, unknown to the ferrets charged with their custody?

If you hew to the romantic appeal of restoring a 1790 clock with a team lead by a master horologist from one of the world’s great mechanical watch makers, all done clandestinely and underground, then sharing the peal of that restored masterpiece with all and sundry to the amazement of the buffoons in government, then you will thrill to this magnificent piece of journalism and the courageous people who make Parisian UX amongst the world’s greatest. And in case you believe that the US Government has an exclusive on stupidity, just check this out: