We, collegue Eddy Delplace and I, went on “urban exploration” in the Fort de la Chartreuse, located in Liège (B) last week thanks to the web site Forbidden Places. This web sites lists some location where you can find abandonned indrustry sites, old mansions, obsolete factories and more. Unfourtunatly, a lot of listing for the Belgian area are already demolished or reconverted but Fort de la Chartreuse remains unchanged for a very large part of the site, they are however demolishing buildings on the site, and is freely accessible. When we visited the site we also spoke to some female photographers from the Netherlands.

Now, about Fort de la Chartreuse itself: it was built in 1817 by the Dutch army and could offer housing for up to 3000 soldiers. When in 1830 Belgium was founded, with the help of a small revolution, the fort was used as barracks.

During WWI and WWII, the fort was used by the Germans as a prison until the liberation by the American army in 1945 who transformed the fort into the 28th General Hospital for the US Army.

Fort de la Chartreuse was afterwards in use by the Belgian army until 1980. The buildings are empty and left over to nature. You can see the decay of the building compared to photographs made in the past.