In this guide, a building is considered to have become a ruin when its windows or doors are no longer intact or when walls or roofs have holes. When this happens, the building is exposed to the weather, to wind and rain or to wildlife and vegetation. The building is no longer protected from exterior elements, nature invades setting off a process of the merging of building and nature. A building in ruins also displays the materials it was built from, its construction method, so that it reminds of what it must have been like when it was being built, when the place was still a building site.

The buildings that appear in this guide hardly resemble the idealized ruins. Most of them are at an earlier stage, for example, an abandoned building in which the process of decay has only just started. Others have reached a later stage than the ideal ruin and have become little more than a pile of rubble.

In this guide, a building is considered to have become a ruin when its windows or doors are no longer intact or when walls or roofs have holes. When this happens, the building is exposed to the weather, to wind and rain or to wildlife and vegetation. The building is no longer protected from exterior elements, nature invades setting off a process of the merging of building and nature. A building in ruins also displays the materials it was built from, its construction method, so that it reminds of what it must have been like when it was being built, when the place was still a building site.

The buildings that appear in this guide hardly resemble the idealized ruins. Most of them are at an earlier stage, for example, an abandoned building in which the process of decay has only just started. Others have reached a later stage than the ideal ruin and have become little more than a pile of rubble.

These ruins and abandoned buildings have no use, no function. This means that they are open to all kinds of possibilities. In a country like the Netherlands, in which every inch of land seems to be used with the utmost efficiency, the existence of these blank spaces is something to be grateful for. But it is important to remember that although some of these ruins will remain standing for some time, others will be renovated and many of them will be demolished before long. It is important to visit them as soon as possible.