I found a book called Libera Viva which features photographs by Elizabeth Holzl of an old hospital in Italy that has been abandoned to nature and become overrun with plants.

The introduction has this to say about the meaning of the photographs: “Small details are identified in the vast structural spaces of the Leonardo Bianchi, and these restore something of the mystery that still shrouds a building that was at one time so imposing and powerful. The state of abandonment is brought to the fore, a state in which the strength and power of the past are mirrored in the vastness of the decay.”

Elizabeth herself says that “the vegetation takes back the space and becomes a metaphor of the victory of life over restraint.”