Post-Apocalyptic Photos of an Aquarium in Decay

This article originally appeared on VICE Denmark

As a child, photographer Julie Borgstrøm visited Denmark's Aquarium with her father – she mainly remembers seeing an enormous octopus and some electric eels there. Recently, she went back to the now abandoned building in Charluttenlund, just up the coast from Copenhagen.

Designed by architect C.O. Gjerløv-Knudsen, Denmark's Aquarium first opened in 1939 and it was home to a wide variety of marine animals for 73 years. In 2012, it moved to a suburb of Copenhagen called Kastrup, and re-opened as the National Aquarium Denmark – Den Blå Planet (The Blue Planet). Since then, the old aquarium in Charlottenlund has been empty, and the current owner plans to renovate the space and turn it into a beach hotel with a restaurant, spa and fitness centre.

When Julie recently returned, the old aquarium was very different from what it had been when she visited with her dad. "It was like being in a time warp. Everything was dead silent – it was calming but also a little eerie," she says. "There was lots of graffiti, and I could tell that someone had thrown a party there. I like the idea that people were still using the building in the time between its old and its new purpose. I think transitions like that, when you can still see what something was before it becomes something else, are pretty fascinating."

Scroll down to see more of Julie's photos of the former aquarium.