What are some works that center around exploring a dilapidated,

File: The Grand Budapest Hotel 2014 1080p BRRip x264 AAC-JYK.mp4_snapshot_00.04.40_[2017.08.06_15.32.40].jpg (254KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

254KB, 1920x1080px

What are some works that center around exploring a dilapidated, out-of-fashion, sacred feeling place that though far away from its peak popularity, still operates with a crew/population of weary people open to visitors or strangers? Something where it feels like the reader/viewer is one of the last guests the place will see. Intrigue and history in every nook and cranny, but with an air of sadness and death overhanging the entire area. The place is foreign, interesting, and oozing personality, like the feeling of exploring a new library on a slow foggy day and finding a lost, tattered, and unlabeled diary tucked away on one of the shelves. It could be a town, a mansion, a castle, a store, an apartment, a country, an island, a zoo, etc.

Spirited Away is too lively-- the bath house is extremely busy and lively. Laputa Castle in the Sky is too dead-- Laputa itself is nothing but ruins with no one left to tell its stories. It's important to me that there are some people inhabiting this place. The opening bits of The Grand Budapest Hotel (pictured) are close to what I'd like, but most of the film is spent when the place is at its peak.

Any medium is okay. I would think books and video games would be best suited. The former can take its time exploring details and the solitary quiet act of reading would emulate the feeling of being one of the few souls in the place the book revolves around. The latter would let the player explore at their pace and as they like, though as with most games it might come off as too artificial. You talk to someone twice to see if they have anything more to say and they just repeat their dialogue, that sort of thing.

Does anyone have any recommendations for something like this?