The U.S. army base in Keflavík, Iceland was one of hundreds of such bases that the Americans established during the Cold War. It was originally built during the Second World War on a desolate and windy health in the southwestern part of the country. For 55 years, from 1951-2006, the base at Keflavík was one of the American army's most important Northern Atlantic bases. However, following the end of the Cold War, the United States' new foreign affairs policies made the base unnecessary and one beautiful autumn day, the American flag was pulled down and the last soldiers flew away. What was left was a whole town, built for Americans to fit the needs of the American army, now in the hands of Icelanders and Icelandic nature.

The photographer Bragi Þór Jósefsson visited the deserted town shortly after the Americans left and just before Icelanders started to renovate it for their own needs. The buildings had fulfilled their original purposes, but it was if they were still waiting doe their former owners to return. Traces of these inhabitants had all but disappeared, and the future of the town was still undecided.

It was a strange sight: An American town, complete with supermarkets, a hospital, a football field, and a cinema, standing and awaiting its destiny on a desolate Icelandic moor.

(The introduction to this text is written in both Icelandic and English.)