detroit’s 20th century ruins.
The NYTimes published an incredible article about Michigan Central Station, a Beaux Arts train station that hasn’t been in use for the past twenty years. It now sits abandoned, a 20th century ruin. Its walls are covered in grafitti, the fixtures have been stripped and plundered. The images are haunting and beautiful, and the article tells the story of a building that is a symbol of its city’s decline and depression. Read it, look at the pictures. Incredible. Ok, so urban ruins. People have been interested in them for centuries. Piranesi taught us to see ruins as tools to help us design a grander future. The Romantics saw ruins as manifestations of the picturesque, as the ultimate expression of the patina of history. When we allow buildings to go to ruin, we allow ourselves to contemplate the insignificance of human time, the power of nature to overcome any feat of human ingenuity or creativity. But how do we allow buildings to go to ruin and not allow our economies to do so alongside them? Do …
