The Fantastic Ruin of a Modern City

[mbarrick]

What happens when a modern city made wealthy in the first third of the 20th century falls into decay and ruin after nearly half its population moves away? Look at Detroit.

Here's a few of the more spectacular images from the site:


An abandoned, burnt-out mansion.


A railway platform designed for millions of passengers, serving none for decades.


A grand theatre at the base of a skyscraper, serving as a parking lot.

Comments

I don't know

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

But I have some guesses. I think one part of it is it makes the opulence more accessable. It's abandoned therefore no one will mind if you take a bit of it for yourself. I think that is a deeply rooted part of the human psyche - our most ancient ancestors weren't hunters, they were scavengers.

More consciously there is the awe at how anything so grand could just be given up and a part that rails against that - no matter how good and realistic the reasons are there is always a little bit that thinks, "I could fix that and people would use it again."

And then there is a conditioned part - the study of ancient ruins combined with the idea that somehow our civilization will be immune. It's shocking to see what "we" have built crumbled like bits of Rome or Byzantium. Plus there is the pop-culture influence of God-knows-how-many post-Apocalyptic movies and stories. We all watch and read those and identify with the heroes - to see the decay puts us in the story and calls up a touch of that heroism... "If I lived in a ruined world I could be like [Mad Max, Tank Girl, etc.]."

you may be on to something there...

[bitogoth.livejournal.com]

perhaps the allure of urban decay stems from the combined awe of what human creativity can build, and the amazement that this same human drive could allow such creations to decay and die. we seem to spend a lot of time talking about how things were better "in that day" and these old buildings are testaments to that idea. and when the actual history of the building or site is not known or is hazy, we can write our own histories of the events and people that shaped these places, and our own stories of why they were abandoned, in some way making us part of the pseudo-imaginary "lives" of these old places...

Re: you may be on to something there...

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that ability to feel a part of the ruin either by an imagined fiction or a factual history is a big part of their appeal. Look at all the stories people have spun around the Pyramids, Stonehenge, the Roman Coloseum, and other places. When a ruin becomes a rallying point for a people the passion that can become attached to it is amazing, like with the Wailing Wall.

Ruins are full of mystery and possibility that spark all sort of imaginings. I can't get the idea of using these places in a movie out of my head.