French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre have documented the decline and decay of Detroit through its buildings and structures that were once source of civic pride (schools, churches, hotels, stations), but now “stand as monuments to the city’s fall from grace.”

Over the past decades, Detroit has suffered a post-industrial decline far worse than any other American city. The once booming city has seen its population fall from 2.5 million in the 1940s, to just over 1 million today, with 1 in 3 people unemployed.

Marchand and Meffre have published a book of their stunning and quite beautiful photographs. Each plate reveals a hidden history of Detroit, detailing an evolutionary process, where:

Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension.

The state of ruin is essentially a temporary situation that happens at some point, the volatile result of change of era and the fall of empires. This fragility, the time elapsed but even so running fast, lead us to watch them one very last time : being dismayed, or admire, making us wondering about the permanence of things.

Photography appeared to us as a modest way to keep a little bit of this ephemeral state.

More images from this collection can be viewed here.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It looks like a fantastic book, but the price is obscene ($145 on Amazon). There are a couple of other fine books that cover the same ground for far less, especially Detroit Disassembled.

Check out sweetjuniper.  They have been tracking the demise for some time.

As someone who grew up in The Rust Belt, I say enough with the all the Ruin Porn. Yes, it’s all crumbling and falling apart and folks are suffering—so, so very fascinating. Why don’t you put down the fucking camera and go buy somebody some groceries?

So easy to deal with poverty when you see it as nothing more than art.

Though I agree with Justin and sympathize, I also believe we are beginning to watch a larger decline set in motion that will make books like this cheap because there will be so many of them.
If things don’t change, we’ll all be looking for groceries. Frankly, I don’t see much hope in sight as much as I do practice and believe in Altrusim and the brighter side of human nature. As the unspoken and ‘hidden’ class war continues we will have our faces stuffed with like images until the gated communities fall.
In the meantime Detroit (and other emptying Metro areas) should relax housing and merchant code regulations and let people squat and give them tax breaks to help to renew wherever they can. What would be wrong with letting immigrants come in and do what they do better than most Americans, which is to save and scrimp and sleep in the back room until they brought back dessicated areas like the Deserts of Detroit…or maybe I’m naive.

Wow.  Those pics make me want to visit.  Fascinating and beautifully saddening.  I really had no idea.

Now I’m gonna have to find some Detroit area charity to give to.
(and, no, it won’t be a building restoration fund - it’ll be a people restoration fund)

so passe

I agree with Justin 100% (and also think I went to college with him, too - if so, whassup Justin?). Here in Detroit, we’re sick of how the ruin porn runs rampant around the world, and everybody loves to use it to show how things have degraded here.

Know what? There is a big resurgence happening here, and things are getting better. Bit by bit, we’re fixing things up as we cope with the falling population, and do our best to deal with abandoned spaces.

Know what doesn’t help? Artsy photographers who pop into town to take photos of the derelict buildings and then leave to sell their ruin pornos for $100+.

Hi Ryan.

You’re an idiot.

Here’s a suggestion: why don’t YOU go out and take pictures of Detroit’s “resurgence.” ? Does it have something to do with the fact that you’ll never have as much talent as these two photographers even if you live to be 60,000 years old?

Is that why, Ryan?

Wow, Richard, such animosity.

I’m reading what I posted, and I’m not sure where I ever said I was a photographer, so there’s not much weight to your criticism.

There are people documenting what Detroit is doing now. Juxtapoz and Powerhouse are making efforts: http://www.powerhouseproductions.org/

And Palladium Boots brought Johnny Knoxville in and made an excellent documentary of what’s going on:
http://www.palladiumboots.com/exploration/detroit

So, yeah, let me know when you address my real points, rather than just attacking me for having a different profession than the ruin pornographers.

ryan

I’ll agree on one thing: my personal attack was uncalled for.

That said, I vehemently disagree with your point. If I were to agree, I’d have to label anyone who shot pictures of the devastation wrought by hurricane Katrina “a pornographer” ..same for anyone photographing a famine in Africa or the war in Iraq. Was Picasso “a pornographer” when he painted Guernica? Couldn’t one argue that he should have dropped his easel and paints and gone off to help the victims? Let’s just get rid of art completely, if that’s the case!

Perhaps there are SOME pictures one could claim are purely exploitive of a crisis or tragedy. I didn’t at all get that impression from these pictures of Detroit, which I think, despite their melancholy, express a great tenderness and affection for their subject.

I think you totally discount the enormous impact art and especially photo-journalism have had in bringing important subjects to light and galvanizing practical public involvement. You can denounce the famous picture of the Vietnamese girl fleeing a napalm strike during the war as an item of “disaster pornography” if that is your inclination. It was nevertheless, an important document seen ‘round the world that provoked great outrage and protest over that unjust war. Countless other examples of this are to be found and without the great photographers, film makers and other artists to document these events, few might even be aware of them.

But even if art had no social relevance of any kind—even if it were totally ineffectual in bringing about positive change, I would defend those engaged in it on a serious level. They are the real preservers of our culture..the ones who tell us who we are.

I think it’s great if you are involved in efforts to revitalize Detroit. If so, I think photographers like this pair from France are your allies, not your enemies. That’s my opinion, anyway.

I think there are vital differences between, say, photojournalists in the 1960s attempting to chronicle Vietnam truthfully and honestly and art photographers taking photos of Detroit “ruins,” which they then compile into a coffee table book that sells for $200. It seems to me they aren’t serving similar purposes. Just my thoughts…