There is no need to expand further on the merits of this book all of the five star ratings attest to its achievement. What most of the reviewers, surprisingly, have not done is ask HOW?. How did a city of such importance arrive at such a dismal state? I know this question is beyond the scope or purpose of the book itself but to marvel at these ruins and not wonder how such a tragedy could have occured is inexplicable. Detroit was once referred to as the "Paris of the West". Detroit was the "Arsenal of Democracy" that led the Allied forces to victory in the Second World War. And today? Today - a modern-day Dresden or Hiroshima - only that destruction was not self-inflicted.
Detroit was, and is still, controlled by a Democrat Party machine, labor and government unions and race-baiting hustlers whose interests extend no further than the expansion of their personal power and the padding of their own pockets. Detroit's decline has been in full view for decades. None of the above mentioned power brokers was interested enough to apply the brakes. Not, at least, while there was still a little meat left on the carcass worth gnawing on. Well, the carcass is now well beyond picked clean and the rest of Michigan, if not the U.S. at large, will be financing its burial.
Unfortunately, Detroit represents just the most egregious example of urban American disintegration. Atlanta is closing in as a contender and practically every major city where the diabolical triad of the Democrat Party, labor/government union control and race politics is present, collapse is seemingly inevitable. In other words, don't set your camera down, Mr. Marchand, yours is one of the few growth industries left.
I live in California. Our state is hopelessly awash in red ink. Many of our cities have already filed for bankruptcy protection. School districts, police and fire departments, libraries - likewise penniless. Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey - are following right behind us. Common denominators - Democrats, union control and race politics. Any of those folks smugly flipping through the pages of this book, like one might a National Geographic article on the slums of Calcutta, and feeling safely removed from such filth and squalor, don't get too comfortable. This picture may be coming to a theatre near you.
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It must be galling for an art book publisher, spending a lot of time and money on a title, only to find that a very similar book is published at the same time. This happened in 2010 with two excellent photo books covering in detail the ruins of Detroit.I bought Andrew Moore: Detroit Disassembled first and thought it rather impressive with seventy photos in a landscape format but Marchand and Meffre's book is a much more ambitious and comprehensive look at this fallen city with 186 large photos. As one would expect with photographers looking at the same subject there is some duplication. Intriguingly, right down to a wall clock in the Cass Technical High school, which both books show because it looks like a real life Dali melting clock face.The photos in The Ruins of Detroit follow a sort of format starting with interiors and exteriors of factories then: interiors of commercial buildings; theaters and cinemas; schools; apartments; churches; police stations; hotels and more schools. The decay is just so overwhelming because this isn't just a few abandoned factories, which could happen anywhere but whole communities occupying hundreds of acres. The thing that intrigued me with Moore's book and this one is that so many of the photos show interiors: classrooms; dentists; libraries or a police office with everything still intact, though admittedly now strewn everywhere. It's as if the everyone just left in a hurry leaving everything behind.One really strong point about these photos is that they haven't concentrated on lots of close-ups of abandoned detail. I reviewed The Blue Room with photos by Eugene Richards of empty houses on the Great Plains. Far too many close-ups of clothes and personal belongings completely diluted the sense of ruin that these tumble down houses possessed. Marchand and Meffre have stood back from this detail and allowed the overall ruin and decay to capture your eyes. Their photos do it so well too, with beautiful compositions, framing and color.This has to be considered the perfect photo book. Large format (check out the Product Details) with a photo a page and mostly all the same size though there are six pages of houses that have four on each. Nicely for a quality art photo book there are detailed captions under each photo instead of the nonsense of putting them all on some back page. Another thoughtful touch are the occasional pages with some text to explain the subsequent pictures. The printing uses a 175 screen for the photos on semi-gloss matt art paper.Photo books of ruins, whether in cities or in the landscape, seems to be an expanding genre but the two books about Detroit, especially this one, have probably exhausted the visual potential. I doubt anyone can improve on Marchand and Meffre's remarkable efforts in these pages.
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Top reviews from other countries
Peter C
A wonderful depressing book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 27, 2013MR JINKS
THE BEAUTY OF ABANDONMENT
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 8, 2012william
this is a fantastic book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 17, 2014
