Photo Series Sifts Through The Motor City’s Wreckage
By Joe Wertz
By all accounts, Detroit has seen much better days. The city boomed in the early 20th century thanks to industrial jobs driven by America’s ever-growing love and need for automobiles. Detroit’s population peaked in the 1950s at around 2 million. Today the city is half what it once was and Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre have documented the downfall. In the revealing “The Ruins of Detroit” series, Marchand and Meffre narrate the decent through arresting images of urban decay. Buildings crumble, the colors of once grand interiors evaporate and broken signs of humanity and progress drown in pools of rubble. The pair describes the scenes as “small pieces of history in suspension,” optimistically hoping that Detroit’s destruction is a sign of impending rebirth. [more at reliques]
