Ford without Us
E-mailed to me yesterday, and thoroughly worth a few hours' boggle: a staggering photo-essay at The Kohrman Report on the abandoned factories of Detroit, where Fordism was born and died; and much more where that came from, with photoseries on empty department stores, abandoned hotels, disused railway stations and 'skyscraper graveyards'.
Something which came through the post: Junk Jet, a very peculiar Stuttgart-based architectural zine, with articles on architectural monsters, Sam Jacob on mistakes, and other curios; and as if as a reference to Adolf Loos' claim that ornament on buildings was the equivalent of the tendency of criminals and 'savages' to tattoo themselves, it also contains an 'architectural tattoo'...
Also, me caught on the horns of a dilemma, or failing to come to a proper conclusion, in BD.
posted by owen hatherley at 6:18 pm
2 Comments:
Owen, you need to find somebody to fund you to do an architectural inspection tour of Detroit... if you could come I could get you a speaking gig as well.
I agree with that. I was by coincidence looking for pictures of Albert Kahn factories yesterday, and I was disappointed by what I could find. I remember driving into Detroit for the first time, this was in the mid-eighties, at night, and seeing a couple of plants that were monoliths, flood-lit, with brick facades that resembled power stations more than they did these gridded glass sheds; they billowed smoke and sparks and it was all caught in the floodlights. The neighbouring cities of auto-parts suppliers, places like Cleveland, are also worth a visit. Both Detroit and Cleveland had exceptionally good radio stations playing unusual music -- may still have, for all I know. Detroit has many interesting public buildings (eg Belle Isle), but it is best seen in the steamy heat of the summer months.
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