Detroit Disassembled
Andrew Moore
I find something incredibly satisfying about Moore’s photos of a decaying post-apocalyptic Detroit. While the building are crumbling to nothing, nature is reasserting herself. Man has not conquered nature, nor ever will. We may be doing our damnedest to overpopulate and pollute the planet, but nature will have the last laugh.
The photos are also history in action. Often archaeologists unearth ruins and state in a purposeful (confused) tone that “trade routes must have changes and the social dynamic made people leave, yadda yadda.” It sounds so fancifal, Why would people leave a perfectly good city and move elsewhere? Why wouldn’t they take their stuff? You can’t just leave a city and walk away… can you?...
Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals
Christopher Payne
This collection of photos is a true Rorschach test for the reader. The decrepit Victorian-era buildings are both beautiful and sinister. Abandoned rooms show both care and terrifying restriction – gardens, beautify parlors, movie theaters, coffee stands, barred doors and rooms of straightjackets. As one after another of these large state hospitals falls nuder the wrecking ball, Payne has made it his job to document what were once common institutions. Most were closed in the 1970s in what was arguably a poor move for the mentally ill and indigent. What is left gives a glimmer of sadness and but also a stability that many of the mentally ill no longer have. Once housed in asylums like these, virtual cities unto themselves, many of...
The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World
Guillame de Laubier
WHOA! It’s library porn! Seriously, there are huge center fold out with *drool* spiral staircases, grilled shelves, tromp l’oil ceilings and (oh baby!) rare manuscripts housed in little nooks and alcoves. I think I need to lie down.
Call of the Mall
Paco Underhill
What is wrong with the mall? Well, everything, according to consumer behavior specialist Underhill. And, he adds, the rise and fall of the mall has been almost entirely avoidable. Going through a standard mall visit, Underhill points out the numerous ways malls fail to satisfy the consumer. From the architecturally blank outer walls, lack of coat and package check, unreadable maps, terrible merchandise displays and bathrooms hidden down murky hallways, the average mall is designed almost on purpose to irritate the consumer. Why aren’t clothes shown on angled racks so you can see everything? Why isn’t there anything to eat that isn’t...
Built by Hand – Vernacular Buildings Around the World
Built by Hand – Vernacular Buildings Around the World – Bill Steen, Athena Steen, Eiko Komatsu, Photos by Yoshio Komatsu
This book is a massive collection of hand-built homes and buildings from the around the world. Loosely grouped by material and use, the photos and brief text show a world of housing totally unlike anything we see in the US. Using common and available materials, even the poorest of families make unique and beautiful living spaces. Structures are built to fit and serve the environment – inverted roofs to catch water, wind-catchers on roofs, low entrances to protect against enemies, floating island to grow vegetables and gigantic pots to store...
Ancient Micronesia and the Lost City of Nan Madol
Ancient Micronesia and the Lost City of Nan Madol - David Hatcher Childress
I first ran about Nan Madol last month in Oliver Sack’s Island of the Colorblind. The city of Nan Madol is located deep in Micronesia. The partially sunken city once covered 11 square miles and was cut through with Venetian style canals and ringed with man-made islands. The massive walls are comprised of 250 million tons of basalt – the equivalent of a small mountain. And yet, the tiny Micronesian islands surrounding Nan Madol can only support a few thousand people. The many-ton basalt crystal are far too large to be moved by canoe or raft. Carbon dating gives dates as early as...