A quick
Google search of "faces of detroit" registers hits like these:
Yes, there were a few positive hits in-between, but the majority of these are certainly negative. I was trying to avoid some of the more common negative buzz phrases about Detroit when speaking or showing some of its historical buildings in their current state. Phrases like "
ruins of detroit" or "
forgotten detroit" or "
detroit blight" or "
remains of detroit buildings" or even "
abandoned houses detroit". These are the search terms that really produce a laundry list of some amazing photography and writing about Detroit's past glory and its present demise. To name a few, here some great web sites if you have an interest in history, architecture, photography, and Detroit or scroll down further to see our tour of some Detroit's many "faces".
- Time Magazine: The Remains of Detroit (Photographer Sean Hemmerl)
- 100 Abandoned Houses (Photographer Kevin Bauman)
- Forgotten Detroit: Presentation of Historical and Present Day Information about some places in Detroit not to be Forgotten (Writer/Photographer: David Kohrman)
- The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit (Lowell Forest Boileau/DetroitYes! Explore the great international metropolis of Detroit through thousands of images organized in a series of revealing guided tours)
- Buildings of Detroit (historian/photographer combo created this site to spread the history of Detroits architectural structures)
- The Other Detroit (Essay by Jeremy Levine with a more positive spin on Detroit)
- Ruin With a View (NYT Holly Brubach)
- Detroit Disassembled (PBS Andrew Moore slideshow/narration)
- Andrew Moore (Detroit photographs 2008-2009)
- The Ruins of Detroit (Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre Photography, book to be published)
- The Other Side of Detroit. A nice piece from a new site I've been following, The Urbanophile, that takes acknowledges the reality of Detroit but also points out many positive angles that still exist for Detroit. For example, "Detroit is Big" and "Detroit has real assets".
- Detroit: Embracing the Ruins. Another piece from the The Urbanophile that makes mention of turning some of these beautiful "ruins" into tourist attractions. Interesting concept.
- Ice House Detroit (a kickstarter project by Gregory Holm and Matthew Radune "With the current freeze in the housing market, Detroit is leading the nation in foreclosures.
Ice House Detroit references this contemporary urban condition, and involves the acquisition and recontextualization of one of the 80,000 abandoned houses in the city.
The house will be sprayed with water in subzero temperatures, gradually building up layers of ice over the course of several days or weeks. Once it is frozen, the common architectural and urban references of the house will be temporarily obscured, providing a period of reflection.")
Here are a few "faces" of Detroit we've been able to capture over the last few months...
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