About WebUrbanist

Previously an ongoing publication, WebUrbanist is now a passive archive made up of over 5,000 articles written across 30 categories between 2007 and 2020. The site covered urban architecture, art, design, exploring built environments around the world and reaching a total audience of over 100,000,000 visitors.

Creator and Contributors:

Kurt Kohlstedt founded WebUrbanist before launching a series of other design-centric publications including Dornob, Gajitz and WebEcoist — these days, he is focused on his work at 99% Invisible, a popular podcast and website about design. He also co-authored The 99% Invisible City with 99pi host Roman Mars.

Contributing authors included SA Rogers, Delana Barnes, Steve Levenstein and others over the years. The gifted designer/developer duo of Duck Brigade crafted the current version of this website as well as the snazzy logo.  Mike Waggoner has tenaciously kept the site up and running through good times and bad.

Press and Publicity:

Over the years, WebUrbanist and Kurt Kohlstedt have been featured on a number of other media outlets and popular blogs including The Guardian, The BBC, CNN, NPR, TIME, ArchDaily, Architizer, Atlas Obscura, BoingBoing, BuzzFeed, Citylab, Curbed, Streetsblog, FOX, Gawker, Gizmodo, Martha Stewart Living, Mental Floss, MSNBC, Neatorama, WebWare and Wired Magazine.

Through WU, Kurt became known for his coverage of abandoned places, uncanny graffiti, urban camouflage, transforming furniture, container architecture, modular housing, vertical farming, cycling infrastructure, big-box reuse, street markings, planning history, and civic design commentary. This in turn set the stage for him to write a National and New York Times Best Seller in 2020.

Before it was abandoned in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Pripyat was a thriving Ukrainian city with a population of nearly 50,000. The relatively sudden exodus of its inhabitants left behind a physical snapshot of the times, preserved by the absence of humans intervention for fear of fallout.

Despite the dangers of returning, urban explorers have been visiting the place for years. Some photographers use cameras mounted on aerial drones to maintain a safer distance. Other in-person visitors less concerned about safety have gone in and looted old buildings. Most, though, go simply to observe, drawn to the deserted city by those mysterious forces that attract people to derelict places — embodied history, transgressive impulses and human curiosity among them.

Such dangerous or hard-to-reach abandoned places can particularly alluring, especially when their stories are compelling. Take Hashima, just one of many Japanese islands but unusually packed with old buildings. A thriving coal-mining city in times past, “Battleship Island” once had the highest population density on planet — until a drop in coal production led to its desertion. In recent years, more and more photos and videos of the place have proliferated thanks to the internet, in turn raising questions about how much to repair, restore or change it in order to make it more accessible for an increasing number of people visiting by boat.

While some architectural artifacts in remote locations like this have been left largely alone by visitors or modified simply to accommodate tourists, others have gone through generations of much more radical change. Off the coast of Great Britain, army and navy sea forts have been turned into everything from private retreats and luxury resorts to pirate radio stations and rogue micro-nations. Here, a combination of factors, including abandonment by the government and somewhat more accessible (yet still aquatic) locations have conspired to make these structures more appealing for different kinds of adaptive reuse.

Preservation, Restoration & Contention

In central locations with more people (and thus opinions) the fate of historical places has often been the subject of controversy. In many cities, preservation of a current state tends to win out. Even such a seemingly neutral position can be contentious, though, particularly when efforts to preserve are partial or seem superficial, as in the case of ‘ghost facades‘ where only thin surfaces are saved.

Rote historicism is a simplistic default that can lead to strange and unexpected results and extreme scenarios, like cities demolishing entire buildings to “preserve” the appearance of historical skylines.

In other cases, restorations are pursued, though choosing a target point of time or period can be fraught — some buildings have been changed substantially over centuries, making it challenging to decide what aspects to restore. Either way, renovations involve modifications, which can quickly divide people who crave a kind of physical authenticity from those who embrace the notion that architecture necessarily changes over time — the situation of Notre Dame after the fire illustrates the point. Supporters of extensions and additions that don’t match the original argue that visible differences will help people in the future understand what is truly old and new, while critics note that most famous old structures have already been damaged, rebuilt and changed for centuries. There is no single solution.

Ruination, Rediscovery & Reclamation

There are people, too, who think that historical ruins should simply be left alone to decay. Along those lines, many building infiltrators and urban explorers in the United States, Europe, Asia and other parts of the world where urbex is popular follow an unwritten code to leave no trace of their presence, allowing subsequent visitors to experience a disused space as they did. There is beauty in glimpsing snapshots of history and watching nature slowly reclaim a structure.

Some abandoned places endure through careful consideration and the avoidance of further damage, but many persist in their current form simply because they are less accessible in the first place — the latter status applies to many underwater towns and archaeological sites as well as underground tunnels, crypts and caverns.

Once rediscovered, though, the fates of such places depend on where they are located and current attitudes toward ruination, preservation and restoration, which continue to change over time, much like the locations in question will do … with or without further human intervention.

The world is full of architectural fake overs, from individual facades to entire buildings designed to look like something other than what they really are. Historically, some of these disguises have been less well-intentioned than others. During World War II, Nazis gave the Red Cross access to a concentration camp but they controlled the experience, putting up false fronts to make it seem more humane. Along similarly duplicitous lines, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez reportedly had workers paint the bottoms of potholes along the routes taken by foreign dignitaries to disguise the degree of road disrepair.

When President Vladimir Putin was scheduled to visit a largely abandoned town, entire vernacular facade-covering banners were hung over rundown building exteriors. Colorful faux painted walls, windows and even cats were draped over the sides of derelict structures. Some of these quirky examples may sound outdated or limited to extreme regimes, but similar trickery can be found around the world. In anticipation of an upcoming G8 summit in 2013, for instance, closed storefront windows in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland were populated with images depicting open businesses stocked with goods, an illusion set up to impress visitors.

Sometimes, subterfuge is about making something look better, a kind of economic camouflage, but it can also be about political or military concealment. In World War II, a the entire rooftop of a Seattle airplane manufacturing plant was covered with a fake suburb complete with plywood streets, sidewalks, trees and houses. This elaborate deception was erected to conceal a vital piece of wartime infrastructure, confusing potential enemy spy planes and bombers that might pass overhead. In hindsight, attacks on the American mainland might sound improbable, but in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack the people in power were taking no chances.

Many misleading designs are less elaborate but also far more prevalent than most people realize. Hiding in plain sight in cities like New York, London, Paris and Toronto, among others, some architectural facades have been used to cover up infrastructure including sewer and subway exhaust vents. In other cases, entire fake buildings have been built as shells around around facilities like electrical substations. Similar strategies have been employed to reduce the appearance of blight in cities including Cincinnati, Cleveland and Chicago, where fake interior scenes have been applied to boarded-up windows on homes and businesses.

Not all of these fakes are meant to distort reality or create believable illusions. Test track villages in places like Ann Arbor, Michigan, for instance, are used to help study road conditions and try out new autonomous vehicle technologies.

There are also “Hogan’s Alleys” around the world — fake towns made for training police, military and other emergency personnel by setting up simulated crimes, riots and terrorist attacks in semi-realistic built environments. Some of these can be quite detailed, like Survival Town, an entire development complete with furniture and mannequins built simply to be blown in bomb tests. Whatever their particular form and intended level of deception, all of these fake places share a common designation — and so-called “Potemkin Villages” have a strangely compelling origin story.

The Original Potempkin Village

A Potempkin Village is a false front designed to cover facts with fictions, painting a better picture (literally or otherwise) over the face of a less attractive reality. The name comes from governor Grigory Potemkin who, as the story goes, wanted to impress his former lover, Russian Empress Catherine II, as she toured the Crimean countryside in the wake of war. To win her approval, he concocted one of the craziest architectural plans in history, involving the erection of entire portable villages at various locations along the way. These fake towns would be disassembled when her delegation passed by on a barge and then moved downstream along the Dnieper River to be rapidly reconstructed at the next stop on the route — the changeovers happened while the empress slept.

Thus, the same faux buildings would be seen over and over again in new contexts by her highness and other ambassadors. Potempkin’s underlings, meanwhile, would dress up and pretend to live in these places along the way. While it can be hard to disentangle facts from fantasies in this particularly peculiar history, one thing is certain: from these stories arose the idea of the “Potemkin Village,” which came to have political and economic as well as architectural meaning.

Potempkin’s story is extreme, but his motivations are relateable — he was driven by that same desire ordinary people have to make their homes a bit tidier than usual when entertaining guests or that inspires business owners to put slightly idealized versions of their wares upfront on display. The difference is arguably one of scale and degree, and his position of power and authority enabled him to take things further. In the realm of international economics, politics, business and military operations, such deceptions can indeed become massive, surreal and in rare cases are persistently maintained, even when people know a place is fake.

The World’s Biggest Facade

Perhaps the most sizable and strange contemporary example is the village of Kijong-dong, located near the Korean Demilitarized Zone. To understand this place, though, one needs to first understand the context in which it was constructed.

The Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) have effectively been at war for over 60 years. The Korean Armistice Agreement brought an end to the active hostilities of the Korean War in 1953, but it was only meant to be a temporary measure. Absent a more permanent settlement, the conflict technically remains open-ended. The resulting KMZ spans 160 miles from coast to coast and is 2.5 miles wide with the Military Demarcation Line running down the center. To this day, the border between remains one of the most militarized in the world as both sides claim the right to govern the whole Korean peninsula. Along the border, both North and South Korea maintain “peace villages,” each of which is peculiar in its own way.

On the south side, residents of Daeseong-dong live tax-free and exempt from military service. The place may seem a bit artificial, but it has real residents living out their real lives. On the north side, the situation appears much stranger — even at a glance, Kijong-dong looks conspicuously luxurious for a rural North Korean town. Interior lights turn on and off at set times while street-sweeping caretakers and other “citizens” are positioned to make it look occupied. “Farmers” show up during the day but depart at night rather than heading into one of the “buildings” where people might be expected to live.

North Korea is well known for guiding visitors through particular routes of its capital city and controlling the experience of travelers to the country, but Kijong-dong takes this kind of coercive deception to the next level, staging an entire town for display complete with a support cast and crew. However real and fake modern accounts of Potempkin’s historical efforts may be, he would presumably at least be impressed by the effort.

Years ago in McAllen, Texas, an old abandoned 124,500-square-foot Walmart superstore was renovated and put to new use as the largest single-floor public library in the United States. Across America, many malls have emptied out and thousands of abandoned big box stores sit empty, including hundreds of former Walmarts. Some, though, are getting creative new leases on life, becoming community markets, indoor tracks, gaming spaces, museums and more.

In McAllen, aisles that used to divide shoppers have been adapted or replaced to serve the community. The old Walmart is packed with computer labs, public meeting spaces, a cafe, an art gallery, a used bookstore and more. In other small towns and suburbs around the United States, the generic promise of all-in-one convenience big box stores once offered is being realized in new and site-specific ways.

Designers at the research and development lab of KTGY Architecture + Planning in Los Angeles have particularly inspiring aspirations for old shopping centers: plug-and-play modular prefabs that subdivide big empty boxes into transitional housing for the homeless. This is not the first time architects and designers have attempted creative solutions to this pervasive problem, but it’s notably ambitious.

The firm’s Re-Habit project involves housing as well as support spaces and services fit into unused spaces in big boxes or individual shopping outlet stores like Sears and JCPenney. Self-supporting communal residences, where occupants rotate chores like working in the kitchen or keeping the dining hall clean, are coupled with facilities to providing training and potentially even employment.

Where some might see empty space, others see opportunity. The large, flat roofs of big box stores, for example, are ideal for rooftop gardening, open-air recreation and solar panels — these kinds of uses would pair well with a project like Re-Habit. Many big boxes have outdoor plaza areas (not to mention giant parking lots) that could accommodate small pop-up shops and food carts, too.

Adaptive reuse in the realm of big retail is forward-thinking but also proven concept. Big boxes have been turned into commercial gyms, corporate offices, schools, churches and (yes, this is true) even a SPAM Museum. Whatever the project, it takes vision and resources to turn such dauntingly huge structures around as well as an understanding of the potential pitfalls and unique opportunities of this peculiar building typology.

Such large-scale conversions tend to work best when they take advantage of big box assets and work within their limitations. Generally, big box stores reside in huge buildings that are located in prime spots, often along highways, which makes them accessible but can also make them hard to fill up. They generally have a lot in common, like orientations that lend themselves to being sectioned into bays and limited natural light, features that can work well for things like libraries. Often, though, the best option is simply whatever best fits community needs, which is often a mixed-use program that can more effectively fill out a bigger interior.

Big retailers may be more prevalent in suburbs, but there are some prime urban examples as well. A series of converted Sears plants in major US cities offer a range of realized visions for what big old commercial buildings can become. In Minneapolis, for instance, a massive mail-order Sears plant and retail store was abandoned by its makers for years before being turned into the Midtown Exchange, a busy structure full of restaurants, stores, offices, condos and apartments. It took a lot of players to make this work, including invested city officials and both public and private funding from various sources.

Often, these conversions speak to the character of the cities in which they are located. In Seattle, a place known for its coffee, the city’s old Sears plant now houses the Starbucks headquarters. In Los Angeles, land of Hollywood, a deserted Sears was used for film shoots during its derelict years but is on its way to becoming a residential and commercial hub. Boston and Memphis have converted Sears projects, too — uses are mixed in both cases.

While the individual projects vary, each city has something in common having turned a similarly monumental structure into something new. These various projects fill in gaps and address needs that are fundamentally local. Together, they represent a series of blueprints that other cities can look to, whether they have Sears plants themselves or are simply looking for ways to deal with big old commercial spaces.

Existing examples can provide paths forward, but other architects have grander visions, too, some of which have yet to be tried. Designers could, for instance, build around big boxes on all sides, then turn the central old structures into community hubs or parking lots or productive green spaces. Another option is to tear down sections of roofs and facades, dividing big boxes up into smaller and more manageable units while leaving structural supports intact.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for disused spaces, but cities, towns and sururbs looking for inspiration have both real-world examples and conceptual designs to draw on. In some sense, the core recipe never changes — for any big transformation project, municipal officials, citizens, developers and designers will always have to come together to find best-fit solutions on a case-by-case basis.

From Seattle to New York City, Minneapolis to Dallas, boxy apartment and condo buildings sporting bland facades, metallic or colored cladding and a generally flat aesthetic seem to dominate new urban developments these days. Surprisingly similar in style from one place to the next, they have been dubbed works of “developer chic” or “fast-casual architecture” and branded blandmarks or LoMo (Low Modern), generally by those critical of their appearance. Some of their look is a byproduct of “value engineering,” a stripping away of decorative flourishes for the sake of saving a few dollars (the bane of many artistic architects) but there is more to the story.

As with virtually any architecture, costs do naturally play a role as well in shaping these structures — ornate brickwork may look beautiful, but even as a decorative facade layer the material adds loads of weight and a lot of expense to a cheaper wood-framed building.  As for the stylistic convergence more broadly, much of this traces to economic and other factors that are essentially the same across cities in America and otherwise: high demand for affordable housing that has to meet a similar set of safety and other code requirements.

In many cities, housing is in short supply and a lot of area is zoned for single-family residential, forcing developers to fit as much housing as they can into whatever plots are left available. Where they do get built, these structures face restrictions often derived from international building codes, calling for formulaic approaches (for instance: a concrete base floor with five wooden floors on top) resulting in a roughly similar size and shape. Facades with portions that are recessed or pushed out are common features, too, again usually the product of local ordinances and design review boards that demand physical variety from facades.

To some critics, these cookie-cutter creations represent an aesthetic crisis. To others, they seem like harbingers of gentrification. As any urbanist knows, though, a lack of affordable housing is a serious and pervasive problem neither caused nor solved by architects as such. Architecture critic Kate Wagner looks at the situation pragmatically, arguing that “affordable mid and high-rise towers are the most effective way to house the greatest number of people on the smallest parcel of land, something that’s desperately needed in places like San Francisco, where the value of land is so high.”

For those who would point to the much-discussed failures of 20th-century mass-housing attempts, she writes: “Modernist public housing was not the failure of architecture it was the failure of people—through racial prejudices, misguided and poorly thought out policies, ugly politics, and economic greed, people caused the public housing of the past to fail.” Additionally, a lot of lessons learned from that era are incorporated into even the most boring of boxy apartments, including mixed-use programs that activate areas and bring in more than just residents.

More broadly, there is a case to be made that what was once more of an art has become something of a science, whatever one’s opinion of the effects. Architects have always been in the business of balancing aesthetics and pragmatics, form and function, but increasingly their work is constrained by outside forces, including but not limited to client budgets, safety considerations and municipal rules.

Over the long term, the sometimes-shoddy construction materials and methods of this currently trending typology may be the seeds of its undoing. It’s possible these will be looked back on as a mistake. Maybe, though, the same thing will happen here that has with other approaches and styles over architectural history: people will come to appreciate the beauty and functionality in what currently seems mundane if not abhorrent. In the meantime, architects can only do so much — it’s up to cities and their citizens to accept reality or rethink entrenched paradigms and consider the merits of changing zoning limitations, restrictive codes and perhaps also the benchmarks by which we judge architecture to be good or bad.