Detroit is arguably one of the most fascinating modern cities in the world. This is thanks to the city’s unique balance between its former identity as a manufacturing mecca and its current state of sectional abandonment  and iterative renewal. It is neither deserted nor wholly occupied, but exists in tension between destruction, creation and everyday living, with beautiful stories on all of these fronts. French photographers Yves Marchand  and Romain Meffre saw the abandoned parts of this compelling urban landscape as no less fascinating than the ruins of ancient civilizations and set out to document it in their 2010 book The Ruins of Detroit.

(all images via: Marchand Meffre)

Despite the empty neighborhoods, abandoned buildings and crumbling structures – or perhaps because of them – Detroit still possesses a kind of indomitable magic. The city exists in a state of flux, balancing somewhere between its former glory, its current semi-abandoned status, and pockets of fresh new life and creative directions springing up from the ashes.

The city, so rich with history both industrial and individual, was once the fourth largest in the United States. It housed some of the country’s brightest engineers and most promising entrepreneurs. The city grew and its residents continued to expand their living areas into planned suburbs.

But the automobile industry which had such a large part of the city’s early days also proved to play a part in its undoing. White middle-class residents used those automobiles to move out of the inner city and into their new suburbs. Segregation increased steadily until the violent race riot in 1967.

Following the riot, the city continued its rapid decline. The industry that built Detroit moved on to other locations. Inner-city residents fled their homes by the thousands. Every race and every economic class was affected by this exodus; the city simply bled away until it held less than half its former population.

Unlike almost any other place in the world, Detroit’s abandoned buildings and ruined structures are not isolated in one part of the city. Grand, well-kept buildings can exist just meters away from crumbling ruins. Inhabited and abandoned homes exist side by side in neighborhoods – this as tragic in some sense, but has also provided the seeds of fresh slates throughout the city. New projects happen rapidly in this fluid urban environemnt.

What is so compelling about the images in The Ruins of Detroit is the seeming urgency of the city’s abandonment. In civic buildings, papers and boxes still occupy offices. In abandoned libraries, books continue to line the walls. Schools still hold desks and police stations are stuffed with forgotten and moldering mug shots. Chairs are tipped over as though the former occupants of these buildings suddenly evacuated due to an emergency.

Given the slow but steady decline of the city’s population, this urgency is baffling. Surely there was more than enough time to clean the buildings out, remove anything that could be reused or salvaged and clean the buildings up. But it seems that no one cared to take the time to do so. Perhaps the reasons behind these rapid abandonments are lost to the ages. In some cases, however, the intact interiors can be transformed again when a new use is presented.

The photographers point out that this state of partial ruination is ephemeral – eventually it must give way to complete ruin or rebuilding. Their goal was to photograph the city’s current state of abandonment before fate tips one way or the other.

For the sake of everyone who has ever lived in or loved Detroit, there is and should hope that there is rebirth in the city’s future. The once-great city is still capable of captivating us with its strength and resilience if we only care to watch it bounce back. Already, new industries and urban plans have freer reign than in almost any other major city – projects shoot from start to finish with amazing speed.

Ordinarily we hear of artists trying to make art more accessible to the public, but this is one time an artist has purposely placed his work in an out-of-the-way place. After diving to view the world’s second largest artificial reef in 2010, artist Andreas Franke decided to turn the artificial reef – a sunken ship – into an underwater art gallery.

all images via: Staudinger-Franke

Franke is a photographer who favors surreal scenes and dreamlike worlds. He was impressed by the otherworldly quality of the underwater ship, the Vandenberg. After diving to see it, he began to form a plan for a one-of-a-kind exhibit.

The artist took photos of the landscape inside the Vandenberg, documenting the day-to-day scenes aboard the 523-foot-long ship. He then added people to these scenes, bringing a new form of life to the underwater stage.

“Life Below the Surface” inserts humans into the underwater scenes you would expect to see in a sunken ship. Seemingly perfectly comfortable in their watery environment, the people in Franke’s photos go about their daily business just as the rest of us do on dry land.

The photos featured in the exhibition show scenes from a time long ago. Children play, a housewife hangs laundry out to dry and the other characters enjoy their daily activities, none of them the least bit alarmed that they are surrounded by water, fish and the rusting hulk of an old military ship.

The Vandenberg military ship is located 100 feet below the surface in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, about seven miles south of Key West. The Andreas Franke “Life Below the Surface” exhibit features 12 photographs encased in watertight Plexiglass and attached to the side of the Vandenberg with strong magnets, ensuring that there will be no damage when the pictures are removed.

Divers who want to visit the exhibition are able to charter boats from Key West to take them to the Vandenberg site. The peaceful scenes depicted in the exhibition are made even more surreal by the environment in which they sit.

What happens to buildings when the people in them simply disappear and leave everything behind? Do the fixtures and fittings rot away or do they stand silent sentinel over the now-abandoned spaces? This question fascinated Dan Haga and inspired him to step into the forgotten places devoid of all other life. An urban explorer since childhood, Haga began photographing and sharing his adventures as an adult – and in his new book, he brings the compelling pictures and stories of these places into our homes.

Dan Haga is the man behind Urban Atrophy, a site that has been documenting superb examples of urban decay for years. We’ve been fans of the site since its beginning, so we were excited to receive a copy of Dan’s new book, also entitled Urban Atrophy. The coffee table book is full of rich images and amazing stories that delve into the history and the future of some of the most beautiful abandoned places of the American Mid-Atlantic region.

The book is separated by building type: Medicine, Industrial, Religious, Military, Education, Entertainment, Corrections and Miscellaneous. Within each section are full-color photos along with explanations of how and why the pictured buildings were abandoned. Haga’s in-depth research into the buildings’ histories makes every page a compelling journey into a surreal world where people have vanished and left behind only subtle traces of their existence.

According to the author (who has worked in the civil engineering and architectural fields), there aren’t many places you can’t get to if you simply look like you belong there. That concept has gotten him into many places that most people never get to see. That doesn’t mean that Dan isn’t willing to put some work into seeing the most incredible abandonments, though. In order to access the heavily-guarded and tightly-restricted St. Elizabeth’s in Washington, DC, Haga spent two years gaining the right permissions. The end result is absolutely worth the work; his photos of these long-deserted buildings feel like the skeletal remains of a forgotten civilization.

As with most abandoned places, the value in these photographs lies in what isn’t shown: the lives that were once lived within those walls, the joy and terror that took place in the various buildings, the long-dead people who once roamed the halls. The well-known places which have been visited and abused by countless urban explorers aren’t nearly as fascinating as those which have been locked up tight, their secrets hidden away from human eyes until Dan Haga and his camera carefully and gently came to document them.

(all images via: Urban Atrophy/Dan Haga)

The sturdy 184-page volume is composed entirely of high-quality heavyweight full-color pages. It’s a must-read for anyone who has ever wondered how buildings end up abandoned or what happens to them when humans turn off the lights and close the doors for the final time. Buy the book on Amazon and visit the incomparable Urban Atrophy for even more pictures of beautifully decaying buildings.

All across America, a familiar type of landscape can be found: empty buildings, decaying storefronts and deserted streets. They’re not ghost towns, but rather the remnants of a different time. Main streets which were once booming centers of commerce are now often populated with the imagined ghosts of a time when super-stores and corporate chains were still on the far horizon.

Michael Eastman documented these landscapes in his series “Vanishing America,” flawlessly capturing the faded colors and rough surfaces of these obsolete buildings and ignored spaces. His travels throughout America consumed more than three years and took the photographer through 40 states as he looked for more and more examples of compelling age-worn textures. WebUrbanist recently had the pleasure of talking with Michael about his richly layered project.

WebUrbanist: Your series “Vanishing America” features images of abandoned and/or decaying buildings and towns. How do you happen upon these subjects? Do you travel especially to capture them or are they surprises that you encounter upon unrelated travels?

Michael Eastman: I have always been drawn to urban surfaces since I began in 1972. I am mostly a colorist and I believe that abstractions with some narrative content are the most interest to me. The patina, color and surfaces are what I have always found fascinating.  I travel in search of things of interest for me to photograph. I try to have no expectations, no agenda and let the landscape unfold as I explore.

WebUrbanist: Is your goal with “Vanishing America” to perform a commentary on the state of the country, or do you see your role more as a documentarian?

Michael Eastman: I believe that photographs, regardless of their intent, eventually become of more interest as a record of history. What photographers record becomes more interesting to future viewers for what it says about the past than whatever the reason the photographer had intended when making a photograph from an artistic viewpoint.

WebUrbanist: What was the inspiration for this series?

Michael Eastman: Over the last several decades, I am continually struck by the discovering that buildings that I had once photographed now no longer exist. It became clear to me that the America that I grew up with was rapidly disappearing. I felt it was important to continue to photograph these places and I began to feel a sense of urgency that I did not feel before. Things were changing much faster than I had imagined. And the surfaces and facades that told stories were vanishing.

WebUrbanist: Will “Vanishing America” be a continuing series?

Michael Eastman: No, I am finished. I think I have said what I had to say with this series. There are other places that I feel are also disappearing and should be recorded. I have made several trips to Cuba over the last decade and I feel that someday soon things will change there dramatically. It needed to be recorded and the architecture, color and surfaces are so beautiful. And I am also planning a trip to the far east with the same intent.

WebUrbanist: Why do you feel it is important to share images decaying America?

Michael Eastman: It is our history. These everyday monuments are our ruins; they are our past. They represent who we are and where we came from and this past needs to be part of our future.

(all images used with permission from Michael Eastman)

From houses to old businesses to entire rows of storefronts, the subjects of Eastman’s photographs are carefully and lovingly explored. Color is a major factor in each of the shots, with the impeccable compositions being the next most noticeable element. The rich textures and vivid detail create a longing to be a part of the nostalgic scenes. There is something here to stir the emotions – and the memories – of anyone who grew up in America prior to the 1990s. These pictures are, indeed, the records of our past. They are relics of an America that we are not likely to ever see again.

See “Vanishing America” and Eastman’s other compelling photographic series at his website, Eastman Images. Special thanks to Michael Eastman for sharing his amazing body of work with us.

Antarctica – this huge, frozen continent is bitterly cold, inhospitable as Mars and as far from civilization as any place on the planet. Just getting there has been a struggle; staying there has been near impossible. These 10 amazing Antarctic abandonments, frozen in time as well as in place, bear mute testimony to mankind’s perseverance in mastering what is literally the last place on Earth.

Shackleton’s Hut, UK, Abandoned 1909

(images via: Fogonazos and Noah Strycker)

Sir Ernest Shackleton participated in a number of Antarctic exploration expeditions in the first two decades of the 20th century, including the 1907-09 Nimrod Expedition. Upon arriving at McMurdo Sound, Shackleton selected a landing site about 20 miles away from Hut Point, established by rival explorer Robert Falcon Scott during the 1901-04 Discovery Expedition.

(images via: Icecubicle and Antarctica2000)

Though Shackleton pushed to within 97 miles of the South Pole, setting a record, he and his party were forced to turn back. When the expedition departed Antarctica in March of 1909, he left the fully stocked, pre-fab hut behind – where it still stands, not much the worse for wear, to this day.

Take a video tour of Shackleton’s hut at Cape Royds, Antarctica:

(images via: Luxury Insider and Whisky News)

In 2006, a team from the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust paid a working visit to Shackleton’s hut and made an exciting discovery: several cases of Australian brandy and Scotch whisky! The scotch, “Chas Mackinlay & Co’s ‘Rare and Old’ Whisky”, is a true treasure as the original recipe was lost.

Scott’s Hut, UK, Abandoned 1913

The heroic yet ultimately doomed Terra Nova Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott in 1911 was based at Hut Point, the original base set up by Scott when he first arrived in Antarctica. Though Scott and his 4 companions reached the South Pole on January 17th, 1912, to their great disappointment they found that Roald Amundsen of Norway had beat them by nearly a full month.

(images via: Nomadwarmachine, NHM and Cool Antarctica)

As history records, Scott and his team (Wilson, Oates, Bowers and Evans) did not survive the return from the Pole but their hut on Ross Island remains, preserved by frigid cold and low humidity.

Mawson Station, Australia, 1914

(image via: Rafsanchez)

The 1911-14 Australian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) led by Sir Douglas Mawson set a number of scientific goals plus one rather surprising one: making the first flight over Antarctic territory. Unfortunately Mawson’s flying plans were scuttled when the aircraft, Vickers Monoplane No.1, suffered damage to its wings in transit and was used, wingless, as an air tractor.

(images via: Alliance Travel Partners and Australian Government)

Mawson Station was abandoned in 1914 though Mawson returned for short visits in 1929 and 1931. Remains of the Vickers aircraft’s metal frame were discovered on January 2nd, 2010, by a team from the Mawson’s Huts Foundation. The original huts at Mawson’s base at Cape Denison can be seen above, nearly subsumed by decades of snow and ice.

Whaler’s Bay, Norway/Chile/UK, Abandoned 1931

(images via: David Zaks and Dark Roasted Blend)

Ring-shaped Deception Island off the Antarctic Peninsula offered whaling expeditions of the late 1800s a sheltered harbor and shores – Whaler’s Bay – where they could process their catches. The island is also the site of an active volcano which last erupted in 1970.

(image via: David Zaks)

Deception Island is strewn with rusted relics of uncounted whaling expeditions as well as several abandoned scientific bases sponsored by Norway, Chile and Great Britain.

New Swabia, Nazi Germany, 1938-39

(images via: Echoes Of Enoch, Gnostic Liberation Front and Greyfalcon)

One of the most mysterious episodes in Antarctic exploration involves Nazi Germany, who claimed and explored a large area of Antarctica in the late 1930s. The expeditions included Dornier flying boats that mapped and photographed extensive areas of “New Swabia”. The planes dropped a series of Nazi flag pennants and boundary poles over the territory, none of which have been recovered… yet.

(images via: CG-IMDB and Barista)

Certain parts of the former New Swabia (Neuschwabenland) are clear of ice due to geothermal heating, fueling speculation the Nazi’s set up a wartime base there supplied by U-boats. In 1946-47, the United States sent a 13-ship task force that included an aircraft carrier and numbered 4,700 men to New Swabia, ostensibly to practice arctic warfare techniques. Operation Highjump was (and still is) shrouded in secrecy (many official documents pertaining to it are still classified), leading to even more speculation as to what the Nazi’s were really up to in Antarctica, if anything.

Bust Of Lenin, Soviet Union, 1957/1967

(images via: NPI/NSF and Paul Landry)

Antarctica features not only the South Pole and the South Magnetic pole, but also the Pole of Inaccessibility: The point on the Antarctic continent that is the most distant from any coast. Not the sort of place you’d want to leave anyone important, even if it’s a statue – yet that’s just what the Soviet Union did.

(image via: Paul Landry)

A truncated pyramidal building topped with a bust of Lenin was built at the P of A in 1957 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Though the Soviet Union ended up, as Ronald Reagan famously predicted, “on the ash heap of history”, this monumental bust of Lenin continues to cool his non-existent heels in a much, much colder place.

Base W, UK, Abandoned 1959

(images via: Antarctic Fury)

British Survey Base W was established in 1956 at the head of an ice-free bay on Detaille Island. At least, it was thought to be ice-free – the original surveyors arrived during an unusually warm summer.

(images via: Antarctic Fury)

When the last provisioning ship of the season arrived in 1959, the base personnel were told they had just one hour to pack up their belongings and abandon the base. Just over a half century later, Base W remains pretty much the way it was left over a half century ago.

Dobrowolski Station, Poland, Abandoned 1959/1992

(image via: Luminous Landscape)

Located relatively close to where the New Swabia expedition landed in 1938, Dobrowolski Station was first set up by the Soviet Union in late 1956 and was transferred to the Polish government in 1959. The area around the base was described by Admiral Richard E. Byrd in 1947 as “one of the most remarkable regions on earth, an island suitable for life had been found in a universe of death”.

(image via: The Age)

Evidently the Poles did not share Byrd’s sentiment, as they abandoned Dobrowolski Station after only a few weeks. It was last occupied by Soviet scientists from nearly Oasis Station in the early 1990s.

Almirante Brown Station, Argentina, Abandoned 1984

(images via: Canuck01, Dark Roasted Blend and Waymarking)

Whomever named “Paradise Bay” in West Antarctica must have read about Eric the Red’s naming of Greenland. Argentina set up a research station at Paradise Bay and named it for Admiral Guillermo Brown, father of the Argentine Navy.

(image via: Waymarking)

The story goes, a researcher was so upset at the thought of being left at Almirante Brown Station over the long, dark Antarctic winter that he set some of the buildings on fire as the supply ship was preparing to leave. The base burned, the researcher left on the ship, and Argentina was too broke to do anything about it.

Leningradskaya Base, Soviet Union, Abandoned 1991

(images via: Cool Antarctica, Wikipedia and Kaibab Journal)

The Soviet research station “Leningradskaya”, located in Oates Land, was set up in 1971 and abandoned in 1991 in the wake of the fall of communism and the accompanying fiscal crisis that beset the country.

(image via: Cool Antarctica)

Today the remnants of the old station lie scattered around its remaining outbuildings – some of the metal surfaces barely display a hint of rust. Cleaning up the base is somewhat problematic… it sits at the edge of 100-ft high stone cliff looking out to the desolate Oates Coast of Antarctica.

(image via: Australian Antarctic Division)

It’s easy to be smug and chastise a century’s worth of explorers for not cleaning up the messes they made in one of Earth’s most pristine environments. Take a walk in their shoes, however, and you might gain some understanding of how harsh a place Antarctica really can be… at the cost of a few fingers and toes abandoned to howling, 200mph katabatic winds that never, ever stop.