The Poetry of Decay

21.02.23 г., 20:15 ч.
The Poetry of Decay - Failed Architecture
The Poetry of Decay

Mark Minkjan
From ruin porn and transient art to philosophical reflection: urban and architectural
decay provides stimuli for the mind and has been the creative inspiration for many
artists and writers.
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Urban and architectural decay appeals to the imagination. While some consider the
unfinished or collapsing parts of the city as ugly or disturbing, others feel they make an
area more interesting than the picture perfect urban fabric. The city’s scars are stimuli for
the mind. They raise questions, about memories and imaginations of a foregone past, and
of potential futures. They visualise the passage of time and the inevitability of collapse,
reminding us of our own transience. On a smaller level, dilapidation shows traces of faded
lives, moved communities and shrunken economies. The voids provide space for the
observer to interpret them as she or he likes, to fill them with imaginations and meanings.
Decay is a process rather than a fixed image and provokes thoughts and actions. It is not in
sync with progress, modernisation and determined narratives, which are characteristics of
modern Western society. Not surprisingly, decay is a main creative inspiration for artists
and writers.
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21.02.23 г., 20:15 ч. The Poetry of Decay - Failed Architecture
Joseph Gandy’s depiction of John Sloane’s Bank of England as a ruin, 1830.
Not a new thing

The fascination with these spaces is widespread and perennial. Decaying structures,
derelict places, abandoned lots and other urban imperfections have been the inspiration
for many artists and writers since long ago. This goes back to Piranesi’s depictions of
Rome and Hubert’s one of the Louvre’s Gallery as a ruin in the 18th century, was present
with Joseph Gandy who painted the Bank of England after its fictional destruction, in
John Ruskin’s writing about historic preservation and that of Sigmund Freud
in Civilization and its Discontents, and continues with Walter Benjamin using ruins as
allegory, and Rose Macaulay’s The Pleasure of Ruins. These are only a handful cases in
which decay influenced well-known writers and artists. The notion of decay also
influenced architects, the famous example being Hitler’s master builder Albert Speer, who
in his theory of Ruin Value stressed that a grand design should degenerate beautifully over
time. In fact, when designing Germania, he was already taking into account how it would
look as a ruin, as a monument of the past, resembling the greatness of the Roman empire.

21st century literature

But the obsession is not something of the past. In recent years, much literature about the
topic has been published, trying to explain why the ruin prompts such instinctive
responses in us that are filled with melancholia, nostalgia and imagination.
Examples are Christopher Woodward’s In Ruins, Brian Dillon’s Ruins, Julia Hell and

Andreas Schönle’s Ruins of Modernity, and many single articles, such as Reckoning with
Ruins which was written by Caitlin DeSilvey and Tim Edensor. In Explore Everything,
Bradley Garrett dives into the world of urban exploration (the accessing and trespassing of
ruins and structures to which entrance is forbidden) and explains that its attraction to a
large extent has to do with a fascination with dereliction. He writes that ‘Ruins may be
decaying, they are not dead, they are filled with possibilities for wondrous adventure,
inspiring visions, quiet moments, peripatetic playfulness, dystopic preparation and artistic
potential’. In general, the literature shows a gradually shifting attention from the classical
ruins to modern ruins. These are roughly the ruins that emanate from industrialisation
and urbanisation from the 19th century onward.
Imagination Station Detroit.

ANDREW MOORE
Photography
Also in the arts the preoccupation with urban voids has increased, not in the last place in
photography. Everyone at least knows someone who is active in urban exploration, secretly
entering abandoned structures, and capturing them in photo. Photographers have made it
to the reputable museums and galleries with series depicting abandonment, decay and
emptiness, showing the collapse of the futures of the past and the metaphoric resonances
of voids (and sometimes being accused of engaging in “ruin porn”). These photographers
include and Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre who became superstars with their work on
Detroit, Andrew Moore, who shot the decay of New York, Detroit and other
places, Simon Marsden who captured ruins as haunted sites, Steven Siegel showing New
York’s decay in the 1980sand Shaun O’Boyle who documented America’s 20th century

flip side.
New York in the 1980s.

STEVEN SIEGEL

Ballroom, American Hotel, Detroit.

YVES MARCHAND AND ROMAIN MEFFRE
Ruin art
Also in the arts, a growing interest in ruins and leftover space is manifest. The notion of
failed modernist utopia is not seldom a topic in contemporary works of art. Artists such
as Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry, and Cyprien Gaillard refer to decay, transience,
destruction and ruination in their work, not seldom referring to rationally designed cities
and buildings. German artist Tilmann Meyer-Faje investigates (and manipulates) the
transformation and eventual collapse of structures in his ceramic sculptures, mostly
modelled after prefabricated modernist architecture. He looks at the architectural object as
a process, which therefore also includes its inevitable decay.

Cyprien Gaillard’s “La grande allée du château de Oiron”. Gaillard dumped crushed rubble from a
demolished tower block on the main alley of a Renaissance Castle.
Cyprien Gaillard _ Pruitt Igoe Falls

Nooit voltooid - Tilmann Meyer-Faje
Voids
Italian-born architect Simone Pizzagalli has an interesting take on the notion of decay,
leftover space and voids. In his Archiprix-winning essay Space, Poetics and Voids, he
underlines the narrative importance of voids. In the essay, he draws the parallel between
language and space (via cinema), in order to show that the city can be interpreted as an
arrangement, a sequence, in which the void has an important place. In language, silence is
an meaningful component that carries culture, history and tradition. Pizzagalli writes that
in spoken language, “silence becomes a space more than a real void, a pause that is absence
of sound but enriched by a tension of meaning, in itself as silence, or in relation with what
was before and after”. In written language, voids between words, lines, paragraphs and
chapters, the reader can fill in his own meanings and realities. He quotes Italo Calvino
who writes in Invisible Cities that Kublai Khan likes to wander through the voids not
filled with words, “become lost, stop and enjoy the cool air, or run off”. He connects the
thoughts of Roland Barthes, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Albert Camus and others to support his
own. The essay has now been transformed into a beautiful publication, designed in sync
with the contents, visually showing narratives, rhythms and tensions in text, colour and
illustrations.

Building Cuts.
GORDON MATTA-CLARK

Isolated vestiges from the work “Office Baroque” (1977) as seen in one of the pictures above, taken
from a building in Antwerp that was demolished after Matta-Clark worked on it. On display
at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin.
MARK MINKJAN
Pizzagalli eventually ends up at space and the built environment, where voids are not a
lack, not nothing. They are important elements that help us interpret the space around us.
He has a particular interest in Gordon Matta-Clark, who did not just use the void as a
building block in his works of art, he created voids himself as an act of preservation. He
physically cut buildings that were about to be demolished. By creating the void, Matta-
Clark charged the structure with a certain tension, leaving an impression in the mind of
the observer and by doing so, preserving the building.

A somewhat similar act was done by the artist Seamus Nolan work at Dublin’s Hotel
Ballymun in 2007. In the month prior to the demolition of the Clarke Tower, one of the
last remaining high-rises in Ballymun, its 15th floor served as a hotel, offering nine hotel
rooms. Simultaneously, a programme of art, performances, debates and social events took
place. The project encouraged the visitors and spectators to reconsider the building,
making it leave an impression and go out with a bang instead of quietly disappearing.
In his essay, Simone Pizzagalli says: “void contains in itself all the potential of the space, all
the relation not written and experienced. [..] Void is the place of tension of something that
will be, a space in power, but also the only place where the recollection of reality, the
composition of the parts, fragments, of life can happen.”
These imperfect, incomplete, broken and illusionary fragments of the built environment
are important components of narration. They connect people, places, histories and
futures. They will surely remain the creative inspiration for many.

Header image: Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre
Friday 12 April 2013 /
MARK Mark Minkjan is an urban and architectural geographer. He is Editor-in-Chief at Failed

MINKJAN
Architecture and produces the Failed Architecture Podcast. He has written for
publications including VICE, The Guardian and The Architectural Review. In 2016, Mark
received a talent grant from the Dutch Creative Industries Fund to develop new forms of
architecture criticism. He received the Geert Bekaert Award for architecture criticism in
2017 and curated the 2019 exhibition “The Right to Build: Self-build Between Dreams
and Reality”. Mark currently teaches at Amsterdam's Academy of Architecture and
Gerrit Rietveld Academy.
add comment
Joanne
I am embarking on a project highlighting the blight to beauty
movement in my city. I found this post extremely insightful.
While the artist side of me loves the grunge aesthetic of the
ruins, breaking free of the oppressive nature of these gems is
a necessity to make my city a vital, livable community. Thanks
for this sharing this article.
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21.02.23 г., 20:15 ч.

The Poetry of Decay - Failed Architecture

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Joseph Gandy’s depiction of John Sloane’s Bank of England as a ruin, 1830.

Not a new thing

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21st century literature

Examples are Christopher Woodward’s In Ruins, Brian Dillon’s Ruins, Julia Hell and

Imagination Station Detroit.

York’s decay in the 1980sand Shaun O’Boyle who documented America’s 20th century

New York in the 1980s.

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Ballroom, American Hotel, Detroit.

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Cyprien Gaillard _ Pruitt Igoe Falls

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Nooit voltooid - Tilmann Meyer-Faje

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donate Subscribe to FA Quicknotes

donate Subscribe to FA Quicknotes

donate Subscribe to FA Quicknotes

Header image: Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Friday 12 April 2013 /

MARK Mark Minkjan is an urban and architectural geographer. He is Editor-in-Chief at Failed

Photo Essay: Amman’s Forgotten Cinemas

Nothing is Permanent: The Imaginative Power of Ruins

Filth: Capturing Concrete Ecologies

donate Subscribe to FA Quicknotes

donate Subscribe to FA Quicknotes

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