I know I shouldn’t keep shoving the old buildings down your collective throat, but Karly’s out of town and I’m in charge (insert maniacal laugh here), so I shall therefore continue to post unabated on my unabashed love affair with history (but I promise to do something different for tomorrow, ok?). It probably all started with my childhood home, built in the early 1900s, which was undoubtedly uninhabitable when we moved in. I mean, peeling walls, wood burning stove, no a/c (IN TEXAS) — the craptacular works. My mom spent most of my tender years with me on one hip and a bucket of wallpaper paint on the other. I learned to climb a 14 foot ladder at 5. It was freaking awesome. Except that we lived across from the welfare clinic, because all the old houses in Texarkana are in the worst parts of town. Anyway, the only picture I have isn’t the greatest, but at least you’ll have an image to fix on:
1115 Main Street: where nothing is square and wild cats eat bologna out of your hands. The outside almost always existed in this ramshackle state, as if at any minute the entire house could revert to a heap of sticks and concrete, but the inside was like a passport to crazytown. My Mom covered EVERYTHING (even the entryway tiles) in florals and damasks. Although not my taste, it was pretty freaking genius.
So when I became interested in photography, I was probably predetermined to gravitate towards pictures of dilapidated interiors. Robert Polidori, photographer of the aftermath of Katrina and Chernobyl, as well as documenter of the restoration of Versailles, in glorious, large format film, is a particular hero:
(Photos courtesy of the artist and found at Bomb Magazine, Art Info, Polis, and Metvier Gallery)
The camera loves texture. It loves the peeling bits of old paper, the elegant curve of a water stain, the shadows cast by a million pebbles, and so it loves age and ruin and decay. And I love these pictures I recently found by a photographer in Spain on a blog called Abandonalia:
As well as these lovely images from a photographer who runs The Kohrman Report:
What I am getting at here, in a very roundabout kind of way, is that I have a fantasy about living in a place like this. A place where I would just sweep the dust off the rickety floors and put a coat of varnish over the peeling walls (and the map is staying, fo shizz). It is a ridiculously romantic notion to think you can preserve layers of history like a fly in amber, and I know that the rats and water leaks and hobos squatting in the hallway are all scary, dirty things (not to mention whatever is hiding out in that dank fireplace), but I really can’t help myself. I shall call my new style Derelicte, but I’ll be needing some new furniture. And I bet you’ve already seen these pictures because they’re everywhere, but this is what it’s all about in crazy Erin’s wildest dreams:
I love everything about it: the patina of age and dinginess, yes — the shocking contrast of the furniture, the lack of fuss in accessorizing, even the purple bedroom, although purple is my least favorite color. Sabrina Bignami, architect and owner of Casa Orlandi, you are today’s recipient of my super stalker girl crush, so don’t be surprised if I show up at your door (as soon as I can figure out where it is). I promise to do my own laundry and sweep the crumbs off the table.
Related posts:
My daughter has an obsession with dilapidated, crumbling old buildings and has started documenting them. So do I. I went to an old garden in our neighborhood yesterday and took some pix. The garden is beautiful and restored but the building is empty and falling apart. I have a dream to save it. I am going to post on it at some point.
Meanwhile, have you seen this project by students at RISD called “Urban Curators?” I can’t remember the blog I found it on yesterday but it’s an awesome, sort of pick-up project meaning that I believe you can contribute to it. Here’s the address: http://www.peachie.nu/urbancurators/
Hello Gorgeous, that is an awesome link! I love the idea of using a gold frame to “frame” certain aspects of decay.
And I do hope you manage to save that building someday. It makes me happy to think about recycling great, old things instead of thoughtlessly building new, ugly things (not that all new things are bad, but the world could certainly use less stuff).
If your theory that growing up in a turn of the century crumbly Texas home drew you to dilapidated building holds true, then that explains a lot about myself. No AC until I graduated from high school (thanks mom and dad!!).
Your building choices are amazing (esp. the map room!), but might I also draw your attention to the buildings of ancient Pompeii? Here, take a look http://www.utexas.edu/courses/italianarch/jpgs/9908020060.jpg. Seriously, aside from the obvious (and by obvious I mean both the occasional ancient soot covered dead body posed tragically around the place and the over-representation of phallic imagery) I think the remaining buildings have a lot of potential. And I’m not even remotely joking.
Jesse, that is one gorgeous building! Shall I put my dining table there, or is that my future bathtub?
Isn’t it amazing that those buildings were so beautifully designed that they could still be used today? More than we can say about a lot of current home designs.
And I thought MY mom was bad! No a/c at all?! Aren’t you from the Austin area? It’s SLIGHTLY warm here in the summer.
OH I badly want to live here! Eek!
I love disheveled old places – they have such stories and character – great post!
Hey Erin, I know Karly is out of town and I don’t have your email for some odd reason…I am doing an interview on Abe Lincoln what corporate offices have Abe wallpaper in their lobby? Karly told me about it and I can’t remember!
I’m afraid you have located my achilles heel… my knowledge of Abraham Lincoln wallpaper is very patchy (at best).
Thanks for pointing out how much Design Crisis is suffering without Karly
Oh, Miss Fabulous Erin, you have touched on a subject very near and dear to my heart – decadent and romantic interior decay. I love New Orleans for that very reason and can recommend a series of books with photography so rich and textural you can almost smell the rot:
http://www.amazon.com/New-Orleans-Randolph-Delehanty/dp/0811841316/ref=sr_1_38?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225132720&sr=8-38
http://www.amazon.com/French-Quarter-New-Orleans/dp/1578065240/ref=sr_1_43?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225132720&sr=8-43
http://www.amazon.com/Gardens-New-Orleans-Exquisite-Excess/dp/B0011MSV20/ref=pd_sim_b_1
Will someone please tell me how to make a link in comments? I’m begging you!
Raina, those books look AMAZING. I love/loved New Orleans so much… I haven’t been back since Katrina and even thinking about it makes me so sad.
The architecture! The food! The music!
The architecture.
That kitchen with the chandelier and the patterned tile knocks me out. It’s pretty close to perfect.
I like the derelicte look – I think much of the built part of our world tends to be stripped, buffed and shined, and devoid of any organic charm. It’s the triumph of tan vinyl siding – blech – and the tyranny of bland taste. Spaces like this are the antidote. They breathe history.
Fortunately for me, I live in a failed rust-belt town, so I have ready access to beautiful decay.
Stephanie, I miss living in my hometown (although it wasn’t even a fraction as cool as Cleveland) for the same reason. It had wealth of burned out, derelict buildings that were among my favorite places in the world to photograph.
Say no to tan vinyl siding!
how about living in a house like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marimaya/1719724654/in/set-72157602652624016/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marimaya/1845618446/in/set-72157602652624016/
Muy gorgeoumoso. Or however you say that in Spanish!
Have fun in Argentina, you lucky girl.
gorgeoumoso
i don’t even know what you were trying to say in INGLISH.
Gorgeous!!! (in “Inglish”)
gorgeoumoso is my new favourite word
Sweet! At least someone sees how adeptly I can butcher the beautiful Spanish language.