The dead city : urban ruins and the spectacle of decay / Paul Dobraszczyk.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dobraszczyk, Paul, author.

Series:

International library of visual culture ; 24.

International library of visual culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shrinking cities.

Physical Description:

xiv, 285 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : I.B. Tauris, 2017.

Summary:

"Cities are imagined not just as utopias, but also as ruins. In literature, film, art and popular culture, urban landscapes have been submerged by floods, razed by alien invaders, abandoned by fearful inhabitants and consumed in fire. The Dead City unearths meanings from such depictions of ruination and decay, looking at representations of both thriving cities and ones which are struggling, abandoned or simply in transition. It reveals that ruination presents a complex opportunity to envision new futures for a city, whether that is by rewriting its past or throwing off old assumptions and proposing radical change. Seen in a certain light, for example, urban ruin and decay are a challenge to capitalist narratives of unbounded progress. They can equally imply that power structures thought to be deeply ingrained are temporary, contingent and even fragile. Examining ruins in Chernobyl, Detroit, London, Manchester and Varosha, this book demonstrates that how we discuss and depict urban decline is intimately connected to the histories, economic forces, power structures and communities of a given city, as well as to conflicting visions for its future."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

I Histories

1 Post-apocalyptic Londons: imagining the death of a city 23

The empty city 27

The destroyed city 36

The submerged city 43

2 Remnants of disaster: ruins in post-industrial Manchester 53

Ruins below 57

Remaindered flows: the Irk culvert 58

Remaindered space: the Manchester and Salford Junction Canal 63

The ruins of industry 68

Demolition: Royd Mill 69

Dereliction and decay: Hartford Mill 73

Salvage: Royal Mills and Brunswick Mill 78

The ruins of work 81

The persistence of ruins 83

The politics of ruins 88

Conclusion 91

II Explorations

3 Fantasy and experience: ruin gazing in Varosha 95

Urbicide 97

The last witness 106

The world without us 111

The future of ruins 117

4 Disaster and memory: the ruins of Chernobyl and Pripyat 119

Into the zone 122

Sarcophagus/shelter: monument as ruin 124

Pripyat: ruins as monuments 133

Ruins as voids 145

III Futures

5 Urban futures, art and the imagination of Detroit 149

The imagination of Detroit 153

Dystopian imaginaries 155

Utopian imaginaries 157

Cutting/pasting 160

Covering 170

Melding 176

Mouldering 182

6 Suspended futures: urban ruins in reverse 189

Abandoned futures 192

Suspended futures 198

Incomplete futures 204

The future of ruins 211.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-275), filmography (pages 276-277) and index.

ISBN:

9781784537166

1784537160

OCLC:

993063924