DETROIT - A photographer and an architect's plan to freeze one of thousands of houses abandoned Detroit this winter, encasing in ice to attract the attention of seizures that have battered the region.
Draft Gregory Holm and Matthew Radun, called Ice House in Detroit, is the latest example of the remnants of population loss in Detroit and industrial decline serving both artistic inspiration and canvas.
"I was really fascinated by the whole mythology of Detroit and structures and what they represent," said Holm, who grew up on the east coast of the city and lived in the suburb of Hamtramck from 1997 until 'that he moved to New York four years ago.
Holm, 38, plans to photograph the transformation of the house to be sprayed with water and gradually covered with ice. In spring, teams of rescue What building materials can be reused and to demolish the house. The prize will be presented, probably for a community garden.
The Detroit area has a foreclosure rate that is among the highest in the country, and Radun said the city offers a unique setting for working artists.
"This is a project that could be done in the same way in New York and it is not necessarily the same direction," said Radun, a 32-year-old freelance architect in Brooklyn who is also a DJ. " Detroit was a place where we could do more as the installation of architecture. "
Holm and Radun working to raise $ 11,000 online to finance the project, mainly for costs associated with demolition, and hope to be soon out of the city where they will freeze a house.
Detroit, which fell from a population of 1.8 million in 1950 to half that time, has tens of thousands of vacant homes and buildings.
"It is the particular history of Detroit that makes it so resonant for this kind of work," said John Beardsley, an adjunct professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. "He was a go-go city in recent years have been identified as missing.
"This does not mean that Detroit can not come back, but there is a special poignancy to this story."
A deterioration of Detroit area became the art gallery outdoor Tyree Guyton, whose more than two-decade-old Heidelberg Project has attracted international attention. Guyton converted houses, streets and grounds with its colorful Polka-dot art and collections of stuffed animals, shoes and old appliances.
More recently, a group calling itself the object orange painted the shells of buildings collapsing Detroit bright orange to attract attention to the burning of the city and decadence.
Radun developed the idea of the Ice House during his studies in architecture at Rice University in Houston. Having spoken with Holm earlier this year they decided to collaborate. A book and a film on the project are also planned.
