Yves Marchand Livres

“The state of ruin is essentially a temporary situation that happens at some point, the volatile result of a change of era and the fall of empires. Ruins are a fantastic land where one no longer knows whether reality slips into a dream or whether, on the contrary, dream makes a brutal return into the most violent of realities.” Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre Over the past generation Detroit has suffered economically worse than any other of the major American cities and its rampant urban decay is now glaringly apparent. Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre have documented this disintegration, showcasing structures that were formerly a source of civic pride, and which now stand as monuments to the city’s fall from grace. This is the third edition of this award-winning book. Born in 1981 and 1987 in the Parisian suburbs, Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre began to photograph separately in 2001. They began to work as a duo at the beginning of their project on the ruins of Detroit in 2005.

Between 2014 and 2016, Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre visited 400 of the more than 4,000 internal courtyards in Budapest. Their large number and variety of styles incorporating different facets of classicism and modernity make them a remarkable architectural phenomenon—a charming second city within the city. Marchand and Meffre systematically documented these courtyards, producing a typological series that describes this particular form of collective housing and reflects the city’s tumultuous history, its changing political regimes and economy. Budapest Courtyards allows us to delight in the crumbling grandeur of the courtyards, and observe the developments and personal strategies of adaptation which they evidence.

Hashima is a small island located off the extreme southwest coast of Japan, about ten miles from Nagasaki. Its dark warship-like silhouette earned it the nickname of Gunkanjima (“battleship island”). During the wave of industrialisation in the nineteenth century, a coal seam was discovered on the island and the Mitsubishi corporation opened a mine there. Workers settled on the island and the population increased, the small mining town quickly becoming a modern and autonomous settlement. During the 1950s, Gunkanjima became one of the most densely populated places in the world with over 5,000 inhabitants. But after an accident and the restructuring of the Mitsubishi mining project, the mine closed in January 1974. The last inhabitants deserted the island, the connection by boat was suspended, and since then Gunkanjima has become a ghost town. Marchand and Meffre photographed the island between 2008 and 2012. Born in 1981 and 1987 in the Parisian suburbs, Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre began to photograph separately in 2001. They began working together for their project on the urban decay of Detroit in 2005, which Steidl published to acclaim as The Ruins of Detroit in 2010.