My Love for You Burns All the Time

my love for you burns
all the time
Soloway Gallery
Williamsburg, New York
August 2012

my love for you burns
all the time
premise: The Packard Plant is coming undone. It’s been coming undone – sometimes
feverishly, sometimes with glacial resolve – for half a century, and its ruination is
revelatory. Like the accelerated desiccation of an ill-fated caribou in time lapse, it
states the inevitable: Time is remorseless. But unlike the naturalized allegory of
decomposition, the Packard is dissolving according to its own strange logics – or
contingent mishaps – that render the behemoth paradigmatically contemporary. In
its primitive claims toward utopian productivity coupled with its utter industrial
uselessness, the Packard has emerged as one of the most compelling markers of our
time. A monument to itself, reveling in its own iconography, the Packard fabricates
desire and spurs the scenographic transcription of its dereliction 1 . Some think that’s
naughty.
piranesian bling: My Love For You Burns All The Time transforms the Packard Plant,
Detroit’s notorious post-industrial behemoth, into a series of silver-plated fragments
of a monument in miniature. Measured, documented, reconstructed instances suspend
the ever-shifting site into a series of precisely scaled replicas of ruination. Some focus
on the buildings’ acclaimed iconography: the water tower 2 , the Grand Boulevard
bridge 3 . Others preserve unexceptional examples of architectural obsolescence: a
reinforced column 4 , a typical façade 5 , an elevator shaft 6 . Suspension here is a devise in
the production of fetish-worthy fantasy, allowing an interminable return to an image
of degradation that no longer exists in the material world. The copy, consequently, is
rendered more auratic, more titillating.
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ruine en mouvement: Like a vegetal landscape, the Packard Plant is in motion. Human
mediation, both authorized and illicit, has led to a rapid and spectacular transformation
of the industrial complex. Its current state, an untethered terrain, resists all
architectural and urban conventions. The property title, along with accountability, has
been lost and contested 7 . The alleged owner vows imminent demolition 8 . Scrappers
have sacked the buildings indiscriminately, allowing portions of the concrete structure
to teeter tenuously on exposed steel rods 9 . This metal harvest, performed by hand and
using portable cutting tools, has ignited innumerable fires. The blazes, varied in scale
and intensity, burn all the time 10 .
1) 3.5 millions square feet, 74 buildings,
and 52.5 acres of industrial detritus,
the Packard Plant has been featured in
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre’s
The Ruins Of Detroit, Andrew Moore’s
Detroit Disassembled, Julia Reyes
Taubman’s Detroit: 138 Square Miles,
Dan Austin’s Lost Detroit: Stories Behind
The Motor City’s Majestic Ruins, The
New York Times, Time Magazine, Vice
Magazine, The Detroit Lives Miniseries,
and countless other books, magazines,
online forums, blogs, documentaries etc.
There are websites devoted solely to the
Packard plant’s fire status – is it or isn’t
it burning? One of its haunting collapsed
roofs hosted Scott Hocking’s Garden of
the Gods installation, and the site is never
missing a camera crew for long.
2) The water tower invokes the
quintessence of the post-industrial
monument. Rumors of the tower’s
fabled disappearance implicated alleged
current owner Cristini in a covert sale
for scrap and sparked blogosphere
speculation. Adamant denials and
subsequent visits to the site found the
water tower in tact and onsite, dispelling
rumors but highlighting the delicate
and possessive attitudes Packard Plant
fans have toward this particular ruined
fragment. Untitled # 14
3) The Grand Boulevard Bridge was
built in 1939 as part of the transition
to modern assembly line production,
joining the north and south halves of the
plant. Throughout the Packard’s history,

this bridge has served as the implicit
marker. In the Packard’s glory days as the
luxury automobile manufacturing plant,
it wore the company’s name across its
façade. Later the bridge was informally
branded Motor City Industrial Park, with
remnants of this signage visible today.
Untitled # 22
4) The first industrial complex in the
world to use reinforced concrete, the
Packard’s floors were designed to support
100 pounds per square foot. Because of
this immense reinforcing, much of the
original structure still stands today, even
after years of abandonment, fires, and
feverish scrapping. Where the structure
has failed, exposed skeletal steel bars
hold fractured concrete shards in mid-air.
And smashed fallen columns bloom steel
reinforcement. Untitled # 43, Untitled #
97, Untitled # 31
5) Façades across the Packard complex
no longer shelter building interiors.
Some stand entirely divorced of their
associated structures. Recently a section
of Packard wall tagged by the artist
Banksy gained notoriety when a nonprofit
gallery detached and transported
the graffiti image, valued at over a
quarter million dollars, to their space
in Detroit. The ensuing legal action
inspired by one purported property
owner laid claim to the work, and by
unintended consequence, the back taxes
on land. A month later, motivated
by the contested graffiti’s value, this
purported owner removed another tagged
wall in hopes of arranging a museum
donation, thereby securing a large tax
deduction. Authentication and appraisal
unfortunately proved too difficult.
Although the Albert Kahn original
buildings were made of reinforced
concrete, two and three story steel
buildings were built into the courtyards
when space became an issue. While
these structures were the first to be
scrapped for steel, their imprints remain
permanently cast in the facades of their
adjoining buildings. Untitled #73, Untitled
# 17
6) While ramps still provide access to
cars and bicycles in the former garage,
and stairs allow pedestrians to climb up
into the bowls of this once productive
automotive plant, the elevator shafts
simply exist now as functionless
voids, vestiges of a bygone use. Their
utter uselessness heightens their
monumentality as markers, now piercing
through massive concrete floor plates.
Untitled # 15
7) Dominic Cristini claims BioResource
Inc. is the sole owner of the facility, and
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has spent years in court battling the city
of Detroit. In the late 90s former Mayor
Dennis Archer took possession of it
and began demolition. However when
BioResource sued Detroit’s 555 Nonprofit
Studio and Gallery the documented
plaintiff was Romel Casab, who had long
been assumed to be tied to the property.
Casab still denies ownership, and it is
possible his name appeared on the lawsuit
in lieu of Crisitni’s while Cristini served
a drug related prison sentence in Florida.
8) Cristini estimates demolition costs
in the range of $3-6 million while the
City’s estimate is upwards of $20 million.
Cristini, who has unpaid back taxes
totaling over $1 million, has claimed that
scrap metal from the building will pay for
the majority of the construction costs.
Given that scrappers have spent the last
two decades ripping all exposed steel
from the reinforced concrete structures,
many doubt this claim. The City, whose
attempted demolition in the late 90’s
was met with a lawsuit from Crisitini,
has no intention of helping fund the
demolition this time. As of March 2012,
Cristini had told reporters a perimeter
fence would be constructed in a matter of
days, and demolition would begin within
90 days. As of July 2012 no demolition
permits have been pulled, and there is no
perimeter fence.
9) Scrapped metal sells for a maximum
of $0.10 per pound in the Detroit Metro
Area.
10) Sometimes caused by sparks from
scrappers welding tools, fires often break
out. Firefighters respond by securing the
perimeters, ensuring the nothing spreads
to neighboring buildings. However,
direct orders from the Fire Department
prevent any firefighters from entering
the buildings, purportedly due to their
structural instability, but many Detroit
locals suspect it has more to do with the
City wanting the buildings demolished
one way or another.

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credits
Anya Sirota
Jean Louis Farges
Lauren Bebry
Bruce Findlig
Allen Gillers
akoaki
Mark Cunniff, JC Gorham
Alex Belwkh, Galvanique
galvanoplasty
special thanks
Annette Wehrhahn, Soloway
Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning
Albert Kahn Archives, Bently Historical Library