Detroit : 138 Square Miles

Julia Reyes Taubman has taken more than 30,000 photographs across the sprawled terrain of Detroit, ambitiously mapping out a comprehensive survey of a major American city. Reyes Taubman believes that when buildings and landscape are manipulated by nature and time they become more visually compelling than almost any architectural intervention. Reyes Taubman is not pessimistic, however: “It is not a disgrace but a privilege and an obligation to listen to the stories only ruins can tell,” she writes in regard to this project. “They tell us a lot about who we were, what we once valued most, and perhaps where we may be going.”