Postindustrial DIY: Recovering American Rust Belt Icons

Postindustrial DIY is a book that chronicles grassroots efforts to recover, rebuild, and enjoy architecturally iconic but economically obsolete places in the American Rust Belt. It showcases the stories of do-it-yourself actors who are driven by passion and civic duty to transform these sites into collective preservation projects and democratic grounds for arts and culture, environmental engagement, regional celebrations, itinerant play, and in-the-moment constructions. The book demonstrates that great architecture is not just for the elites or the wealthy and offers looser, more playful, and often more publicly satisfying alternatives to development practices that have transformed iconic sites into expensive real estate or a clean slate for the next profitable endeavor.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 384 pages
Publication date: 13 February 2024
Publisher: Fordham University Press

Postindustrial DIY chronicles the grassroots efforts of individuals and communities in the American Rust Belt to recover, rebuild, and enjoy architecturally iconic but economically obsolete places. These once-noble sites, such as a Detroit automobile factory, an iron mill in Pittsburgh, a campus of concrete grain elevators in Buffalo, and two monumental train stations in Buffalo and Detroit, have fallen from their towering grace. Local elected leaders attempted to destroy what was left of these places, but citizens saw beauty and utility in these industrial ruins and felt compelled to act.

Postindustrial DIY is the culmination of more than a dozen years of on-the-ground investigation, ethnography, and historical analysis by author and urbanist Daniel Campo. The book immerses the reader in this postindustrial landscape, weaving the perspectives of dozens of DIY protagonists, architects, planners, and preservationists. These do-it-yourself actors are driven by passion and a sense of civic duty rather than profit or political expediency. They work without capital, expertise, and sometimes permission in a milieu dominated by powerful political and economic interests.

Despite their lack of resources, they have craftily remade these sites into collective preservation projects and democratic grounds for arts and culture, environmental engagement, regional celebrations, itinerant play, and in-the-moment constructions. Their projects are generating excitement about the prospect of Rust Belt life, even as they often remain invisible to the uninformed passerby and fall short of professional preservation or environmental reclamation standards.

Postindustrial DIY is rich with case studies that demonstrate that there is no such thing as a site that is “too far gone” to save or reuse. The book showcases the resilience and creativity of the people and communities in the Rust Belt, who are working tirelessly to revitalize these historic places and create a better future for themselves and their communities.

Dimension: 229 x 229 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781531504687