by Michael R. Allen

"It is obviously because history, which must be liberated in the cities, has not yet been liberated, that the forces of historical absence begin to compose their own exclusive landscape."
- Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle

Ecology of Absence is not a history of abandonment in Saint Louis. This site is not an architectural survey of abandoned buildings in Saint Louis. This site certainly is not a tour guide.

So what is this site? This site -- and its accompanying book project -- aims to offer one way of documenting the cultural geography of abandonment of the Saint Louis area. As such, it is as much a collection of field notes as it is a theoretical document. After laying out propositions that establish useful and necessary modes of exploring abandonment in the area, I offer a series of sketches about particular abandoned sites in the area. The reader can expect a mix of historical research, personal narratives -- though not "plot" -- of exploration, theoretical reflections on the built environment and urban ecology, and attempts to connect abandoned places with current cultural problems. One might find the amount of personal narrative excessive, but one should think of Ecology of Absence as something other than a scholarly work. This is a document of exploration, and all exploration entails specific people and specific places. Exploration is an event or a series of events. If I were to neglect the events that led to my discovery of sites, I would only present the most basic part of the narrative of abandonment in Saint Louis today, neglecting the parts where that narrative interacts with ecology and thus becomes something other than an historical phenomenon.

Abandonment is inherently ecological. It is a leaving behind of the built environment, and thus turns social spaces over to all those natural forces that are controlled while a space is being used regularly. Human presence is as much an ecological force as is the weather, and often leaves as indelible a mark on a place. Unauthorized social use of a place is a return of a place to the function of habitat, open to all who can make it a home (even if not to actually sleep there). Even if a place does not become a habitat for people, it becomes a habitat for something living: birds, squirrels, mimosa trees, rats, pigeons and crabgrass. The growth of the new creatures living in a place becomes a new part of the story of the building. There is an underlying narrative impulse to the historical event of abandoning a place: it is an invitation to revision of a place. In the chapters of this book, the reader will see that abandonment makes possible a new story for a place. In some ways, this new story begins the day a weed grows from a crack in the roof. The new story demands to be told in some way, normally through the exchanges of the few people who pay attention to a place after abandonment.

Each building’s new story is typically one of beautiful biological growth and odd cultural appropriation happening at the same time. Hence, I find the term “biocultural” useful to describe what changes are taking place at buildings around the St. Louis area; more than any other term, it implies changes both within and without human control. Although humans build and maintain buildings, and decide when to abandon them, most of a building’s life is outside human control. In many ways, with each new building, humans only provide nature with a new structure to reclaim. Abandonment only hastens that reclamation, and very often completes it. The Saint Louis bioregion is home to abandoned buildings that are both decaying slowly, like a certain school with its solid leak-free roof, and the Armour Packing plant, which surely qualifies as a ruin. One way humans prevent rapid decay is through choosing durable construction materials, like brick and slate; yet time and weather are never under control. Each building is never really controlled; rather, it is used. The difference between control and use is that control is total and use is a compromise. Ecology and architecture both evade control and invite compromise with nature.

Exploration of abandoned building is likewise a compromise with nature because it is a socially useful (and not controlling) activity. The explorer gains information and experience from a place, but does not have any ability to personally alter the biological processes that make up decay. Exploration works best with directed curiosity and a willingness to get dirty. Here I will suggest a plan for directing one’s curiosity in exploring abandoned places.

On the Exploration of Abandoned Buildings: Propositions

I. All exploration of abandoned buildings is an inquiry into the causes of a general vacancy in society. Such exploration aims to especially reveal the contradiction of modern urban life: progress is really decay.

II. Abandoned or vacant buildings offer in material that which one suspects to be true as an abstraction: an unresolved leaving-behind of places no longer useful for social mythology.

III. Society will always leave buildings and structures behind. Never forget what else it abandons -- namely, people.

IV. In an abandoned buildings, one finds traces of a previously meaningful social use that is now of only marginal social interest. These traces are found in broken objects. So broken, these things reveal a temporality that demystifies themselves and their previous social use. No one believes that a smashed computer monitor works. Nearly everyone believes that a new computer monitor works exactly as engineers designed it to work.

V. Abandoned things do not work toward any design. They do not work at all.

VI. By observing something that does not work, one can imagine the potential of un-working everything that is not abandoned and that does work.

VII. An abandoned building sometimes waits to be put back to work. Occasionally, such a building waits only for demolition to follow years of decay. The building that waits for its destruction is truly unworkable and worthy of repeated exploration; it reveals a social obsolescence that, while mainly arbitrary, other buildings do not exhibit to such great extent.

VIII. Even a building awaiting renovation is not likely to be restored to its original use. Society has worked against its function, which is now obsolete, and has consigned the building to a liminal phase worth exploring for curious people. The building in the liminal phase never again will be what it was or even what it is at the moment of exploration, even if it still stands. The building awaiting renovation now works toward a new design that it can't anticipate but an architect will impose upon it.

IX. Certain buildings, however, seem to resist working at all once abandoned. Intelligent owners will let them die peacefully.

X. Other buildings are extraordinarily beautiful and adaptable and we should adapt them to new uses, so that traces of their old uses remain to remind us of what society used to do with such buildings. Yet they should not work at anything for a period of 5-10 years so that they can completely cease working toward their original function.

Toward an Ethic of Exploration

I. Explorers carry with them an ethical obligation to demystify the spaces they inhabit. They need to be aware of the historical role they are playing, and the impact of their decisions on the social history particular to their city.

II. The merely curious person is not a suitable de-mythologist. Abandoned buildings require more than “just looking around.” They require knowledge of both history as a regional force in both city and bioregion. A de-mythologist works by some method that is historically informed.

III. The de-mythologist should work on two levels: that of the random exploration and that of the targeted visit. Random exploration is unavoidable, but is not a reliable way of establishing conditions suitable for revealing particular social contradictions. Modest examples of random exploration include finding an old high school while driving home from work, or walking past an abandoned house in one’s neighborhood and peeking inside. More elaborate exploration involves long, winding drives through an area, and the joyfully spontaneous decision to go “looking for more” when one notices an odd abandoned structure without even trying to find it.

IV. The targeted visit is a certain way to meet some trace of social abandonment, albeit not with a guarantee of adventure or original find. The targeted visit is precluded by an initial discovery, followed up with oral and documentary research, and likely combined with documentary attempts (photography, poetry, notes). These visits are needed if urban exploration is ever to become a method of demystifying our cities.

V. None of this denies the pure, desirable bliss of exploring an abandoned buildings. The sensual engagement does not usually detract from the historical purpose of the visit. In fact, one might speak of the exploration of abandoned buildings as “sensual history” in that it is the most direct experience possible for the de-mythologist. The explorer of abandoned buildings has no choice but to enter into a relationship with the sights, sounds, smells, taste and feel of a place. Facts are not simply abstract proposals during the exploration, but possibly thrilling sensations.

VI. People who visit buildings without any regard to studying their histories and social uses also play a historical role, although often as destroyers of the beauty of a place. Casual visitors, the homeless seeking shelter, the despositors of trash, the painters of graffiti -- all create a life for a place that might otherwise be completely abandoned. The presence of these people should be an absence; after all, these places are considered “abandoned.” Yet the presence of non-exploring visitors and occupants reveal the contradiction inherent in the term “abandoned.” “Abandoned” should mean not a part of society, but seems to really mean not part of legitimate society. Or, rather, the social use of an abandoned building so sidesteps myths of ownership and function that mainstream society won't recognize it as a myth at all. Recognition would lead to the rupture of the social myth of “use.”