abandoned-interiors: The Packard Plant is a former automobile manufacturing factory in Detroit, Michigan where the luxury Packard cars were made by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan. The company was later bought and became The Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana.
The factory is 3,500,000 square feet and the land covers 40 acres just off of East Grand Boulevard and was designed by Albert Kahn and was opened in 1903. At the time it was considered the most modern automobile manufacturing facility in the world and was also the first use of reinforced concrete for industrial construction.
The factory closed in 1958 but much of the structure was in good condition until the last few years have really showed the age. Now the main traffic of the Packard are urban explorers like me, scavengers, graffiti artists, paintballers, and even a dumping spot for stolen vehicles.
I do not always name my pictures but this shot I always called "solitude" and to me it really was a blend of how I felt and how quiet the Packard Plant used to be. I shot this before the Packard was scrapped and really destroyed, before urban exploring was immensely popular and the thing to do. I am not saying i've been doing this longer than you vibe...it's just what it is. The Packard Plant at this time was physically in good condition and it was actually difficult to get into and going from floor to floor took a lot of walking as most of the doors were sealed shut.
During the winter months in Michigan the skies are not always this bold and beautiful and it took six days of waiting for this to happen. Six days in a row I walked in and waited and never passed another person, heard another person, or saw evidence that another person had been inside the building. When I saw these blue skies I knew I would finally have what I wanted and as I sat the tri-down it was so difficult to contain my excitement as I knew I was about to create an amazing picture. I set up my shot clicked some frames and walked out not really knowing this was really the end of the good days for the Packard.
A few months later more holes were staring to appear on the exterior of the building and as traffic increased the condition of the building started to decline. I was now meeting more people inside the buildings and one day as I came around the corner I saw that the chair had been shattered into many pieces and the walls had been busted into rubble. The water was now moss filled and murky and everything that made this picture beautiful was now gone.
Solitude is from my post industrial abandoned architectural interior set.
