Photo Essay: Modern Ruins

Modern Ruins

A Topography of Profit

Photographs by Julia Schulz-Dornburg

Text by Rob Wilson
- Julia Schulz-Dornburg:
  Ruinas modernas. Una topografía de lucro
  
  Editorial Àmbit Servicios Editoriales, S.A. Barcelona, 2012
  ISBN 978-84-96645-14-1
  
  www.juliaschulzdornburg.com
- In Berlin until May 9, 2013:
  
  Modern Ruins - a Topography of Profit
  A photographic inventory by Julia Schulz-Dornburg
  
  Aedes Am Pfefferberg, Christinenstraße 18-19, 10119 Berlin 
  www.aedes-arc.de
  
  In Madrid until June 9, 2013:
  
  Spain Mon Amour - Ruinas Modernas
  
  Museo ICO, C/Zorrilla 3, 28014 Madrid
  www.fundacionico.es
These photographs form part of a research project undertaken by Julia Schulz-Dornburg to document abandoned housing and leisure complexes around Spain, speculative developments that were abandoned after the property bubble burst in 2007-08. Schulz-Dornburg travelled 10,000 kilometers and documented over 60 examples during her research, supplementing her documentary photos with aerial shots, development plans and original promotional material, including florid quotes from the original developers' brochures (some of which we also include here).

The buildings pictured here are not the detritus of some apocalyptic natural event – like Pompeii after Vesuvius – but of human greed: destroyed by the very economic system that engendered them. The literal and metaphorical hollowness of these human endeavors perfectly echo the closing line of T.S. Elliot’s 1925 poem The Hollow Men: “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.”

Schulz-Dornburg’s research formed the basis for her book Ruinas modernas: Una topografía de lucro, and two current exhibitions on show at Museo ICO in Madrid and at Aedes in Berlin.

About the book
About the exhibitions
The remains of the completed infrastructure for a complex of luxury dwellings for over 500 residents, beside the River Tormes. Just two pilot houses were completed before all construction ceased in 2007. (Camino de las Viñas, Alba de Tormes, Salamanca, 2004-07)
Alba Marina Residential
Complex:

»Residential development with sailing club,
table-tennis courts and covered swimming pool.«

These are the remains of the completed infrastructure for a complex of luxury dwellings for over 500 residents, beside the River Tormes. Just two pilot houses were completed before all construction ceased in 2007. (Camino de las Viñas, Alba de Tormes, Salamanca, 2004-07)
The site of the stalled Alba Marina Residential Complex, 2004-2007, showing the extensive views overlooking the River Tormes to hills beyond.
A parade of forever half-built terraced housing snakes along the brow of a hill. (Pego, Alicanteas, 2001-2008)
Urbanization
Bella Rotja:

»A privileged place in which to
discover the very essence of this land.«
Skeletal buildings greet you at a crossroads.
Residential Cármenes
del Suspiro

»Enjoying success in a refined high-level ambiance.«
Residential Cármenes del Suspiro: ruins with a view. (Municipality of Dílar, Granada, ?-2009)
These unfinished shells of houses are the remains of a plan which envisaged a residential community of 326 dwellings next to golf courses, a hotel and spa, an ‘aparthotel’, a riding school, quad-bike circuit with additional facilities for hunting. (Villamayor de Calatrava, Ciudad Real, 1993-2009)
Calatrava Tourist and Leisure Complex
A road to nowbere. The Calatrava Tourist and Leisure Complex, Villamayor de Calatrava, Ciudad Real, 1993-2009.
A residential development of 140 units which was abandoned without having any surrounding infrastructural work. (Estepona, Málaga, 1998)
Dominion Heights Estate
A bit of gardening needed? Dominion Heights Estate, Estepona, Málaga, 1998.
Half-finished hillocks of the once-planned 3000 chalets, mimic the adjacent landscape and overlook a golf-course which is gradually returning to the desert. (Calle Pacífico, San Juan de Terreros, Pulpí, Almería, 1990-2010)
Golden Sun Beach & Golf Resort:

»Chalets with 2 and 3 bedrooms, situated in an attractive resort built on high ground that lets you enjoy some incomparable sea views.«
Golden Sun Beach & Golf Resort, Pulpí, Almería, 1990-2010
This development was planned to contain over 2,500 dwellings, which would have more than quintupled the population of the local municipality. After many of the units had already been sold off-plan, the developer went bankrupt, the planning agreement to urbanize this virgin land was declared null and void, and the land is gradually returning to its rural condition, be it now dotted with the concrete carcasses. (El Barril, Campos del Río, Murci, 2004-09)
Trampolin Hills Golf Resort

»In its eagerness to achieve the maximum comfort for its clients, homes have been built to create a little paradise for you and your family.«
The investor was dreaming of a “little paradise for you and your family”: Trampolin Hill, El Barril, Campos del Río, Murci, 2004-09