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Catie Newell's Salvaged Landscape Reclaims an Arsoned Building in Detroit

By Lisa Smith - November 2, 2010

in Object Culture | Architecture

Another fantastic project from Detroit: Catie Newell's Salvaged Landscape takes wood reclamation one step further, transforming burnt lumber from an arsoned house into a new spatial volume and material landscape. Supported by Detroit nonprofit The Imagination Station, Newell has been working hard since September to bring the project through its first phase, which opened last Saturday at 2230 14th Street, one of two uninhabitable buildings the nonprofit has endeavored to clean up. Catie gives an energetic tour to Stephen McGee below:

Demolition of this severely damaged house was imminent, but instead of a traditional tear-down, Newell removed the charred wood timbers from the frame of the house and stacked them on their sides to form an outside wall that extends to become a moody passageway inside. The surface highlights the unburnt insides of the timber in its cross section, exhibiting the contrast between the char of the surface and the warmth underneath.

Top: The inside of the passageway. Bottom: The house before Newell started work.

The next phase of Newell's demolition will involve removing the rest of the house, leaving the Salvaged Landscape standing alone. Then, the construction will be flipped onto its flat side to create a different kind of place, a monument to the original building with an inhabitable, enclosed space created by the passageway currently in place.

An excerpt from Catie's description of the work:

Irreversible, transformed, and impaired - the material and spatial qualities of a house are dramatically altered with the introduction of fire. Severely damaged and unsafe, the house at 2230 14th Street necessitated a deconstruction. Framed by the setting and pace of demolition, Salvaged Landscape appropriates the charred wood from an arsoned house to create spatial adjustments which uncover the material qualities reliant on flame to exist. Amidst a purposeful tear-down, the project responds to the new textures, spaces, and light effects that resulted both from the fire and demolition. Using existing material from the house as the palette and existing spaces as form-work, Salvaged Landscape creates a new room in the life of the house keying into the opportunities present in its own timeline; constructed with the demolition of the house occurring around it. As a study of materials and light, the work explores the raw and scorched depths of the wood while simultaneously providing the work and the house with light punctures and the explorations of spaces intentionally left dark.

Read more about the project, Catie and The Imagination Station here.

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Ray

13 years ago

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I have so much respect for this whole project. It is very inspiring and makes me want to visit the artist community in Detroit. I am from Minneapolis.

I can see this stage and appreciate that it is FINE art. Thanks Catie Newell, for creating this outstandingly beautiful work!
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Greg

14 years ago

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Geez, Eric, way to be a downer. Somebody did something cool in Detroit. Enjoy it. NYC wasn't much different at one point in the 1970s.
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scott hawthorn

14 years ago

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i think this is really fantastic. creatively exceptional. this kind of stuff happening in Detroit makes me want to visit the city and explore the interesting stuff that is going on there. detroit = berlin 15 years ago?

its another example of someone creative executing a great idea that cost nothing more than someone time. and if money is needed to do more of this please go to kickstarter.com and post your project and i will help fund you as i am sure others will too.

neep it up.
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Jerry Paffendorf

14 years ago

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first, quick, when i left my comment above, there wasn't another comment showing up at the time, and that was supposed to be a heart symbol, but the comment system turned it into noise. :-)

eric, i echo what louise said. i work on the imagination station project and live down the street. long way to go still, but since the summer the whole campus space with the 2 houses has been transformed from a jungle of junk into something clean, visitable, and positive. it's a good thing, and next up is more progress on the neighboring house which will be greenly rehabbed into a community media center. i hope you can make it by to check it out some time, or follow progress on the interwebs. peace.
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AFS

14 years ago

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not to mention livable space is not exactly in demand in detroit, where you can walk down streets where every other house is abandoned (and not all have fallen victim to arson yet.) art has its place in communities too. this project draws interest to the area in the very least, and any attention neighborhoods like this in detroit get is a good thing.
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louise

14 years ago

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eric, more inside into the project: Newell is working with the demo phase. The Imagination Station crew is actually in the process of demo-ing this house that was hit by arson down to the stable and salvageable portions. The remainders will be transformed into an entry and enclosed gallery space. Where he project is now will remain a canvas for public art to be inserted in a rotating calendar schedule. It's actually a great contributor to the revival of this area. Newell was the invited artist/architect to contribute to this ambition during the demolition process; a necessary phase give the severe fire damage to the building. It is intelligent and beautiful.
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Jerry Paffendorf

14 years ago

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â¤
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eric

14 years ago

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Ugghh, its not even a livable space! This will not drive the revival of neighborhoods in Detroit. You might as well just let Tyre paint dots on the thing!..........
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