Product Description

Michael Kenna crafts an eloquent eulogy for the industrial age in 50 photographs of the Ford Motor Company's Rouge River plant near Detroit. His dramatic sense of light and shadow gives these photos hallucinatory beauty; smoke and fumes curling from smokestacks are as evocative as fog shrouding the bridges of Paris or Prague. Kenna brings a romantic, even pastoral sensibility to architectural history, particularly to landmarks that are on the verge of redemption or extinction. Introduction and captions by Ford historian Lee R. Kollins explain the auto manufacturing process with engrossing precision.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3179958 in Books
• Published on: 1995-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover

Customer Reviews

The Center of a Modern World
I am a collector of photo books, and a former art writer, and this is one of my all-time favorite books. I'm here at Amazon to buy it as a gift (again). At the time it was built, the Ford Rouge Plant was the single most technologically advanced place on the face of the planet--essentialy the Microsoft of its day, when the Industrial Age was hitting full stride. Raw iron ore would come in on endless RR tracks on one end, and cars would pop out the other. In between, the world's most advanced industrialists were employing revolutionary manufacturing techniques. As a former Detroiter I can tell you that the Rouge is no longer the gleaming, chugging hub it once was--all the better for Kenna's grand eye. I hate to sound cliche, but he does for industrial landscapes what Mr. Adams did for Yosemite. His mostly nighttime shots are spooky, majestic stuff. And I applaud the publisher for tracking down a Ford historian to write a truly compelling preface which adds context and depth to one's understanding of the images. One last thing--Kenna's grew up in an industrial quadrant of England, and one of his primary galleries is located in a Detroit suburb, which is how he found out about The Rouge. It's a cool collusion of coincidence and personal history.

Impressive black and white industrial photography
"The Rouge" by Micheal Kenna is a wonderful compilation of photographs taken by Mr. Kenna at the Rouge Steel Plant in Detroit, Michigan. Kenna has a remarkable eye for composition and an outstanding mastery of light. Most of Kenna's photography is based on the abstraction of everyday objects; composing a picture so that the viewer can make his or her own inferences about the subject. This also has the effect of making Kenna's photography seem more personal. Also, Kenna's photographs of the Rouge Steel Plant make the plant seem as though it were alive; as if it were a self-sustaining organism: Kenna's photographs emphasize the activity of the plant, but they never show humans. The only thing I could have asked more from the book is more photos