Photographed ruins of abandoned Detroit

As most of us know, Detroit recently filed for bankruptcy. While it is one thing to read about this story in the media, it’s something else to see the effects of the city’s fiscal decline as reflected in the form of modern-day ruins made out of what were once bustling manufacturing facilities.

A melted clock dons the wall in Detroit’s Cass Technical High School.

The images in the following collection were captured by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre for a series they created called “The Ruins of Detroit.” Published two years ago, the duo’s striking photographs have earned a new sense of purpose with the city now becoming the largest ever to file for bankruptcy.

Fisher Body 21 plant.

What’s particularly striking about the images is how quickly the city has fallen into such financial despair; after all, it wasn’t too long ago that Detroit was considered an epicenter for modern-day technology and engineering, and all of these buildings were filled with people and purpose.

“Detroit is a very symbolic place in modern history,” Marchand said in an interview with weather.com. “In Europe, the ruins were mostly anecdotal, they were the very last pieces of a changing and gentrifying landscape . . . Detroit's ruins seemed a bit like a natural component of the cityscape. You could find all the archetypal buildings of an American city in a state of abandonment, like an American Pompeii. We knew we would probably never have the opportunity to photograph such a powerful place anywhere else.”

Packard Motors plant, interior.