Ruins in Post Industrial Appalachia

Left with the skeletal remains of an imperious and obsolete economic system, Appalachian river city towns must explore with methods of saving their past in order to define its emergent culture. But the Appalachian culture, represented here, chooses to preserve its past by embracing these ruins as a type of monument, which solidifies its collective memory and arouses contemplative nostalgia. Ruins are connections to the past, which can be adapted, reused, and reclaimed in the present in order to ground a culture struggling with identity and progress within an era of Post-Industrialization. I will establish the historic, emotional, and philosophical connections between ruins and the post-industrial Appalachian culture. First I will define ruins as well as defining their place as physical manifestations of this culture. Ironton, Ohio’s The Grand Army of the Republic’s Memorial Hall represents the effects of Appalachian population migration along the Ohio River. While, Ashland Kentucky demonstrates the new, emergent culture of contemporary Appalachia. These will stand in contrast to my last precedent in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, a city who is preemptively negating de-industrialization through revitalization projects, such as the Armstrong Cork Lofts