The ruined Spanish-Gothic interior of the United Artists Theater in Detroit. The cinema was built in 1928 by C Howard Crane, and finally closed in 1974
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre’s extraordinary photographs documenting the dramatic decline of a major American city.
In downtown Detroit, the streets are lined with abandoned hotels and swimming pools, ruined movie houses and schools, all evidence of the motor city’s painful decline. The photographs of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre document what remains of a once-great city – and hint at the wider story of post-industrial America, writes Sean O’Hagan