When I was a child growing up in Philadelphia, I harbored a hope that one day the city would be finished. There would be no more scaffolding, no construction sites, no road work or other infrastructure projects. The finished city would be free of dilapidation and blight. As an adult, I recognize that the nature of cities is to be forever falling down and building up, deteriorating, and renewing. Contemporary Ruin future visions, a new exhibition at Drexel University’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, brilliantly put together by multi-disciplinary artist and first-time curator Nancy Agati, returned me to my childish vision. Urban life, although guaranteed to be characterized by a perpetual cycle of construction and demolition, still has the potential to be the most beautiful, inspiring, and sustainable way that people can live. The show is about the past, present, and future of Philadelphia in particular and cities in general. It features artwork of varied media that interpret urban existence using imagination, personal vision, creativity, and, in many cases, a great deal of research as well.

Depicting Transition

Some Philadelphia neighborhoods have been altered significantly in recent decades, often to the dismay of historic preservationists and architecture critics. Most directly affected by these changes are the long-time residents. Painter Sophie White documents rapid transition of her Fishtown/Kensington neighborhood in a series of plein-air gouache paintings that capture rowhouses slated for destruction, backhoes clearing lots, and Tyvek-clad structures in the ubiquitous, boxy style of new construction. Using an appealing palette, White captures moments in time between what was and what will be in her immediate surroundings. “By making paintings of places on the verge of becoming unrecognizable,” White explained, “I am able to spend time with and mourn the neighborhood as I once knew it, while anticipating what is to come.”

Sculptor Jennifer Johnson of Powelton Village also considers changes to her neighborhood’s landscape, but over a much longer time span and on a larger scale. On the Banks of Sandy Creek consists of three-dimensional maps depicting the area in which the Pearlstein Gallery sits during four time periods. The first map, made of smooth brown clay, shows the area in 1725 when it was undeveloped and home to Sandy Creek, a spring-fed stream that is now extinct. The 1925 map recreates the period when the area was known as the Black Bottom and was characterized by dense housing and small industrial sites. Only one row of homes remains in the 1975 map. By this time, the Black Bottom had been cleared through eminent domain to make room for institutional buildings including University City High School. The 2025 map indicates that the 1975 buildings are gone, replaced with large residential, research, and university-related structures. Having lived through this most recent transition, Johnson lamented, “Watching the transformation was shocking, and the invisibility of its past is unsettling.”

Ruins, Relics, and the Fall of the American Empire

Joseph E. B. Elliott’s haunting photographs of buildings in poignant decay depict past and present ruins in our midst. For example, his 2013 photo of Saint Bonaventure Roman Catholic Church on the 2800 block of North 9th Street shows rows of pews and vaulted ceilings looking directly out on an alley between rowhouses. The walls are no longer standing. This and many of the structures he has captured are now demolished. Some, however, like Richmond Generating Station on North Delaware Avenue, continue to deteriorate. Not surprisingly, as I contemplated the details of Elliot’s photo, I superimposed a restoration along the lines of The Battery within my mind’s eye.

Although most of Elliot’s subjects are ornate 19th or early 20th century structures, his photograph of an abandoned 1950s Penn Fruit supermarket on Frankford Avenue is particularly discomfiting. The empty shelves under broad, candy-colored arches reverberates with post-apocalyptic eeriness.

The theme of a coming collapse is also alluded to in Emily Erb’s gorgeous banners made of resist and dye on silk. In Crumbling Empire, figures from Egypt’s Great Temple of Ramesses II remind us that great civilizations decline, and the oil derricks in the background and a large white car in front imply that American reliance on fossil fuels may lead to our downfall. Don’t Tread on Me, an Ouroboros loop of guns and cars provides another illustration of what ails our nation. On a more optimistic note, her most recent work, Muscular System, shows a human body made of National Park Service maps, reflecting Erb’s belief that “by emulating nature’s forms and processes, we can create more sustainable systems.”

Canyon, by artist team Kelsey Skaroff and Dan Van Dyk, also presents nature as a superior alternative to capitalism. Skaroff, a painter and gardener, and Van Dyk, an artist and architect, have imagined a future world in which a mix of hearty plants has taken over a mega-warehouse that currently sits on a parcel of American Street in North Philadelphia. The property was previously populated by dozens of trinity rowhomes, all of which were gone by the 1990s. During several decades of abandonment, plants similar to the ones in the installation grew and attracted pollinators, crickets, and katydids. Van Dyk, who has been involved in designing industrial developments, states that “the environmental impact of these developments occurs on a grand and irreparable scale and is problematic and unsustainable.”

Contemplating the Time Ahead

A verdant place where plants have reclaimed the land is one “future vision” portrayed in Contemporary Ruin future vision. The final portion of the show, created by Drexel graduate students enrolled in William Mangold and Sarah Lippman’s Speculative Futures class, depicts a range of other ideas about the urban spaces of tomorrow. Gallery director Mark Stockton notes the that the themes of abundance versus scarcity and equality versus hierarchy evident in the students’ work emerges from their reading of Peter
Frase’s Four Futures: Life After Capitalism.

The collective student view is a grim one. However, their thoughtfulness, creativity, and technical skill left me feeling hopeful. If we humans, with our proclivities for demolition and profit-seeking, are the cause of the deteriorating climate, degraded public spaces, and uglification of the urban landscape, perhaps this generation of architects and designers will find the solutions.

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Contemporary Ruin future visions is now on view at the Pearlstein Gallery on the campus of Drexel University. Admission is free and open to the public. See the exhibition’s website for hours of operation and special event details: https://drexel.edu/pearlsteingallery/exhibitions-events/Exhibitions/

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