There's this shopping center that I used to go to as a kid. I remember my parents taking me to the game center on the uppermost floor. I remember getting a copy of Blur's The Great Escape from a record store there. As the city's center of commerce moved away from that particular location, it was attracting less and less visitors until finally, around 2000, it was closed down for good. Now, all that's left is a dilapidated building, an empty shell.
A sight like this always pains me immensely. And my hometown has lots of it. Once grand houses now encroached by weeds, old cinemas with collapsed roof and weathered facade, gloomy shops with nearly-empty display. Whenever I see them, I wonder. What kind of people spent their time there, how they lived their lives.
As I understand it, buildings are more than just bricks and mortar. They are made of people's hopes and dreams. It doesn't matter what you think about today's developers and their tasteless strip malls and uniformed houses, but there's a reason why property always sells. It gives a sense--or an illusion, rather--of permanence, in an ever-changing world.
Maybe that's why a state of abandon bothers me so much. Because I know in some not-very-unconscious level, those buildings are testaments of forgotten dreams, a reminder of our own fleeting existence. And that one day, everything that we've built with hard work will crumble. And that we, too, will vanish without a trace.
Notes: The title is ripped off shamelessly from a Style Council song. No copyright infringement intended.
