“Ziggurat, East” by Scott Hocking (Summer 2008) paired with Hervé Léger’s Nichola cropped jacket.

Abandoned sites are canvases for Detroit-based Scott Hocking. Vacant for 20 years, Fisher Body Plant 21 felt more like a cave than a former car factory with stalactites falling from the ceiling from years of leaks and neglect. Stripped clean by scrappers, the factory offered Hocking only one sculptural medium (beyond space): Millions of wooden floor blocks, rebuilt as a monument to buckled ambition.

“In Detroit, going into an abandoned auto factory is my walk in the woods,” Hocking has said. “It’s the closest I can get to the top of a mountain peak—the top of a building. This is where I get my sense of wildness—my satisfaction in nature.” Roads diverged.