How to Travel Like an Architect in … Detroit

This year alone, Detroit has become the (contentious) focus of the US pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the first American city to be named a UNESCO City of Designas well as the host of this year’s IdeasCity conference with the New Museum. As if the Motor City did not already offer enough excuses to explore, these accolades beg another look at the city’s storied architecture and urban landscape.

Via Cool, etc.

Wake up at: Palmer House by Frank Lloyd Wright

The Palmer House in Ann Arbor (about an hour drive from Detroit) is one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s later residential commissions and has just recently begun to be rented to the public. Like an Eames house, for example, the residency offers an immersive experience. Wright designed all of its furniture, as well.

An example of his “organic” architecture, each room has views of its surrounding landscape — this greenery being the biggest indicator that you are still in Ann Arbor, not yet Detroit — and camouflaged cypress and brick make up the project’s materials. The house is livable but inventive. Notably, Wright designed the entire space without a single 90-degree angle.

Have breakfast at: The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit by Andrew Zago

Drive in to Detroit and visit the MOCAD: one example (of many) of a former auto dealership being put to new use. The MOCAD is described as being well-suited to showing multimedia and installation art thanks to its “raw, flexible and cavernous spaces.”

Its renovation by architect Andrew Zago — who was born and raised in Detroit — maintains this industrial history of the design and echoes Detroit’s contemporary urban landscape, rather than harking back to an Art Deco past or trying to match the Detroit Institute of Art or the Museum of African American History that it neighbors (both of which are also worth a visit). Café 78 opens out from the Museum into its parking lot (fittingly) and has become a culinary destination in and of itself.

Take a walk through: Belle Isle Park by Frederick Law Olmstead

A collaboration over time across designs from Frederick Law Olmstead — the landscape architect of New York’s Central Park — and architects such as Albert Kahn and Cass Gilbert, Michigan’s island park between Canada and the US is home to a myriad of institutions.

A conservatory, zoo, aquarium and memorial make up the built environment of the park and offer examples of early-1900s Detroit architecture. The state of Michigan took over ownership of the park when Detroit filed for bankruptcy in 2013, but it remains free to visit for pedestrians. This change in ownership makes the project an interesting example of what has been prioritized and reevaluated in the maintenance of Detroit’s urban landscape in the years since.

Via © Christian Unverzagt

Visit one of the “greats’” work at: Lafayette Park by Mies Van Der Rohe

Mies Van Der Rohe completed Detroit’s Lafayette Park immediately following the Seagram Building in Manhattan, and the Lafayette Park project is the much more expansive of the two. Essentially a campus, the complex is made up of three towers, a school, commercial units and 186 cooperatively owned townhouse apartments as well as a 13-acre park.

While its construction was predictably controversial – the project required the demolition of the existing Black Bottom neighborhood – it is now most often looked at as a success story of how to build community, and an example of residential housing that has been able to maintain steady occupancy more than the developments that surround it. The site was just recently selected as a National Historic Landmark.

Via the Detroit Collaborative Design Center

Explore a Detroit Future City completed project

Take the opportunity to see how spaces like Lafayette Park are inspiring contemporary urban development by visiting some of Detroit Future City’s completed projects; illustrating their mandate to inhabit and transform the city’s abandoned lots. Detroit’s abandoned spaces are well-documented, and DFC takes a neighborhood-focused, grassroots approach to filling them.

The network has an accessible “Field Guide to Working with Lots” designed to act as a guide for any resident to make an empty lot in their neighborhood part of a community. The mixed-use designation of Lafayette Park being one iteration that could come from following the guide.

One recently completed example to check out is Recovery Park, just adjacent to Eastern Market.

Via Sylvia Rector, Detroit Free Press

Have a bite to eat at: Mabel Gray by Ron and Roman Architects

Newly opened in Hazel Park — between downtown Detroit and the Royal Oak suburb — chef James Rigato’s Mabel Gray has ambitious menus in a laid-back environment.

Much like the MOCAD, architects Ron and Roman chose to leave some of the old space visible in their renovation. Eclectic decorations and locally sourced artwork, along with unfinished walls, lead to a generous space despite the narrow layout.

Catch a show at: The Majestic Theatre by Howard Crane

No visit to Detroit would be complete without live music, and — while it may not be Motown Records — The Majestic Theatre is a historic site. Designed by architect Howard Crane, the Majestic Theatre is an example of the Art Deco style that characterized so much of Detroit in the 1930s and is still in use.

The building closed for decades but reopened in 1984 and has been fully functioning ever since; and has maintained its Art Deco exterior and plush interior. The venue hosts Detroit’s most sought-after live music most nights as well as bowling and private events others.

Via Honor & Folly

End your day in a new neighborhood at: Honor & Folly Inn

Check in at another Airbnb listing, this time in Corktown at the Honor & Folly Inn. Decorated with locally made goods, the Inn is an example of Detroit’s legacy as a “design city” in a new, welcoming and inclusive incarnation.

IdeasCityDetroit’s public conference will take place at the Jam Handy, a former commercial film studio, April 30, 2016.