 
Mrjoshua
Member
Username: Mrjoshua
Post Number: 1529
Registered: 03-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 1:57 am: |    |
MASTERPIECE
The Biggest Mies Collection
His Lafayette Park
residential development
thrives in Detroit
By JULIA VITULLO-MARTIN
December 22, 2007
The Wall Street Journal
On the edge of downtown Detroit, just east of the Chrysler Freeway and not far from Detroit's still-troubled neighborhoods, lies Lafayette Park, one of the nation's most beautiful -- and most obscure -- residential developments. Composed of three sections -- a high-rise apartment building and 21 multiple-unit townhouses on the western border, 13 acres of landscaping down the center, and twin apartment towers on the east -- Lafayette Park holds the largest collection of buildings in the world designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Called "oft-overlooked" by the Harvard Design School and "a little-known jewel of modern urbanism" by Detlef Mertins, a professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, it should be renowned, both for its loveliness and for its ability to thrive through Detroit's dark times of riots, destruction and middle-class flight.
Lafayette Park is certainly one of Mies's finest and most surprising works. For while he incorporated many of his favorite themes -- exposed steel, glass curtains, small interior spaces -- the result is welcoming and serene rather than harsh.
"It's an amazing architectural oasis -- an intact, cohesive expanse of Miesian townhouses and towers in a magical setting, a sort of Modernist fantasy-land," says designer Joe Posch, a Lafayette Park resident and owner of Mezzanine, a high-end furniture store that sells the likes of Knoll, Moooi and Kosta.
For the first-time visitor, Lafayette Park has an almost Through-the-Looking-Glass quality. From the noisy, hardscrabble street one enters beneath a luxurious canopy of greenery into a mysteriously quiet scene of lush landscaping, walkways, roads, retaining walls, partially concealed houses, and towers rising out of the trees. It somehow feels like a lovely but futuristic New England town. Architect Bill Dickens, a resident since 1968, notes that the townhouses "are very much like colonial houses, divested of any fawning reminiscences." Mr. Posch says that a walk through Lafayette Park yields the same feeling as Boston's Back Bay or South End, a sense of community and closeness that comes from the buildings as well as the people.
Built in the late 1950s as one of the first urban renewal projects, Lafayette Park was the product of a brilliant team assembled by Chicago developer Herbert Greenwald, who had been chosen by Detroit's city government to demolish and build on the old neighborhood of Black Bottom. As the developer of 860-880 Lake Shore Drive, perhaps Mies's most famous towers, Greenwald had worked with Mies, whom he now brought to Detroit.
Mies in turn recruited planner Ludwig Hilberseimer and landscape architect Alfred Caldwell. Dozens of scholarly studies have been devoted to trying to sort out each man's singular contribution -- not easy in part because, while each oversaw other important projects, none ever did anything like this before or after.
Greenwald probably would have reassembled his team to work on future projects had he not died in a plane crash in 1959, before the Lafayette Park buildings were finished. Planner Alex Garvin, author of a popular planning textbook, believes Greenwald was the real genius, perhaps the only one who understood all the details. Wayne State Prof. Jerry Herron, a Lafayette Park resident, agrees, noting that without Greenwald's "single-minded dedication to urban redemption" the project would not exist.
The National Park Service, which listed Lafayette Park on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966, cites its classic elements of Miesian design: steel skeleton frames that make no attempt to hide the buildings' structure, aluminum and glass skins, and open interiors that create a feeling of spaciousness.
With three high-rise apartment buildings and 21 multiple-unit townhouses, Lafayette Park holds the largest grouping of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe buildings.
Yet Mies's "classic elements" would be severe without Caldwell's landscaping and Hilberseimer's site plan. Prof. Mertins asks: "Even if we limit the question of authorship to pure design, how are we to attribute the subtle yet enormously effective manipulation of the ground plane around the cul-de-sacs? Who decided what the right difference in grade would be between the parking lot and the pedestrian walkway along the edge of the housing? How far from the buildings the path should run to provide privacy for units with floor-to-ceiling glass walls?"
Charles Waldheim, editor of "Case: Hilberseimer/Mies van der Rohe -- Lafayette Park, Detroit," notes that the Colonnade Project in Newark had both Greenwald and Mies, who tried to carry out many of the same ideas. But without Caldwell and Hilberseimer, the results were entirely dissimilar. Just the meter-length spatial separation between the automobile level and the residential level made all the difference in Lafayette Park, where cars are so discretely concealed they seem ethereal.
With their aluminum-and-glass skins, and interiors that open to the outdoors, the townhouses themselves are reminiscent of the elegant buildings on the campus of Mies's Illinois Institute of Technology on the South Side of Chicago. But IIT has little lush landscaping, so the effect is austere and far from lovely.
Or take Lafayette Park's use of the much-reviled superblock. The plan deliberately broke from Detroit's century-old street grid as well as from the scale of its single-family pattern of development. Instead, Hilberseimer set up very long blocks of pedestrian walks separated from traffic. Almost no one still advocates superblocks, which planners (led by Jane Jacobs) came to regard as destructive of the urban fabric. But here they work as intended, self-contained and aloof from the clamor of the city.
One well might ask whether Lafayette Park, rather than Mies's more celebrated developments, is in fact what the Modernists really intended. Indeed, Mr. Garvin remembers once lamenting that the Modernists had never actually implemented their City of Tomorrow -- their ideal of dense but serene housing in a garden setting. Then he saw Lafayette Park and concluded that he had found the real thing -- a project that faithfully carried out Modernist principles of simplicity, light and air, while providing housing so desirable it survived even as whole sections of Detroit burned.
Of course human beings have modified Lafayette Park over the years, most notably in the landscaping, which reflects the current owners' preference for flowers over shrubs. While urban renewal had flattened almost everything on the site, Caldwell retained many magnificent specimen trees and planted saplings, which are now mature. Jane Duggan, a resident working with her neighbors to try to restore the original landscape, sighs in speaking of the "endless fights about whether Impatiens should be of one color or variegated, whether every tree should be ringed with flowers, and whether we should return to what Caldwell had in mind -- irregular-shaped beds."
But this attention to detail, which can seem obsessive, is probably crucial both to Lafayette Park's beauty and to its survival. It is regarded as a work of art to be treasured and tended by its residents. Ms. Duggan says her townhouse would now sell for about $135,000 -- truly a bargain in the world of great art.
Ms. Vitullo-Martin is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. |
Mwilbert
Member
Username: Mwilbert
Post Number: 38
Registered: 11-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 7:05 am: | |
I saw this on the Times website last night, and I all I could think was "How much would you have to pay for a write-up like that?"
Pretty nice. |
Detroitstar
Member
Username: Detroitstar
Post Number: 857
Registered: 01-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 10:44 am: | |
I moved to Detroit 2 years ago and immediately fell in love with the Lafayette Park neighborhood. It will be a loooong time before I leave. The buildings are history themselves, but what makes this place great in my mind is the people.
Any day, summer of winter I can go for a walk and count on having a conversation with someone new. There is something refreshing about being in the middle of the harsh city, but being surrounded with the comforts of greenery and warm hospitity. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 4205
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 10:55 am: | |
This is the most recent in an upswing of positive news coverage that really focuses on the city.
I can't be anything but ambivalent at best about LP, but it retains residents who might otherwise live elsewhere, and is clearly signficant in the history of modernism, so it's a big plus for the city. |
Mind_field
Member
Username: Mind_field
Post Number: 849
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 11:01 am: | |
What's with the torrent of positive press from New York media lately? You'd almost think they had an agenda praising Detroit so much. |
Gsgeorge
Member
Username: Gsgeorge
Post Number: 489
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 11:50 am: | |
Oh brother, you people thinking about these media "agendas". Maybe it's because Detroit is great and people are finally starting to recognize it, simple as that? |
Dbest
Member
Username: Dbest
Post Number: 55
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 12:04 pm: | |
Its nice to receive such an accolade from the WSJ but this neighborhood is well worth the time spent to write this piece. This is obviously more than just a puff piece about a part of the city and I give the writer kudos for doing her homework.
I do think its nice that theres been a steady stream of Detroit support coming from the NY media. This makes me wonder why Chicago media never has any real stories about the city and its different area's? |
Detroitrise
Member
Username: Detroitrise
Post Number: 1178
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 12:23 pm: | |
Maybe because they're still indirectly trying to compete with us being the 2 largest Midwestern Hubs (although Detroit isn't much competition to Chicago). NY is its own beast and they could care less about small potatoes like Detroit. |
Mdoyle
Member
Username: Mdoyle
Post Number: 289
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 12:30 pm: | |
It's been my experience with a few acquaintances from New York that New Yorkers seem to, for some reason, really enjoy and identify with Detroit. I was told that it couldn't be explain but basically they felt very comfortable in this city. Perhaps this is just another example of someone who has been to Detroit and really enjoyed it. |
Dbest
Member
Username: Dbest
Post Number: 56
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 12:37 pm: | |
Well you may be right considering the NAS situation kind of being in limbo surrounding the fate of Cobo.
Is it too much for Chicago to show there little brother (Detroit) some love after awaking from a coma about 15 years ago?
You would think it would be more advantageous for Chicago to have a thriving region in which people would want to come to the midwest as a whole destination not just Chicago, I think this would result in even more of a tourist base for them as well as Detroit.
(Message edited by Dbest on December 22, 2007)
(Message edited by Dbest on December 22, 2007) |
Gsgeorge
Member
Username: Gsgeorge
Post Number: 494
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 12:46 pm: | |
I think it may be because Detroit is both a kind of microcosm and a precedent for what has happened in New York and other big cities. Brooklyn, The Bronx, and Harlem looked a lot like parts of Detroit now. And the kind of architecture we have here exceeds even the best examples in New York. Mies' Lafayette Park is one such example, and the deco towers downtown along with the Fisher Building look better than most of New York's deco buildings (note: MOST of them, not all of them).
Anyway the point I'm getting to is that Detroit is kind of like a New York that once was and a New York that never was. With the recent trends towards gentrification of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Harlem, NYers are looking at Detroit as a kind of blank slate--with the great architecture and thriving culture already in place. It's a fascinating example of the postmodern, post-industrial experience, and NYers are smart enough to recognize this by looking at their own city in comparison to it.
I think Chicagoans, living in the hub of the midwest, may overlook Detroit. It's just "another" city. But NYs distance from us almost makes it stand out even more as something both exotic and familiar. Detroit is a city of strange contrasts and ironies, more so than any other American city, and even Los Angeles doesn't come close in the kind of omnipresent ironies and incongruities in Detroit-- the mix between old and new, prosper and decay, fine art and street art, rubbish and beauty. New Yorkers look at Detroit with a bit of "damn, I wish WE had that." I know they're thinking about that with Lafayette Park. And that's not something that too many cities can say about themselves. |
Dialh4hipster
Member
Username: Dialh4hipster
Post Number: 2239
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 1:02 pm: | |
The author of this piece wrote a previous piece for the WSJ, I believe the one about Martha Reeves being on the city council. She had also written previously about Mies van der Rohe (actually interviewed him back in the eighties - had a few good stories about that) and while driving around with Detroit city officials noticed the Mies architecture and asked what it was. They had no idea.
She decided to look into it a little more and that was the genesis of this piece. She interviewed a lot of locals and spent a good amount of time on it. I think it turned out well.
As for why the NYC love affair with Detroit ... I think Gsgeorge makes some good points. |
Dbest
Member
Username: Dbest
Post Number: 57
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 1:05 pm: | |
George nice post.
I think to a certain degree your absolutely right.
But I would hate to insult the intelligence of those in Chicago by assuming that they view Detroit as just any other city. Detroit and Chicago have long shared a relationship between their cities from industrialization to auto manufacturing, to great sports rivalries and also shared tourism between the city.
The proximity of these two cities gives Detroit a chance to position itself as the other entertainment destination of the midwest. In some cases depending on the event Detroit can be the premier destination. |
Gsgeorge
Member
Username: Gsgeorge
Post Number: 498
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 1:13 pm: | |
quote:while driving around with Detroit city officials noticed the Mies architecture and asked what it was. They had no idea.
Are you kidding me?! Maybe this is one reason the city doesn't get the press it should. Our own city officials don't even know what kind of gems we have here!
quote:The proximity of these two cities gives Detroit a chance to position itself as the other entertainment destination of the midwest. In some cases depending on the event Detroit can be the premier destination.
Good point Dbest. With the improvements in entertainment and infrastructure Detroit is on its way back up to share the "hub" status with Chicago. This was certainly not possible 10-15, even 5 years ago though. I think a lot of Chicagoans don't even know what kind of improvements are going on here, and they still have this picture of Detroit as abandoned and crime-ridden. That's all I was referring to. There will certainly be a day when Detroit joins Chicago as one of the premiere Midwestern hubs. It may be sooner than later. |
Dbest
Member
Username: Dbest
Post Number: 58
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 1:32 pm: | |
George that is no doubt scary that officials are so out of touch with the cities history and some of the jewels, come on were talking about one of the most storied urban redevelopment projects in our countries history and you weren't aware of its history or even its world renowned architect?
Wasn't trying to get snippy with my remark regarding the intelligence level of people in Chicago, and I think you are right about the perception of Detroit in Chicago.
I think the people of this board could do a much better job of marketing this city. There are so many things I've learned about this city on this board, theres a lot of heart on this board for this city and maybe a lot more than from some officials who are supposed to be visionaries for the city and its future. |
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