  D_mcc Member Username: D_mcc Post Number: 1694 Registered: 12-2007 |
And the landmark that is Lafeyette Park is on the cover as part of their article on mid-century modern Architecture... I'll post a link when I get back to my computer | ||
Spidergirl Member Username: Spidergirl Post Number: 353 Registered: 12-2004 |
Just a touch D_m. http://www.modeldmedia.com/int henews/dwelldetroit16908.aspx http://www.dwell.com/homes/ren ovations/33931189.html | ||
6nois Member Username: 6nois Post Number: 781 Registered: 11-2006 |
Love Lafayette Park, I don't think many people understand how much great architecture we have in Detroit. There are places with more, but by far there are a lot more that have way less. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 3846 Registered: 07-2004 |
I'm more taken with the new urbanism, so I'm sorta chagrinned by dwell. Before LP, there used to be dense city blocks. Of course, dwell's comsumerist emphasis on the private home and the magazines hard-on for midcentury style means that it would LOVE LP, despite what was wrought to make it. I know, I know, as usual I'm the minority report.  | ||
6nois Member Username: 6nois Post Number: 782 Registered: 11-2006 |
I personally think detroit has room for both considering the vast amounts of residual spaces that will never be the way they were. New urbanism has yet to come into its own though. I love the idea behind it, but how it is handled always makes me cringe. I personally think a merger of modernist thinking and new urban ideals could lead to a great result. | ||
Gravitymachine Member Username: Gravitymachine Post Number: 2430 Registered: 05-2005 |
its a great article, i was happily suprised to see when i got last month's issue, i thought i recognized the surroundings of the cover photo before i opened it up to see it actually was lafayette park. its also cool because there are some local artist's work, like abigail newbold's quilt and mark moskovitz's stump stool, displayed in the home that were bought at design99 in hamtramck www.visitdesign99.com not only have they revived some mid-century design though renovation of their condo, but are helping support 21st century local design. (Message edited by gravitymachine on December 05, 2008) | ||
Urbanophile Member Username: Urbanophile Post Number: 4 Registered: 11-2008 |
Nice mention in a good magazine. | ||
Wood Member Username: Wood Post Number: 75 Registered: 05-2006 |
I would really like to gather up all the new urbanist lafayette park haters and drop them off somewhere on the original street grid of that part of the black bottom back in 1955 and see if they'd still be singing the same tune. it was a slum with a worthless housing stock that many people couldn't leave fast enough. just look at what a wonderful thing the retention of the original street grid has done for the rest of detroit with its many walkable, low-crime neighborhoods full of boutique shopping and coffee shops! | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 1064 Registered: 04-2006 |
That is an interesting point. I think the destruction of Black Bottom and the decline of other neighborhoods in the city might well have been related. It seems as though the sudden demolition of such a high-density enclave would have caused huge numbers of displaced blacks to seek housing in all-white neighborhoods, more or less at the same time. Given that the federal government and mortgage industry strongly discouraged racial integration in city neighborhoods, and made it financially impractical for whites and blacks to live together, it seems that that could have turned huge swaths of the city into areas where whites did not want to live or invest in a very short period of time. When fewer people want to live or invest in an area, it loses value, and begins to physically deteriorate. When that happened, many whites probably said "see, that's what happens when Those People move into Our Neighborhoods," and became even less willing to live among blacks than they had been before. Just a theory. | ||
Wood Member Username: Wood Post Number: 76 Registered: 05-2006 |
I think you're on the right track, bear, but look to a decade before the actual "redevelopment" of Lafayette Park for the 1948 U.S. Supreme court opinion of Shelley v. Kraemer (making land conveyances/real estate agreements which would restrict the sale of homes to members of a specific race violative of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment). Shelley was the companion case of McGhee v. Sipes, a Detroit case based on the same common Detroit land conveyances that kept black people from moving out of the black bottom into the "nice" white areas. A quick read of the Ossian Sweet case will also explain how blacks were effectively kept in neighborhoods like the black bottom for so long. Of course, it didn't help in Detroit that the Shelley v. Kraemer decision coincided with the rise of postwar suburban development so that all those folks who didn't want "those people" moving into their neighborhoods could suddenly purchase their own little picket-fence fiefdoms in the hinterlands. By the time Lafayette Park was redeveloped and the old buildings were torn down and the new urbanists' beloved street grid torn up, the Shelley v. Kraemer doctrine had been at work for long enough that the relevant part of black bottom was already as much a ghost town as most of detroit is today. You should see the pictures. Perhaps ironically, the New Urbanist nightmare of Lafayette Park just might be the most racially-integrated neighborhood Detroit. | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 1065 Registered: 04-2006 |
quote:Where can I find them? I remember a picture from that era being posted on here that showed the corner of Fort and McDougall (well east of Black Bottom/Lafayette Park, but also part of the lower east side urban renewal area), and those houses looked attractive and solidly-built, although not well kept-up by that point. I haven't seen many pictures of Black Bottom proper, and the ones I have found all seem to depict it as a vibrant area. I assumed it was like that until the end. | ||
Detourdetroit Member Username: Detourdetroit Post Number: 448 Registered: 10-2003 |
put it this way, lafayette park has proven to be one of the best applications of one of the worst general planning principles ever employed on a large scale in america. i'm so happy we have lafayette park, but wish we could have back the thousands of buildings/business lost to urban "renewal" projects. | ||
Gdub Member Username: Gdub Post Number: 1204 Registered: 10-2003 |
I lived in one of those Mies townhouses in the early 70s when I was a baby, and they may have been cool back then, but they age fast, and now it's just another suburban-style enclave in what should be a dense, urban neighborhood. Lafayette Park is fugly, despite my childhood attachment to it. I do appreciate a new generation moving in and making the most of it, though. | ||
Detourdetroit Member Username: Detourdetroit Post Number: 449 Registered: 10-2003 |
it's interesting to read your impression gdub. i can see why lafayette turns a lot of people off in terms of its stark modernity...and still others, possibly you included, for it's relative lack of density. believe me, i'm a strong proponent of urban density and aesthetic. i'm also, as a general rule, not a fan (as expressed above) of urban renewal projects which often implemented modernist or international style approaches to site layout and design. however, the elegant, spare lines of well executed high modernism has grown on me quite a bit, and i would encourage you (if you haven't already) to read more about how lafayette park is actually one of the most unique and successful examples of this style of architecture in the country. there's a really good book of essays about it in harvard's case series... http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/res earch/publications/case/book_l afayette.htm the theories behind the site planning and layout of lafayette park are really pretty interesting...and the thing that (in my opinion at least) really makes it work is the integration of different building types into an overall landscape plan that has been property (lovingly?) maintained over the years. the harmony between the built and natural environment is pretty special. after decrying modern architecture for years, i've come to like good examples of it quite a bit. of course, that's the real problem with modern architecture...it's VERY hard to do it real well. it's really easy to do it very poorly. lucky for detroit we have a good example that's being lived in the way it was designed to be... | ||
Detourdetroit Member Username: Detourdetroit Post Number: 450 Registered: 10-2003 |
ps...and now, of course, a real life historic district! http://www.ci.detroit.mi.us/hi storic/districts/lafayette_par k.pdf "Modern" history | ||
Gdub Member Username: Gdub Post Number: 1205 Registered: 10-2003 |
Detour, I agree, in a sense, as far as it being a lasting example of what is, I think, the first "urban renewal" project in the US, it has fulfilled its initial intent very well, but I think in the long term Detroit needs to revert to an embrace of its older structures, those that focus on close street frontage and upward density and commercial elements on the pedestrian level, leaving the garden style touches to the corners or backyards, like you might see in certain parts of Midtown. As far as what might appeal to a new resident, the city really has to offer something completely different than that which the suburbs might offer, in order to carve out a niche for whatever market might remain for real urban living. Just my thoughts, anyway. | ||
Wood Member Username: Wood Post Number: 77 Registered: 05-2006 |
"now it's just another suburban-style enclave in what should be a dense, urban neighborhood. . ." really? I'd guess lafayette park is the most dense urban neighborhood in proximity to downtown detroit. five 20+ story high rises with full occupancy, hundreds of townhouses with very low square footage at full occupancy. and that's just what's west of orleans. sure there are parks but that is an asset. when you consider other traditional neighborhoods in detroit with "close street frontage and upward density and commercial elements on the pedestrian level (note: ha!) leaving the garden style touches to the corners or backyards" I don't think you get anywhere close to the density of LP. consider woodbridge with those massive 3,000+ square foot houses occupied by two people or so many other neighborhoods with huge abandoned houses or vacant lots where huge houses used to be. the density is just not there. I would challenge you to find a spot in midtown the size of the mies footprint in LP that has greater density. I understand there are people schooled in various city planning philosophies or whatever, and that for some people it's hard to see past that. But it's almost like the new urbanists hate LP with a particular vehemence because it has been such a success. it really is a tragedy that you can't go back to 1959 to plead with Herbert Greenwald and Mies van der Rohe not to destroy the beautiful street grid of the broken slum where the racist practices of the city confined a population of people because of their skin color. But now at 50 years old, the buildings of LP have themselves become part of Detroit's historical heritage, and luckily they are occupied, loved, meticulously-maintained and appreciated well beyond Detroit, even by yuppie magazines from San Francisco. It's not 1959. At this point I don't think hoping for the preservation of Detroit's pre-modern buildings and enjoying and appreciating LP are mutually exclusive. LP is now a part of Detroit's history and I wish more people could look beyond their second-semester urban planning theories to see that. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 3852 Registered: 07-2004 |
Wood, I think you're being too sensitive. Am I out of line to be chagrinned by what was done to make LP? Where did I say I hated LP? Where did I say enjoying LP and historic Detroit were mutually exclusive? If anybody is finding it hard to "see past" their "philosophies," I nominate you. | ||
Wood Member Username: Wood Post Number: 78 Registered: 05-2006 |
dn-- It's not what you've written here so much as the collective attitude I've seen towards LP by new urbanist-minded folks on this board, particularly that outspoken kid from ann arbor who was always mouthing off about what an abomination LP is. so yeah, my defensiveness should be viewed in a larger context than just this post---I could have made that more clear. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 3854 Registered: 07-2004 |
Well, let's not confuse a critique of the end (LP) with a critique of the means (leveling the Paradise Valley area). And, furthermore, not everybody who dislikes LP is sophomoric as you imply. Didn't people used to say there was no accounting for taste? Personal note: I used to deliver pizza there all the time and I often thought about how weird I'd feel living there, like a goldfish in a bowl. Ever think how weird it would be to want to change into some pajamas in one of those glass-walled rooms? Not for me, certainly, but not too bad to look at from the outside. |
