Talking black architects on WDET!

I was grateful to have the opportunity to speak with Ryan Patrick Hooper on WDET's Culture Shift about my recent article for Curbed on the impact of black architects in Detroit.

Joining me for the conversation was Saundra Little, a principal at the architecture firm Quinn Evans and the co-founder of Noir Design Parti, an organization dedicated to documenting and preserving the legacy of black architects in Detroit, and whose extensive, ongoing research was the basis for my article.

The segment is about 14 minutes long and is available to listen to here!

Designing the future: the legacy of black architects in Detroit

(originally published 7/15/19 in Curbed)

Drive up Linwood Street, just north of I-94 in Detroit’s Northwest Goldberg neighborhood, and you will find yourself nestled among a collection of grand brick homes, some dilapidated and vacant, others well-maintained, interspersed by quiet, grassy swaths of urban prairie and towering trees.But continue on past McGraw Avenue and this organic neighborhood texture gives way to a remarkable and unlikely sight: an apparent ziggurat from the future, occupying nearly an entire block. Long, low-slung, and perfectly symmetrical, with cylindrical brick flanks to the east and west and sloping expanses of bluish gray zinc to the north and south that race down at an exhilarating 45-degree angle to a concrete berm below, this looks like it might be the home of the first colony on Mars. It’s actually the former McMichael Middle School, built in 1981, now the Detroit Police Training Academy, designed by Detroit architects Howard Sims and Harold Varner.

Clear across town, in the equally pastoral Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood, follow Kitchener Street from Jefferson Avenue toward the Detroit River and you’ll happen upon a similarly arresting structure, on a smaller scale: the home that Roger Margerum designed for himself in the early 2000s. This extravagant, postmodern ode to the 45 degree angle, clad in black, white, and crimson-painted wood, cuts a fantastic figure on an otherwise sleepy block.

What unites these two buildings, and a few dozen others scattered all over the city, is not just the futurism of their forms, but the notable fact that they were designed by black architects....

Read the rest at Curbed.

The view from here

I am delighted to share the news that the second edition of one of my very favorite books, Thanks For the View, Mr. Mies, has just been published—and that it features a brand-new preface by yours truly!



TFTVMM, originally published in 2012, is all about life in the Mies van der Rohe-designed townhouses and apartment buildings in Detroit's Lafayette Park neighborhood, where I've lived since 2008. It is notable for being a very human architecture book; it is, in fact, a book about people, all kinds, and how and why they inhabit this unique, idealized neighborhood. It is one of a kind: obsessive, funny, critical, digressive. Kaleidoscopic.



An important dimension to community life in Lafayette Park is the fact that the population here has long been economically and racially mixed. This is, of course, a rare phenomenon in a neighborhood of buildings designed by one of the world's most influential modern architects. But it's a phenomenon that gets remarkably close to the real objectives of modernism, which sought to improve society by housing the masses, not just the elite.

When TFTVMM was first published in 2012, Lafayette Park was something of a well-kept local and national secret, and Detroit was on the cusp of major economic upheaval. In the years since, the neighborhood's profile has grown, along with greater downtown's economic fortunes, and things have changed here considerably. Property values, prices, and rents are all up, and suddenly, the neighborhood feels like a hot commodity.

The Pavilion as seen from my apartment in Lafayette Towers

For my new preface, I was tasked with describing how life in the neighborhood's three high rises, in particular, has changed since 2012. Two other new pieces, one by the book's editors—Danielle Aubert, Lana Cavar, and Natasha Chandani—and the other by the writer Marsha Music, look at changes in the neighborhood more broadly.

When the book first came out in 2012, I had the opportunity to review it and publish an in-depth interview with Danielle, Lana, and Natasha. (That interview, incidentally, remains one of my favorites I've ever done; those three have such a lively and infectious energy.) Though Danielle lives in the neighborhood, I hadn't meant her until then, and after our conversations, we were both sorry that we hadn't met in time for me to contribute to the book, which includes a number of pieces by various writers living in the neighborhood. So it was with profound gratitude and delight that I accepted her invitation to write something for the second edition.

Nonetheless, this was a challenging assignment, describing flux while living among it. (While participating in it.) I think I went through more drafts of this essay than any I've ever written, struggling to get the tone right—to record accurately both fact and feeling, and to find the proper balance between the two. With the help of several wise and generous editors, I think I got fairly close in 2000 words to achieving what I set out to do, but as I told Michel recently, I have had a hard time letting this essay go; I continue to revise and rewrite it in my head as I go about daily life here, talking with neighbors, noticing new changes, and sorting through my various responses to them. I'll probably be mentally revising it for as long as I live in the neighborhood.

But despite my feelings to the contrary, "The View From Here" is in fact very much done! And now it's out there, and I greet its publication with deep gratitude for the opportunity to help tell the story of one of my favorite places, the place I am fortunate to call home.

If you're inclined to pick up a copy, you can order the book directly from Distributed Art Publishers or from Amazon.

Essay'd 3 launch this week!

This Thursday marks the launch of Essay'd 3, the third volume in our continuing series of books that grow from the Essay'd website, where we publish short, illustrated essays about contemporary Detroit artists.

Essay'd 3, published by Wayne State University Press, includes essays #61-90 in our ever-expanding and non-hierarchical survey of Detroit art, which is intended for the general reader. As in the previous two volumes, I served as editor-in-chief and contributed a handful of entries. I'm really delighted to share this volume with the world, as it marks a significant shift in Essay'd, away from content created by a small core group (as in Volumes 1 and 2), and toward a real multiplicity of voices and perspectives. The main editorial team was joined this time by 12 guest writers, everyone from Art History students to professional art critics, and as a result, the project has grown and expanded in an exciting way.

If you're in Detroit and available to join, I'd love to see you at MOCAD on Thursday from 6:00-8:00! We'll be signing and selling books (including copies of the first two volumes), and enjoying some delicious Bangladeshi foods from our friends at Bandhu Gardens. Come out and show your love for the incredible community of artists and writers that call Detroit home!