When I was in Detroit in the summer, I made a point of going to the Lafayette Park development. It was impressive how well Mies’ work has stood up as a form of elegance. The lushness of the townhouses at Lafayette were a sharp contrast from the surroundings, and made me feel like I’d been transported to Vancouver for a second. With the renaissance underway for Motor City, I found it funny seeing the various infill developments kind of aping the Mies aesthetic at times, all these decades later, and yet still feeling like a lesser version of what he did.
When I was in Detroit in the summer, I made a point of going to the Lafayette Park development. It was impressive how well Mies’ work has stood up as a form of elegance. The lushness of the townhouses at Lafayette were a sharp contrast from the surroundings, and made me feel like I’d been transported to Vancouver for a second. With the renaissance underway for Motor City, I found it funny seeing the various infill developments kind of aping the Mies aesthetic at times, all these decades later, and yet still feeling like a lesser version of what he did.