International Style urban community in Detroit
Modern urban redevelopment projects generally have a bad rap, with conclusions batted about of the failure of modernism to produce livable communities. Not all modernist developments met the same fate as Pruitt-Igoe, however. Shining examples of modernist planning are scattered around the world which deliver on the promise that modern visionaries hoped to fulfill.
One such example is the highly successful Lafayette Park (Gratiot Park Development) in Detroit Michigan designed by architect Mies van der Rohe, planner Ludwig Hilberseimer, and landscape architect Alfred Caldwell.
Link: National Park Service - Mies van der Rohe Residential District
Article: Detroit Free Press - 50th Anniversary of Lafayette Park
Photos: Flickr Lafayette Park photo set
The 78 acre development features multiple-unit townhomes, high-rise apartment buildings, a shopping center and a school, all organized around a central 12 acre park. Lafayette Park features the world's largest collection of buildings designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and 46 acres of the complex has been designated as the "Mies van der Rohe Residential District" by the National Park Service. The 26 buildings display classic elements of Miesian design with expressed steel skeleton frames, aluminum and glass skins, and open interiors.
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Lafayette Park is a success as a racially and economically diverse neighborhood, and as a bright spot in a city which has struggled with blight and abandonment for decades.
October 16, 2006, marks the 50th anniversary of the Lafayette Park, and a neighborhood committee is planning events to commemorate the occasion: a re-creation of the groundbreaking; a symposium on urban design; and a film festival featuring movies about the neighborhood and its creators.