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Placement_ Thanks for the View Mr. Mies
Placement:Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies
“I have a corner view. I can see Canada, the Detroit River, downtown. I can see going East. I have a two-bedroom. It’s lovely. I have a beautiful apartment.”— Towers Resident
“They want to live here because it’s prestigious to say, ‘I live in the Mies van der Rohe.’ That’s what they say. But I was just looking for a place where I didn’t have to shovel snow. That’s it.”— Townhouse resident
© Photo by Corine Vermeulen
— project abstract —
The publication Placement: Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies will illustrate life in the Lafayette Park neighborhood of downtown Detroit, home to the largest collection of Mies van der Rohe-designed buildings in the world. While much has been written about Mies’s life and work, the purpose of this publication will be to focus attention on the community of people who live in his buildings and to examine the way that this utopian mid-20th century urban renewal project has succes-sfully survived and adapted to present-day conditions in Detroit.
Through photos, interviews, essays, newsletter excerpts, maps, diagrams, and reproductions of flyers and party invitations we will show the ways that Lafayette Park residents have confronted and adapted this unique modernist environment to meet their needs. We expect this publication to be relevant to architects, urban planners, designers, artists, and anybody interested in the way that design affects everyday life.
This publication is the first in a series we are starting called Placement, where each issue will be about a different place (e.g., a town, a room, a beach, a neighborhood). It will be edited and designed by graphic designers Natasha Chandani, Lana Cavar and Danielle Aubert, who has been a resident of Lafayette Park since 2005.
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Placement_ Thanks for the View Mr. Mies
“The history of the Mies van der Rohe thing is all… nice. For people that are into architecture. The little bit of history that they think they know about. They have no idea though. We had just as close a community in Black Bottom as these units have.”— Resident of Black Bottom until 1948, townhouse resident since 1988
“Before we were up high, so we would just look down and see the trees blooming. So now I really feel like we’re kind of getting hugged by the trees. I just love having everything open.”— Current townhouse resident, former Lafayette Towers resident
— location overview —
Lafayette Park was built as the result of the Gratiot Redevelopment Project initiated in the 1940s, when Detroit’s city government approved the destruction of a densely popu-lated working class African-American neighborhood called Black Bottom. Thousands of residents were displaced and the area remained vacant until the city retained Chicago-based developer Herbert Greenwald, architect Mies van der Rohe, urban planner Ludwig Hilberseimer and landscape designer Alfred Caldwell to design a plan for the area. Three 22-floor high-rises, 21 buildings with 186 ground-level housing units, and a large park were completed by the early 1960s.
Lafayette Park today is one of the most racially integrated neighborhoods in Detroit, a city with the distinction of being the most segregated in the country for African-Americans. The neighborhood remains economically stable despite the fact that Detroit has suffered enormous population loss and bears innumerable signs of strained city services. With the exception of the book Case: Lafayette Park Detroit (ed. Charles Waldheim, Prestel, 2004), this area has received relatively little attention.
© Photo by Corine Vermeulen
“Most people have never lived in tall buildings. But others, I know many, have lived in them for years, and they are still fascinated with living there. But if you build high, you must have enough space to live upon—as we have in Detroit. There will be a huge 52-acre park in the center of the buildings with trees and grass and no streets. Here we have kept the streets out. All access is from perimeter roads which are dead-ends.”— Mies van der Rohe
Placement:Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies
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Placement_ Thanks for the View Mr. Mies
— what kind of book is this? —
This is a book about place, buildings and people. It is an attempt to open up a discussion between architecture connoisseurs and architecture users. We chose Detroit’s Lafayette Park, a marginalized but iconic architectural settlement designed by Mies van der Rohe, to show how people live in and interact with high modernist housing. We are taking the point of view of Lafayette Park’s Lafayette Park homeowners, tenants, and staff — people with long-term, intimate knowledge of living with Mies — as a starting point for our discussion. Most architectural publications glorify iconic architecture like Mies van der Rohe’s by showing photographs of buildings mainly from the outside and interiors with hardly any furniture or people in them. By working with residents, Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies will not only represent a unique way of discussing Mies, but it will also take the unusual position of highlighting a positive aspect of life in Detroit, a city that Time magazine recently referred to as “Notown”. As one of our contributors, Toby Barlow, writes, “In a city where they tell you that you must live with a bunker mentality, everything [in Lafayette Park] is exposed, the homes are glass facades, completely revealing residents to the outside world.”
— editors / designer statement —
We are in the early stages of the design process for this publication as we are still receiving and editing content. Ouridea is to organize the book into three sections we refer to as Towers, Townhouses, and Lafayette Park.We have organized our table of contents according to these three groupings. For each section we have at least one photo series by Corine Vermeulen and a number of statements from residents that we gathered during our interviews with them. These will serve to give the reader a sense of the present moment in Lafayette Park. Other items in each section will address more specific aspects of life in Lafayette Park from the points of view of different contributors in our project.
© Photo by Corine Vermeulen
Placement:Thanks for the View, Mr. MiesPhoto: Pavilion staff by Corine Vermeulen
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Placement_ Thanks for the View Mr. Mies
“42 years! I came here the year of the riots! It was a popular place to live back then. The screening was rather strict, it was a different clientele, more professional, that was my impression... I’ll put it this way, I’d say mostof the people that live herenow don’t really know about the history of the building. Not that is was perfect before, but people were different.”— Pavilion Resident
© Photos by Corine Vermeulen
“This picture is from my first trip to Paris, I was sitting there while the artist painted that painting. It took quite a while. I shopped, and then I came back. There was another one finished, but I wanted to be able to say I actually got the one he was doing while I was in it.”— Towers Resident
TowersTowers Interiors photos by Corine VermeulenInterviews with Towers Residents
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Placement_ Thanks for the View Mr. Mies
“We’d been looking at units for a number of years down here, and this one was more or less original. It was a little run-down but there were no alterations, besides the floor. We have all the original bathrooms, all the original kitchen appliances. That sort of appealed to us because it wasn’t a wreck, but we also didn’t have someone else’s upgrades that we were going to have to undo.”— Townhouse resident
© Photos by Corine Vermeulen
“Christ! This place is totally remodeled. We did everything! The paint was hideous, an ugly gray. The floors were yuck! We tore it all up. The place has been torn apart!”— Townhouse resident
TownhousesTownhouse Interiors photos by Corine VermeulenInterviews with Townhouse Residents
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Placement_ Thanks for the View Mr. Mies
TownhousesReproductions of Townhouse Community Newsletters 1961—1995
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Placement_ Thanks for the View Mr. Mies
TownhousesReproductions of Townhouse Party Invites
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Placement_ Thanks for the View Mr. Mies
Publication specifications— 7.5 x 10.5 inches— 160 pages— 1500 copies— 4 color offset printing— approximately 90 images— approximately 10 maps and diagrams
— timeline —
We began work on this publication in May of 2009. Our goal is for the publication to be ready for printing by June, 2010.
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Placement_ Thanks for the View Mr. Mies
About usThe three editors on this project, Danielle Aubert,
Lana Cavar and Natasha Chandani are graphic designers who met in the MFA program at Yale University.
Danielle Aubert (born 1975) is a professor of graphic design
at Wayne State University in Detroit. Her work has appeared in various exhibitions and design publications including Wired and Metropolis magazines. She has collaborated with Dutch designers Mevis and van Deursen on a book about the artist Mary Ellen Carroll (forthcoming from Steidl press in 2010). In 2007 she co-edited and designed the journal Detroit: Imaginary Cities for the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD). Recently, she collaborated with Lana Cavar on the design for the book ReFusing Fashion: Rei Kawakubo, which was selected by the AIGA as one of the 50 best book designs of 2008. She has practiced graphic design in New York, Moscow and Detroit.
Lana Cavar (born 1974) is currently based in Zagreb, Croatia. She has worked on a number of cultural and architectural publications for clients in Croatia and the United States, including a performing arts journal Frakcija, that was placed in the collection of the Design Museum (London) in 2003. In 2007, she co-edited and designed the book Bale Shoreline: Spatial Planning and Development Study. Her work has received awards from TDC New York and Tokyo, Young Guns, ADC New York, and Icograda.
Natasha Chandani (born 1973) is based in New York City. She has worked on a number of publications with clients in the United States, the Netherlands, the UK and India. For several years she worked as a designer for the architecture publication Volume. She collaborated with Dutch designer Irma Boom on the design of the Al Manakh (with editors Rem Koolhaas, Ole Bouman and Mark Wigley), a study of the current condition of the Gulf for the International Design Forum in Dubai, 2007. She currently works on American Craft magazine.
— contact —
— Danielle Aubert —1413 Joliet Pl, Detroit, MI 48207, U.S.A.p: +1 313 443 [email protected]
— Lana Cavar —Laginjina 9, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatiap: +358 91 2306 [email protected]
— Natasha Chandani—231 Baltic Street, # 3, Brooklyn NY 11201, U.S.A.p: +1 646 460 [email protected]
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Placement_ Thanks for the View Mr. Mies
List of publications designed and edited by Danielle, Lanaand Natasha from 1998 to 2010
Publication Experience
— Danielle Aubert —
— Perspecta 38, The Yale Architectural Journal: Architecture After All; 2006;Publisher: MIT Press; Editors: Forth Bagley, Cerel Bingol, Marcus Carter, Christopher Marcinkoski; Designed with Willy Wong— Meditations in an Emergency; 2006;Exhibition catalogue; Publisher: MOCAD, Detroit;Curator: Klaus Kertess— Detroit, I.E.; 2006;Art & literature journal; Publisher: MOCAD, Detroit; Editors: Lynn Crawford and Mitch Cope; Designed with Nina Bianchi— Robert Blanchon; 2006;Artist monograph; Publisher: Visual AIDS; Editors: Tanya Duvergne and Amy Sadao— 16 Months Worth of Drawing Exercises in Microsoft Excel; 2006; Artist book; Publisher: Various Projects— Detroit: Imaginary Cities; 2007; Art & literature journalPublisher: MOCAD, Detroit;Edited with Lynn Crawford and Gina Reichert— Refusing Fashion: Rei Kawakubo; 2008; Exhibition catalogue; Publisher: MOCAD, Detroit; Curators: Linda Dresner, Susanne Hilberry, Marsha Miro; Designed with Lana Cavar— Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts; 2008—present; Publisher: Wayne State University PressEditor: Jonathan Flatley— MEC.; forthcoming 2010;Artist monograph for Mary Ellen Carroll; Publisher: Steidl Designed with Mevis & van Deursen
— Natasha Chandani —
— Volume Magazine; 2005—2007; Architecture quarterly magazine / 8 issues;Publisher: Archis, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Editors: Archis, Rem Koolhaas, C—Lab; Designed with Irma Boom— The 9 Emotions of Indian Cinema; 2006; Publisher: Tara Books, Chennai, India— The Matchbook; 2007; Publisher: Tara Books, Chennai, India— Al Manakh; 2007;Publisher: Archis, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Editors: Archis, Rem Koolhaas Designed with Irma Boom— Wally Olins: The Brand Handbook; 2008; Publisher: Thames & Hudson, London— Nurturing Walls: Animal Art by Meena Women; 2008; Publisher: Tara Books, Chennai, India— American Craft Magazine2008—Present; Craft bimonthly / 8 issues; Publisher: American Craft Council, NY; Designed with Jeanette Abbink— American Craft Council Conference Book 2009; forthcoming 2010; Conference catalogue; Publisher: American Craft Council, NY; Designed with Jeanette Abbink
— Lana Cavar —
— Čovijek i prostor (eng. Human and Space); 1998—2000; Architecture bimonthly magazine; Publisher: Croatian Architects Assotiation, Zagreb;Editors: Sasa Begović, Dado Katusić, Alan Kostrenčić, Silvije Novak; Designed with Cavarpayer— Frakcija (eng. Fraction); 2000—2002; Performing arts journal; Publisher: Center for Drama Arts, Zagreb; Editors: Marin Blažević, Sergej Pristaš;Designed with Cavarpayer— Informatica Museologica; 2001—2002; Museology journal; Publisher: Museum Documentation Centre, Zagreb; Editor: Lada Trbuljak— OceanMore; 2003—2004; Fiction book covers; Publisher: OceanMore, Zagreb; Editor: Gordana Farkaš— Likovna kultura 1/8 (eng. Visual Culture);2005—2008; Elementary schoolbooks; Publisher: VBZ, Zagreb; Editors: Gordana Košćec, Ida Mati— Bale Shoreline: Spatial Planning Development Study; 2007; Publisher: 3LHD, Zagreb; Edited with Silvije Novak— Numen Light; 2008;Exhibition catalogue for Zona Tortona Superstudio, Milan;Publisher: Numen; Editor: Maroje Mrduljaš— PM Gallery 2008; 2009Annual exhibition catalogue; Publisher: Croatian Artists Association; Curator: Branko Francheski, Ana Janevski— PM Gallery catalogues; 2009; Exhibition catalogues; Curator: Ana Janevski; Designed with Danielle Aubert
