Title & Author:

Thanks for the view, Mr. Mies : Lafayette Park, Detroit / edited and with text by Danielle Aubert, Lana Cavar and Natasha Chandani.

Publication:

New York, NY : Metropolis Books, [2012]

Description:

285 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references.
Introduction : Yesterday's future today -- The townhouses : Living with Mies: the townhouses: photo essay / Corine Vermeulen ; Hidden in plain sight: the "invisibility" of Mies van der Rohe in Detroit: essay / Marsha Music ; "I'm just getting used to the new ambiance": interview / Wesley Steele ; "There are many, many really cool things about the house": interview and tour / Neil McEachern ; Living in Lafayette Park: essay / Toby Barlow ; "I don't think the Taxus plants belong here": interview and tour / Bill Dickens ; "I'm just a saver. If it's about Lafayette Park I put it in a box": archive / Cordelia Brown ; Open house ; Authentic and original ; "We'll fight about the height of the hedges, but generally everybody agrees": interview / Barbara Matesa ; "I like to respect what was done": interview / Bob Hafel ; Bustle in the Hedgerow: urban living in the prairie landscape: essay / Noah Resnick ; The big thing about little trees: essay / Hilary Robie ; Living in ordered exhibition: essay / Melissa Dittmer -- The neighborhood : Spring in Lafayette Park 1977/2009: photo essay / Corine Vermeulen and Cordelia Brown ; Birdwatchers / Karen Tonso and Paul Elliman ; Birds and plate glass ; Animal encounters ; Celebrities rumored to have lived in Lafayette Park ; Four one-mile walks ; Selling the modern -- The high-rises : Living with Mies: the high-rises: photo essay / Corine Vermeulen and Lana Cavar ; "My favorite thing about living here is that they have donuts on Fridays in the lobby": interviews / various high-rise tenants ; "My main selling point would be, you're going to get a beautiful view": interview / Jim Adams ; A record of nine days spent keeping the climate under control in a corner apartment ; The pavilion: photo essay / Karin Jobst ; "Mies is a little too contemporary for me. I am more of an eclectic person": interview / Jacqueline Neal ; "I don't like to be status quo, and this is a one-of-a-kind kind of place": interview / Stephen Powell ; "It was known all over the country: Lafayette Park, Detroit, Michigan!": / Mattie Cunningham ; "I don't care how fine the furniture is, you still need decorations": interview / Toysia Brooks ; Aesthetic mismanagement of the Lafayette Towers: essay / Joe Posch ; The Lafayette Tower: looking back: essay and photos / Janine Debanné -- Facts about Lafayette Park.
P. [4] of cover includes a quotation by Phyllis Lambert.

Summary:

Lafayette Park, an affordable middle-class residential area in downtown Detroit, is home to the largest collection of buildings designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the world. Today, it is one of Detroit's most racially integrated and economically stable neighborhoods, although it is surrounded by evidence of a city in financial distress. Through interviews with and essays by residents; reproductions of archival material; and new photographs by Karin Jobst, Vasco Roma, and Corine Vermeulen, and previously unpublished photographs by documentary filmmaker Janine Debanné, Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies examines the way that Lafayette Park residents confront and interact with this unique modernist environment. Lafayette Park has not received the level of international attention that other similar projects by Mies have. This may be due in part to its location in Detroit, a city whose most positive qualities are often overlooked in the media. This book is a reaction against the way that iconic modernist architecture is often represented. Whereas other writers may focus on the design intentions of the architect, authors Aubert, Cavar and Chandani seek to show the organic and idiosyncratic ways that the people who live in Lafayette Park actually use the architecture and how this experience, in turn, affects their everyday lives. While there are many publications about abandoned buildings in Detroit and about the city's prosperous past, this book is about a remarkable part of the city as it exists today, in the twenty-first century.

Resources:
Table of contents

ISBN:

9781935202929 (paperback)
1935202928 (paperback)

Subject:

Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969.
Urban landscape architecture Michigan Detroit History 20th century.
Parks Michigan Detroit History 20th century.
Architecture Michigan Detroit.
Planned communities Michigan Detroit.
Paysage urbain Michigan Detroit Histoire 20e siècle.
Collectivités nouvelles Michigan Detroit.
Architecture.
Buildings.
Parks.
Planned communities.
Urban landscape architecture.
Haus
Architektur
Landskapsarkitektur.
Neighborhoods Michigan Detroit.
Architecture, Domestic Social aspects Michigan Detroit.
Lafayette Park (Detroit, Mich.) Buildings, structures, etc.
Michigan Detroit.
Lafayette Park
Lafayette Park (Detroit, Michigan)

Form/genre:

Interviews.
History.

Added entries:

Aubert, Danielle, 1975- editor.
Cavar, Lana, editor.
Chandani, Natasha, editor.
Cavar, Lana.
Chandani, Natasha.
Lambert, Phyllis

Holdings:

Location: Library main 279994
Call No.: BIB 216335
Status: Available