Mies’s Lafayette Park: An Urban Renewal Success Story?

CM credit hours for mobile workshops are awarded based on the planned dedicated instructional time. Adjustments to CM hours will not be made after the live event.

Lafayette Park, Detroit's first urban renewal project, is a Modernist, mixed-use development immediately east of the CBD. It replaced Black Bottom, a working-class neighborhood demolished in the early 1950s during redevelopment that included the I-375 freeway. Residents received minimal relocation resources and faced housing discrimination due to redlining and racially restrictive covenants.

Despite its origins as a product of structural racism, and in contrast to other urban renewal projects, Lafayette Park is regarded as a success, due in part to site planning, architecture, and landscape design by Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig Hilberseimer, and Alfred Caldwell. It contains the world's largest collection of Mies buildings on a single site. Lafayette Park was planned as a 15-minute city that would deliver a quiet, spacious, suburban lifestyle to the urban core. It was recognized as a National Historic Landmark in 2015.

Learn about disruptions caused by 20th-century urban renewal, and Lafayette Park's unique solutions for creating inclusive housing in its wake. Experience the planning, architectural, and landscape design principles that shaped Lafayette Park. Visit apartment interiors and recognize ingredients for success - mixed housing types, tenancy options, incomes, and races - that can be elsewhere applied today.