Lafayette Park

Although less than 50 years old, the Mies van der Rohe Residential District meets the National Register's criterion C because of its exceptional importance in the history of modern architecture and community planning and development. Its 26 buildings-the only ones Mies van der Rohe ever designed in Michigan and the largest collection of his buildings in the world-are excellent examples of the methods, materials, and ideas that this world-renowned master architect used in his later works. The district's townhouse complex is unique among his works, for it is the only group of rowhouses ever built to his specifications. In the area of community planning and development, the district has the distinction of being part of an early effort at urban renewal that actually succeeded.

Built on the site of a former slum, it was the outcome of a city plan to counter the flight of middle- and upper-income families to the suburbs by creating a community that would attract people of diverse backgrounds. That it is today an attractive, well-maintained neighborhood more racially mixed than when it was built is especially remarkable in view of the social and economic problems Detroit has experienced since the 1960s. The manmade aspects of the district-its architecture, layout, and landscape design-have been key ingredients in this outcome. As David Spaeth observed in his 1985 biography of Mies, 'While the history of urban renewal in the United States is littered with failures, Lafayette Park is one of the successes; one dehumanizing urban environment was not replaced with another.'

Lafayette Park, a 193-acre area of downtown Detroit, is the outcome of an urban renewal project that was launched in 1946. The section bounded by Lafayette Avenue and Rivard, Antietam, and Orleans streets occupies about 78 acres and is based on a 'superblock' plan that Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Ludwig Hilberseimer devised in the mid-1950s. Closed to through traffic, it has a 13-acre city-owned park running through its center. This sweep of green is dotted with trees and contains playing fields, tennis courts, and a series of curving walkways.

On its periphery are eight housing complexes, a shopping center, and a public school. Although Mies van der Rohe was to have designed all of the park's buildings, only the high-rise Pavilion Apartments, the twin Lafayette Towers, and the low-rise Mies van der Rohe Townhouses were built to his specifications. With their skeletal framing, aluminum and glass 'skins,' and spare, open interiors, these buildings typify Mies's distinctive post-World War II style. Together with the park that connects them, they constitute the area designated in this nomination as the 'Mies van der Rohe Residential District.' Set in a naturalistic landscape designed by Alfred Caldwell, the area has often been described as a 'suburb in the city.' The thoughtful planting scheme, open green space of the park, scale and placement of Mies's buildings, and relative absence of cars are among the factors that help define the 'suburban' quality.