168 DETROIT ROLLING FORWARD

Motor City is revving again, the 2013 bankruptcy left in the dust. Restored art deco buildings, experimental restaurants, a rediscovered riverfront and a new generation of creatives moulding their own distinctive style

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE It doesn’t want to look like any other American city. It has no desire to be a second New York or Chicago. Detroit has a clearly defined DNA, and it’s proud of it. «There›s a deep sense of pride amongst Detroiters. Those who have survived the recessions and urban decay and have stayed are now looking to the future of the city with optimism», explains Douglas Voigt, head of the Urban Design and Planning department at the SOM architecture studio and the man in charge of the ambitious Detroit East Riverfront renovation project. «The city is still in turmoil, but it is no longer disintegrating – there is a desire to create things, to escape from the stigma of being a decaying metropolis». You only need to walk alongWoodward Avenue, the city›s main street, or jump on the Detroit People Mover elevated tram, and look up at the buildings around you to relive both the glory and decline of Michigan’s capital. The remarkable 1940s, symbolised by the sumptuous art deco skyscrapers like the Guardian Building and Fisher Building, when Motor City was one of the largest and most highly populated metropolises in the United States. The 1960s, which saw the construction of the stylish OneWoodward, a concrete and steel building designed by Minoru Yamasaki, and the beginning of the racial tensions that came to a head in the bloody revolt of 1967. The 1970s and 1980s, marked by the global energy crisis and the decline in the American car industry, which led people to abandon Detroit, and to it becoming one of America’s most violent cities. The mirage of the 1990s, when the nightmare seemed to have passed and the industry came back to life, reflected in the forty-three stories of One Detroit Center, the skyscraper designed by architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee. And the relapse of the 2000s, when globalisation undermined the basis of Motor City’s rejuvenation, outcompeted by Asian markets, and precipitating the collapse of Chrysler and General Motors in 2009. Afflicted with the most serious problems in America and weighed down by a $18 billion public debt, in 2013 Detroit declared itself bankrupt. It had reached rock bottom, and over the course of a year, by selling off real estate and renegotiating its debts, it took some steps toward salvation, and ultimately succeeded. Starting again is never easy, but for four years public bodies, property