Detroit = Destination for Art?

Now I'm not really an architecture nerd or anything, but as someone who's seen her share of urban centres, I knows what I likes and I likes the new Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, which opened in October.

As much as I can appreciate the bright, shiny, modernist building designs that seem to be the standard way to revitalize urban areas, I think there is something truly visionary in Andrew Zago's experimental approach to the museum's design. As he explains,

I didn’t want to romanticize it but the city had a depth of character, a real substance and integrity. And while you want to do away with the problems, you don’t want to lose that quality.

It really, really works.

The space is a converted car dealership, and the design incorporates all the grit and decay of the space into its aesthetic. Kudoes to you Andrew Zago, kudos to you.


Barry McGee, graffiti art darling, did a graffiti installation across the outside.


Not only that, but supposedly this little dude is one of McGee's mechanical mannequins. I repeat: mechanical mannequin. I know. Awesome.


Architect Andrew Zago.


Nari Ward's White Flight Tea Bar 2006, currently on display.


Christopher Fachini with his sound installation called The Rock Box Sound System plays the Mental Machine

More about the museum in a NY Times architecture review, or you can just go visit it.

I mean seriously what else are you going to do in Detroit???