A beautifully designed resource that takes readers on a tour of greater Detroit's many architectural wonders and special landmarks.

"In the 1910s and 1920s there was more steel going up in Detroit than anywhere outside of New York and Chicago. The result was the country's first high-tech metropolis, a city of lavish monuments and glittering skyscrapers." "The list of major architects who designed buildings for Detroit includes Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Stanford White, Daniel Burnham, Cass Gilbert, Albert Kahn, Minoru Yamasaki, Philip Johnson, and numerous others." "Detroit's public buildings - its museums, libraries, schools, and monuments - are second to none in terms of their overall scale, materials, and detailing. Hotels, stores, theaters, and other commercial venues display a breezy cosmopolitanism consistent with the city's position as both a technology hub and a crossroads of immigration." "Overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the buildings they encountered on a 2003 visit to downtown Detroit, writer Robert Sharoff and photographer William Zbaren were inspired to create American City: Detroit Architecture, 1845-2005, the first new large-format book on the city's architecture in more than thirty years." "The fact that many structures are either endangered or marginally in use makes the book all the more compelling. In 2005, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed "the historic buildings of downtown Detroit" on the list of the country's most endangered landmarks." "The book also includes examples of interesting new architecture as well as numerous historic buildings from the 1920s and earlier that have been maintained or in some cases painstakingly restored."--BOOK JACKET.

"Whether urban or rural dweller, academic or practitioner, the reader takes from Gallagher a deeper appreciation of both the challenges and opportunities that exist within our cities, challenges and opportunities that will ultimately impact our country."-Jay Williams, mayor of Youngstown, Ohio, from the foreword --Book Jacket.

It will be essential reading for anyone interested in arts and culture in the city.

This book provides a compelling and insightful portrait of ten female architects, artists, and designers who explored unique approaches to teaching, practice, and research in the postindustrial city of Detroit. These women explored the phenomenon of a new “ecological urbanism” through their own work in art, architecture, design, planning, landscape architecture, and installation as well as the work of their students. Teaching and Designing in Detroit provides an eighteen-year snapshot of this work, how it affected the women’s practice, how they influenced student relationships to design and community development, and how their visions are now being carried out in Detroit. This book is organized into sections that group stories according to their focus on practice, pedagogy, and community engagement. Included in the book is a foreword by Leslie Kanes Weisman, the only female architecture professor at the University of Detroit Mercy in the 1970s, and an afterword by Sharon Egretta Sutton reflecting on how working and practicing in Detroit foreshadowed the future vision now being carried out in the rebounding city of Detroit. An intriguing read for students and professionals, this book will illustrate how these lessons learned can be applied by universities and communities in other postindustrial cities.

A practical guide to what's working in urban reinvention with examples drawn from Detroit and other cities.

Shines a light on Detroit architect Wirt Rowland who, until now, has largely slipped into obscurity. In the early 1900s, Detroit was leading the nation in architectural innovation and designer Wirt Rowland was at the forefront of this advancement, yet few are even aware of his substantial contribution to the evolution of architectural style. It is widely believed that celebrated local architect Albert Kahn designed many of Detroit's structures, such as the General Motors and First National Bank buildings. In fact, while Kahn's efforts were focused on running his highly successful firm, it was Rowland, his chief designer, who was responsible for the appearance and layout of these buildings—an important point in appreciating the contributions of both Kahn and Rowland. During the early twentieth century, Rowland devised a wholly new or "modern" design for buildings, one not reliant on decorative elements copied from architecture of the past. As buildings became more specialized for their intended use, Rowland met the challenge with entirely new design methodologies and a number of improved technologies and materials that subsequently became commonplace. Designing Detroit: Wirt Rowland and the Rise of Modern American Architecture begins with a brief overview of Rowland's early life and career. Author Michael G. Smith goes on to analyze Rowland's achievements in building design and as a leader of Detroit's architectural community throughout both World Wars and the Great Depression. The interdependence of architecture with the city's fluctuating economic prosperity and population growth is explored, illuminating the conditions for good architecture and the arts in general. The author identifies the influence of Jay Hambidge's "dynamic symmetry" in Rowland's work and how it allowed him to employ color as a modern replacement for traditional ornamentation, leading to the revolutionary design of the Union Trust (Guardian) Building, for which he receives nearly unanimous praise in national media. This book is concerned primarily with Rowland's influence on Detroit architecture, but spans beyond his work in Michigan to include the designer's broad reach from New York to Miami. A comprehensive appendix includes extensive lists of Rowland's publications, locations he had designed, and jobs taken on by his firm during his tenure. This book represents new research and insights not previously discussed in either scholarly or general audience texts and will be of interest to casual readers of Detroit history, as well as architecture historians.