Detroit first U.S. city to win UNESCO's 'city of design' designation
Detroit's cultural and social role and history in design is something I think we from Detroit tend to take for granted.
Yet when one contemplates how much visual designs created in Detroit fill the eyespace of billions worldwide, in the form of autos crossing their lines of vision every day, the exposure is immense. I can't think of any other city whose visual creations are more seen in total across the years.
Can you?
Because industrial design is repetitive it is considered mundane, unremarkable and unnoticed. Nonetheless it fills landscape and housescape and has cultural and social impact.
So it is fitting and an honor that Detroit would be the first city to earn this interesting UNESCO designation.
From the Crain's Article:“Detroit is the cradle of American industrial modernism and one of the few cities that has fundamentally changed the way the world works, lives and moves,” said Richard Rogers, president of the College for Creative Studies, which founded DC3 with Business Leaders for Michigan in 2010.
"Detroit designers continue to have a powerful impact on society today, and being a part of the UNESCO network will magnify their impact,” he said in a release.
In honor of the designation, DC3 said it is planning a yearlong celebration of design in Detroit for 2016 and will share more details after the organization’s new Executive Director Olga Stella joins the team next month.
