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A skyline is the sum of a thousand visions. Some mature into mortar and steel; others succumb to politics, to lack of money or to common sense. But
what if all the dreamers' dreams came true? What would Detroit look like
then?
Welcome to Unbuilt Detroit.
It's the city that might have been. It contains all our familiar landmarks
--and much, much more.
Like a soaring glass canopy over Woodward Avenue, and a new racetrack on
the near west side. In this version of Detroit, most of downtown's once vacant
lots now sprout skyscrapers. And yes, a new Tiger Stadium -- one with a dome
that opens and closes like a camera lens -- has replaced the old ballpark at
Michigan and Trumbull.
Fanciful? Of course. This is Detroit as dreamers have envisioned it over
the years.
No one ever saw the city in just this way. But we collected as many of the
unrealized plans for new buildings and projects as we could find. Then we
plugged them all into the skyline, where their creators wanted them to go, to
see what Detroit might have looked like.
Why? Because a city's history includes the flops as well as the successes.
Because some of the schemes came tantalizingly close to reality. And because
even the failed projects convey a sense of the creative power that dreamers
have focused on Detroit.
Consider:
In the 1920s, Albert Kahn conceived the Fisher Buildings -- not one tower,
but three. The colossus would have spanned the full block of Grand Avenue
between Second and Third. A 60- story skyscraper would have been flanked by
two smaller towers.
But the Fisher family built only the first of the smaller towers. And,
today, we know it as the Fisher Building. Before Kahn could proceed with the
rest of his scheme, the Great Depression wrecked the building industry. Kahn's
masterpiece, the 60-story tower, was never built.
Also in the '20s, architect Eliel Saarinen created a design for Detroit's
civic center plaza, now known as Hart Plaza. Saarinen's design included a
domed memorial hall to honor America's veterans. Near it, he envisioned a
soaring tower that would dominate the riverfront skyline.
It came close to reality. Voters approved the plan in a referendum. But
money could never be found to actually build it.
Just last year, architect Cesar Pelli created his controversial design for
a new Comerica Inc. headquarters. It, too, would have gone on the riverfront,
where Ford Auditorium stands. But the plan didn't survive the bitter public
debate over the auditorium, and the bank decided to lease offices elsewhere in
downtown.
All American cities have these unbuilt histories. And sometimes the
unbuilt cities are more interesting, and exert more influence on architecture,
than the real ones.
In the 1920s, the Chicago Tribune asked architects to submit designs for
a new Tribune Tower. Ideas poured in. It became architecture's most famous
design competition ever. Bold new modernists like Eliel Saarinen and Walter
Gropius offered designs. Their schemes fired the imaginations of architects
everywhere.
But the winner? A backward-glancing design with a late medieval look. It
made a pretty postcard, and it satisfied those who seek "authentic"
architecture. But even in the 1920s, architects learned more about
skyscrapers from the unbuilt designs than from the one that made it.
All architects mourn their favorite unrealized plans. For Detroit architect
William Kessler, it may be his proposal for a domed Tiger Stadium in the
'60s, or perhaps the one for a Wayne County courthouse skyscraper next to the
City-County Building in the late '70s.
"Some of the best ideas go down the tubes, " Kessler says ruefully.
But if we regret some lost schemes, let's face it -- many are better off
forgotten. Lots of developers have pitched deals over the years for new
downtown hotels and office buildings. A few succeeded. The other plans, if
built, might have just increased the glut of empty space.
Maybe if the Fisher Buildings had been built as proposed, they would have
sucked more jobs and tenants out of downtown Detroit to New Center. No one
knows.
Or consider Detroit's riverfront. Some dreamers have wanted to build it
thick with high-rise towers. Others wanted the riverfront preserved for
public use, and cheered the demise of the high-rise plans. But schemes for a
waterfront park, stretching from downtown to Belle Isle, also went nowhere.
Why do projects fail? Clearly, one reason is money. William Kessler's
high-rise courthouse for Wayne County was part of the county's wish list in
the '70s. It didn't survive the budgetary light of day.
Lack of land is another reason. A mid-'80s plan for a hotel and office
complex near Fort and Cass hinged on landowners selling their different
parcels to developers. But some refused to sell, and the plan folded.
Some proposals just don't generate much interest among prospective tenants.
That's the case with numerous plans for downtown office towers.
And political or popular unrest has killed many a project. Today's latest
round of proposals for a new Tiger Stadium may yet fall into the unbuilt pile.
After all, stadiums have been proposed here before.
And so it goes.
Over time, most architects grow reconciled to the high attrition rate.
It's the nature of their business. Perhaps in no other endeavor is so much
creative effort wasted.
And wasted it is. Dreaming unfulfilled dreams may be a learning
experience. But there is no central archive, no idea bank, where unbuilt plans
go for further study. They get shelved and collect dust until somebody clears
them out and throws them away.
Odd as it seems, some architects even enjoy losing the occasional design to
the unbuilt pile.
Architects make money in two phases: first from design work, and second
from overseeing the actual construction. Often, the profit margin is higher
on the design phase. And problems in construction can cut deeply into an
architect's profit.
Sometimes the problems are bad enough to turn a job into a loss. So a job
that's canceled after the design phase but before construction at least
generates some profit.
Still, money isn't everything. The game is in getting things built, not in
drawing pretty pictures. Architects like Cesar Pelli know that.
Pelli had already reshaped the skyline of lower Manhattan when he got the
commission to design Comerica's riverfront headquarters. It was a dream
assignment. It gave Pelli a historic chance to put his stamp on Detroit's
skyline.
True, many later found his design lackluster. Certainly it was
controversial, mostly because building it would have required the razing of
Ford Auditorium. Many critics were aghast that the city would even consider
selling public riverfront land to private developers.
But, if nothing else, Pelli's design would have provided Detroiters
decades-worth of material for discussion. Detroiters still talk about the work
of Albert Kahn, who designed General Motors' headquarters and many other
projects, 50 years after his death. Fifty years from now, they might have
talked about the impact of Pelli's slim tower on the riverfront. Now, they
never will.
"It's always very disappointing, " Pelli says of losing a design. "Because
in order to design, one needs to engage the site, the city, the people as
deeply as one can.
"A design is something that one does with everything one has. One must
embrace it with one's mind and one's emotions completely, with all the
optimism and faith possible, " Pelli says. "Because that's what architecture is
all about -- faith in the future."
But there is another moral to draw from our unbuilt saga. All our existing
buildings had false starts and shaky beginnings. Even the Renaissance Center
had birth pangs. Our large number of unbuilt designs merely proves that
Detroit is imbued with the drive to create.
And nowhere is that more true than with Tiger Stadium. Since the 1960s,
there have been no fewer than four plans to replace or renovate the ballpark.
Each was an attempt to adapt to our changing, contemporary needs. That effort
continues today.
Whether we see a new Tiger Stadium, or the current ballpark patched up, we
ought to see the many schemes not as cacophony but as a sign of hope. Our
noisy, contentious, even rancorous public debate proves that here in Detroit,
the desire to excel still burns within.
DICK ROCHON founded his architectural illustration practice in 1961 after
working 10 years as an architectural designer in the Detroit area. At his
office in Dearborn, he has worked in all mediums, from transparent to opaque
watercolor, pencil and ink. His publications include the illustrations for
"Color in Architectural Illustration" published this year. In 1990, he was
made an honorary member of the Michigan Society of Architects.
JOHN GALLAGHER has written about architecture and real estate development
for the Detroit Free Press since 1987. A native of New York City, he is a
graduate of DePaul University in Chicago. |
