Yes, Noguchi is a very important artist and designer in the history of modern art, in the US, Japan, and elsewhere. With his mixed parentage, international education, and frequent traveling, he mixed Japanese aesthetic elements and use of materials with American and Western artistic forms in a way that created wholly new and starkly beautiful objects and landscapes. In addition to Hart Plaza, he is also connected to Michigan through his furniture designs for Herman Miller Inc. in Zeeland, some of which are still in production over 70 years later.
In my view, destroying Hart Plaza [[rather than repairing it and perhaps tweaking its functionality a bit) would be an act of artistic and cultural vandalism. One Detroit would come to regret, the same way we now regret tearing down City Hall or the Monroe Block, or regret destroying so many neighborhoods [[including the one that once stood where Hart Plaza is today) in the name of 'urban improvement'.
Noguchi is one of the few artists in the U.S. to have an entire museum devoted to his work [[in Queens NYC, just across the East River from Manhattan). Several years ago a friend of mine who is a producer for PBS in NYC, and knew Noguchi in his last years, made a film for the museum on Noguchi's public works. I helped her find photos and film in the possession of the City of Detroit, that were taken at the time of the plaza's construction and opening. You can see in the film many of the fine details, such as the lights K-slice mentions above, and the proper functioning of the fountain, which have been allowed to completely decay under the city's lack of stewardship.
Here is a page from the Noguchi Museum's website of his many public works [[parks, sculptures, landscaping, etc.), including Hart Plaza:
https://www.noguchi.org/artworks/public-works/
Noguchi's bio from the museum:
https://www.noguchi.org/isamu-noguch...phy/biography/