lecturesHAA is pleased to announce its 2011/2012 program: “PROVOCATIONS: Challenging Detroit’s Design Discourse”.  This bi-monthly lecture series will begin in June and continue through the end of 2012.  Each panel discussion will invite local, regional, and national figures to discuss what makes Detroit provocative.  Set in a variety of under-utilized, contested, and historically charged spaces throughout our city, each event seeks to challenge the participants through candid discourse and direct engagement of the built environment.  It is the aim of each panel discussion to explore new urban strategies that promote social equity and advocacy.  We believe good design (and good design discourse) is a proactive and critical act, toeing the line between conflict and resolution.  While each event exists for only a moment, the entire series will provide a lasting catalogue of constructive dialogue, informing Detroit’s shared creative consciousness.

GLUE is so excited to welcome its newest blogger--and my neighbor--to the blog.  Meet Detroit's Melissa Dittmer!

Tell us about one of the primary ways you spend your time (work, volunteering, fun—pick whatever is relevant to GLUE).  When not engaged in the professional practice of architecture and urban design, I spend much of my time advocating for design, urban initiatives, and design discourse.  Through the directing of a non-profit architectural advocacy group, rogueHAA, the editing of an urbanism blog, rogueHAA, and the shared coordination of a lecture series, lecturesHAA, I attempt to incite discussions and constructive critiques of Detroit’s built urban environment. 


Tell a story about how or why you ended up living where you do.  My husband and I are both architects and urban designers.  Following the completion of our graduate studies, we took stock of our professional and personal aspirations.  When tallied, all of these items would have taken decades, and a small fortune, in a city like New York, Boston, or Chicago.  In Detroit, however, we were immediately presented with opportunities as soon as we landed: working as an architect on meaningful Detroit-specific projects, starting a family, my husband started his own firm, the establishment of meaningful friendships, we bought a Mies van der Rohe designed townhouse, etc…

Describe one of your favorite places or things to do in your city.  Every Saturday throughout the year, I go (with my husband and two boys) shopping for fresh produce and locally made foods at the Eastern Market.  We eat breakfast at Russell Street Deli and then spend another hour grazing through the three farmer’s market sheds.  Afterwards, I try to work off all those calories on the seven miles of pedestrian-friendly, uninterrupted riverfront running paths. 

While many of our cities are still bemoaning the not-surprising but still disheartening emerging census data showing that our decades-long population loss has continued, a report released a couple of weeks ago that shows that, while yes, the Detroit population overall showed a loss, certain neighborhoods have maintained population--or even grown.

In a brilliant move, the Rust Belt to Artist Belt conference, started and run successfully for two years by the Cleveland Partnership for Arts and Culture, is now bringing its arts redevelopment focus to Detroit (I love the idea of organizations sharing a conference--so different from the territoriality that we often encounter!). Now hosted by the relatively new Detroit Creative Corridor Center, with partnership from ArtServe and Techtown, the conference hopes to: ...

Have you seen Yves Marchand's and Romain Meffre's photos of The Ruins of Detroit? You might marvel at the scale of decay they depict, feel saddened by the loss of history, or simply wonder what led to the demise of so many once vibrant places. In a recent essay, Detroitism, John Patrick Leary critiques the value of these ruination photos and our cultural fascination with aesthetic urban decay. As symbols of decline, the photos not only fail to show us the potential for renewal, but they "present no way to understand our own relationship to the decline we are seeing."

EileenDiv recently uploaded this awesome shot of the Russel Center to GLUE's flickr pool. This mural is the largest of the midwest, and every time I see it--whether in person or not--there's a new facet of the mural I get sucked into. The new mural celebrates Detroit's history, especially through the chimera-like tribute to Detroit's Lions, Pistons, Red Wings, and Tigers.

Speaking of athletic tributes, Detroit got a shout-out at the Super Bowl during an awesome Chrysler commercial. With great shots of the city, an endorsement from Eminem, and the slogan "imported from Detroit", millions of Super Bowl watchers got to see a side of Detroit that the media doesn't often publicize....

Howard Wial of the Brookings Institution

Midtown Detroit's seeming fairy godmother, the University Culture Center Association (UCCA) announced today the creation of a new program the entices people who work at Wayne State, Henry Ford, and the Detroit Medical Center to live and invest in Midtown.

EXACTLY, Urbanophile. "Yet too often [Detroit's] own residents feel the need to downplay it, euphemistically referring to the region as

A brilliant example of how there's nothing like a good old-fashioned goofy fun to highlight the good things people, on their own, are doing in the city.