About Lafayette Park Detroit
Lafayette Park is the outcome of an urban renewal project that was launched in 1946. The section bounded by Lafayette Avenue, Rivard, Antietam, and Orleans streets occupies about 78 acres and is based on a “superblock” plan that Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Ludwig Hilberseimer devised in the mid-1950s. Closed to through traffic, it has a thirteen-acre city- owned park running through its center. This sweep of green is dotted with trees and contains playing fields, tennis courts, and a series of curving walkways. On its periphery are eight housing complexes, a shopping center, and a public school. Although Mies van der Rohe was to have designed all of Lafayette Park’s buildings, only the high-rise Pavilion Apartments, the twin Lafayette Towers, and the low-rise Mies van der Rohe Town Houses and Court Houses were built to his specifications. With their skeletal framing, aluminum and glass “skins,” and spare, open interiors, these buildings typify Mies’ distinctive post-World War II style. Together with the park that connects them, all of the buildings within the boundaries identified above are significant parts of the larger whole. Set in a naturalistic landscape designed by Alfred Caldwell, the area has often been described as a “suburb in the city.” The thoughtful planting scheme, open green space of the park, scale and placement of buildings, and relative absence of cars are among the factors that help define the uniqueness of Lafayette Park.
