On the edge of downtown Detroit, just east of the Chrysler Freeway and not far from Detroit’s still-troubled neighborhoods, lies Lafayette Park, one of the nation’s most beautiful — and most obscure — residential developments. Composed of three sections — a high-rise apartment building and 21 multiple-unit townhouses on the western border, 13 acres of landscaping down the center, and twin apartment towers on the east — Lafayette Park holds the largest collection of buildings in the world designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
[Mies]Called “oft-overlooked” by the Harvard Design School and “a little-known jewel of modern urbanism” by Detlef Mertins, a professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, it should be renowned, both for its loveliness and for its ability to thrive through Detroit’s dark times of riots, destruction and middle-class flight.
The Biggest Mies Collection – WSJ.com Wall Street Journal – Julia Vitullo-Martin