Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies: Lafayette Park, Detroit by Danielle Aubert, Lana Cavar, Natasha Chandini

Abstract

170 The Michigan Historical Review recommended reading for those with radical/alternative interests and tastes. Benjamin Thomason Central Michigan University Danielle Aubert, Lana Cavar, and Natasha Chandini, eds. Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies: Lafayette Park, Detroit. New York: Metropolis Books, 2019 (second edition). Pp. 304. Bibliography. Illustrations. Paper: $29.95. Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies: Lafayette Park, Detroit provides a very different look at Lafayette Park than anything else written about it. Built between 1958 and 1962, it was a postwar urban renewal project designed by architect Mies van der Rohe, landscape designer Alfred Caldwell, and urban planner Ludwig Hilbersheimer. The complex consists of single and two-story condominium townhouses and three high-rise rental towers. Rather than an architectural history, the book focuses on the residents. Therefore, it adds to the context of Mies’s work by considering how the buildings and the complex actually function, what assumptions made by the design team were correct, and which were not. The book was originally published in 2012, when the city was still reeling from the economic depression and white flight to the suburbs. It had not yet become the hip place it is now, and Lafayette Park had not reclaimed its iconic status. Two new essays by Marsha Music and Matthew Piper, plus a new preface, were added to consider these significant positive changes, but the rest is as originally published. As this is a snapshot in time, the reader needs to keep in mind how substantially different the situation is now. As with many collections of interviews, there is some overlap, and not all are equally substantial. Nevertheless, the wide range of stories by long-term residents creates a multilayered look at those who lived/live in Lafayette Park. For some, especially the tower residents, the motivation for living there had less to do with the architecture and more about affordable rents, convenience to downtown, and the diversity of the residents and well-maintained grounds. For others, particularly those who purchased the town- and court-houses, the aesthetics of space and place were important. For all, it seems like living in a modernist structure helped develop an appreciation of International-style large windows, open views and planned urban space. In one section, short interviews are paired with views from that person’s apartment window, allowing the reader into Book Reviews 171 spaces that are normally off-limits. Likewise, photographs of residents in the interiors of their homes with their varied furniture, belongings and pets are evidence that the stark modernist architecture did not dictate the interior design. As discussed by several people, it is also striking that without the gates and fences that are ubiquitous throughout the rest of Detroit, there is a sense of safety, security, and community achieved through the architecture and the setting. Additionally, the complex has always been racially integrated, as well as economically and age-diverse. Fifty years after construction, and seven since the original book’s publication, Lafayette Park has not only become increasingly valuable real estate altering the profile of the residents, but there has been a lot of attention paid to Michigan Modern architecture in general through the State Historic Preservation Office’s project. Exhibitions at Cranbrook Art Museum and the Grand Rapids Art Museum that followed their publication featured Lafayette Park, including a full-scale mock-up of a townhouse apartment living room. It would have been helpful to update the selected bibliography, but this does not detract from the unique contribution made by this book. Susan J. Bandes Michigan State University Sandy Barnard, ed.; Thomas E. Singelyn, comp. An Aide to Custer: The Civil War Letters of Lt. Edward G. Granger. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018. Pp. 295. Bibliography. Index. Notes. Cloth: $39.95. On August 20, 1863, 2nd Lt. Edward G. Granger from Detroit was appointed as a staff officer in the Michigan Cavalry Brigade by Bvt. Brig. Gen. George A. Custer, sometime resident of Monroe, Michigan. Granger was twenty, Custer twenty-three. Granger was shot off a runaway horse less than a year later while carrying orders to two regimental commanders who were charging Confederate positions at the Battle of Crooked Run. Custer, still...