Before Motown – After Techno: Designing for the Detroit Musical Continuum

Detroit has attitude, energy and grit – all qualities that allowed it to create sounds that revolutionized the world of music. Its musical legacy and current reality as a hotbed of innovation will form the cultural and pedagogical framework of the semester\’s design investigations at two scales -the urban and the architectural. The semester will be organized in two phases through two projects at two different scales. At the urban scale, we will create of a new mixed-use cultural district in downtown Detroit building on the city\’s unique musical legacy as a center for the production and consumption of contemporary music. The second project, at the architectural scale will be the design of a new type of institution – a music experience museum. This project will be a hybrid architectural program requiring the combination of exhibition, music production and performance spaces. The studio will include a four-day studio fieldtrip to the city of Detroit, Michigan. Two days will be spent at touring the campus of Saarinen\’s Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI.