The architectural imagination

The Architectural Imagination presents new speculative architecture projects designed for specific sites in Detroit but with far-reaching applications for cities around the world. As the home of the automobile industry, the free-span concrete factory, Motown, and techno, Detroit was once a locus of invention. In recent years it has loomed in the public consciousness as a city with a depleted population and an urban landscape pockmarked with blight. Today Detroit has emerged from bankruptcy, and there is a new urgency in the air to imagine and plan for the city’s possible futures, both in the downtown core and in its many neighborhoods. Believing in the potential of architecture to catalyze change, the curators selected 12 visionary American architectural practices to address these futures. The projects not only demonstrate the value of diversity of the architectural imagination but also have the potential to spark the collective imagination, thus launching new conversations about the importance of architecture in Detroit and cities everywhere.