Replanning Downtown Detroit – Part 7 of 8
INTERNATIONAL CENTER
Section “F” on the map:
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="400px" width="1000px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
Heidi Fujii, R.E. Wiese
INTERNATIONAL CENTER
The area under consideration for this part of Central Business District study is bounded on the west and south by the John Lodge Expressway, on the north by Michigan Avenue and on the east by Second Avenue. Immediately to the east of this area is the Convention Mall, leading from Convention Hall north to Grand Circus Park.
Areas designated by the letter A are to be an International Center. The southernmost block ‘ would be a multi-story office building housing foreign consulates and the United States Customs Service. The remaining part of area A would be a gay and colorful grouping of low structures comprising foreign shops, restaurants, stores and an international information center. Only pedestrian traffic would be permitted within this area.
Areas designated by the letter B lying along Michigan Avenue would be an Automotive Research Center. This Center would be sponsored cooperatively by the entire automobile industry for the advancement of transportation.
Area C consists of three or four-story office buildings. These would house the executives and administrative personnel of companies which have their manufacturing facilities elsewhere.
Area D provides parking for all the above groupings.
Typical mall view.
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Wow, this stuff is incredible! On paper, that is. Mercifully, little of it came to fruition.
No lagoon and googie-shaped island where the RenCen is (okay, that one's a toss-up); no wandering Beaubien Boulevard (north of Lafayette, anyway) in a sea of Corbusian clones; no Grand Circus Theater (today's Opera House) demo for "warehouses"; no architectural Norelco triple-head shaver where Merchant's Row is; no reduction of Campus Martius to a traffic circle in wasted space; no grade-separated Convention Mall to pull more pedestrians off real sidewalks and no International Metropolis theme park-type "neighborhood" west of Second.
Versions of a few of these things actually did happen though. Some changes to the street grid shown on drawings in pt.3 were built. The People Mover is what Letter G in the first drawing became. And the IRS facility in Area F (now the temporary MGM) got developed about as blockily as drawn in pt.7, along with the acres of parking in the balance of the area.
Modernism still has so much atoning to do today!