Architecture is about making the invisible, visible.

That poetic statement could be pondered for a lifetime. So, let’s begin! How does one begin to wrap a mind around this statement? The juxtaposition of the invisible against the visible makes my mind stretch and ache. Do you feel it? That stretching of misunderstanding meeting imagination? Great! This is right where we need to be! Architecture thrives in juxtaposition. At the intersection of two unlike things is where innovation begins. Enter: Detroit. This city is full of contradictions, juxtapositions, metaphors – it’s no wonder it’s full of artists.

In its simplest form architecture addresses our need for shelter, inhabitation. Take one step further, though, and architecture becomes more; architecture becomes art. It’s commonly stated that architecture is art with plumbing. Even from one of the earliest forms of studied inhabitations, the caves of Lascaux, we can see that art is present in dwelling places. The caves fulfilled multiple needs at once.

Photo of the caves of Lascaux. Source: http://blog.world-mysteries.com/strange-artifacts/prehistoric-cave-paintings/

Let’s fast-forward to Detroit, specifically Detroit at Livernois and 6 Mile last weekend. The Detroit Design Festival  was in full swing and Live6 was holding a reception in its future headquarters. Part of my job as a design consultant at the Detroit Collaborative Design Center was to arrange the space, which is currently under construction, into an event space. Part of this task was working with students from the University of Detroit Mercy to make an art sculpture. Another part of the task was ordering a porta-potty because the building doesn’t yet have working plumbing.

I couldn’t help but look at the outside of our event space and laugh. On one side of the building there is a beautiful, intentional art sculpture and on the other side of the façade, which is not pictured in the above, there was a porta potty out on the sidewalk. There really was no hiding it. We know what people need and we had to satisfy that need. A bathroom and an art piece activating the same space. Satisfying needs, both physical and metaphysical.

I began to wonder, what if we lifted up our bodily needs and made the bathroom a more beautiful, intentional space? What if the bathroom became the piece of intentional art? A different sort of dwelling place? If a bathroom –something incredibly mundane-can become art, what wouldn’t be art?

In the strangest way the sidewalk that night was a platform for the needs of the city. Yes, our basic human needs must be met, but we also deserve art and beauty. In many conversations with community members I’ve heard that among their desires for the work happening in their neighborhood, they just want to see something beautiful. We (the City) have so many needs and we must not forget that art/beauty is one of them.