This article was originally published on Common Edge as "Will Detroit ever Fully Recover from John Portman's Renaissance Center""

John Portman's Renaissance Centre in Detroit. Image via Wikimedia

This article was originally published on Common Edge as "Will Detroit ever Fully Recover from John Portman's Renaissance Center"" Last week I wrote about the anti-urban legacy of architect and developer John Portman. I think it?s worth going into a bit more detail about these projects, since we seem to have learned so little from their failures.Let?s start with Detroit. The Renaissance Center was one of his largest and most celebrated projects. But this sprawling complex of seven-interconnected skyscrapers poses some difficult questions for urban planners today: can downtown Detroit ever fully recover from this mammoth and ill considered development" And, more importantly, why haven?t other cities learned from its clear and stark lessons"
Detroit's elevated rail that runs through the downtown, as seen from the Madison Building. Image via Wikimedia

The first phase of the Ren Cen, as it?s known by locals, opened in 1977 and effectively vacuumed out what was left of the shaky but existent commercial life, locking it up inside a massive, internally confusing fortress on the Detroit River. To compound this planning disaster, Detroit built an elevated train from the Ren Cen, with limited destinations, drawing s...