Prince Concepts

Prince Concepts acquired this monument and 7 acres of land, on Detroit's East side, in 2018. The intent was to study, admire, preserve, and deftly develop the site surrounding it.

We were interested in employing the place making strategies we'd been implementing in Core City and try them in a different part of the Detroit, under different existing conditions and with a monumental backdrop.

After spending two years cleaning up, securing, thinking about and studying the site, Covid came and we were forced to fortify our position in Core City. In November of 2021, Prince Concepts sold the site and went back to fully focusing on Core City.

The buildings no longer exist. Like most monuments, they are now only memories, creating a myth.

Regardless, many lessons were learned during our time on the site. Here are some photos, studies, thoughts and lessons the site inspired.

Inspired by our community and the place making success in Core City, we wanted to extend the attitude of our work.

We were drawn to the supernatural, imposing and absolutely epic existing structures. As we saw it, we bought land, we also bought amazing, beautiful sculpture. We hadn't bought buildings.

Our ambition wasn't to turn the buildings into buildings again, it was to make them a new sort of public space. We wanted to develop around the monuments.

To us, this was the American Coliseum. We had the chance to revive the structure, not as a building, but as a public monument, and to develop a little world in its amazing shadow.

The remaining buildings were part of the Continental Motors factory, originally built in 1912. What remained were the original on site power plant building (1912), the smoke stack (1912) and the cast concrete testing cell building (1942) The remaining buildings and the original factory were all designed by Albert Kahn.

After purchasing the property, we learned that it already had a reputation as an icon: Historic Detroit, Detroit Urbex, Nailhead.

From Historic Detroit:

"The Continental Motors factory played a significant role in the "Arsenal of Democracy" that Detroit became during World War II, producing aircraft parts and combat vehicle motors, along with engines for R-975s and tanks. The facility was adapted to produce such engines and parts, including the addition of testing cells in 1942."

For me, these were not just mythical monuments, they were also personal. My grandfather was a navigator on a B24 bomber during WWII. In my mind, the engines for his plane, Dinah Might, were made and tested here. Wow!

I purchased the building as "Dinah Might LLC" the name of my grandfather's 52 mission strong combat plane. For me, the myth of this property further evolved as I began to understand that the engine for the plane my grandfather navigated during WW2 might have been made and tested here.

I understand this might seem irrelevant to the Continental project, but it actually captures our overall intent - to preserve and honor a moment in time. What would Rome be if they'd erased every obsolete monument? We wanted to work to preserve these structures as sculpture.

...back to the project...

There wasn't anything about the area - development or otherwise - that drew us to the site.

It was the buildings, their history, the acreage around them and the wilderness that had begun to surround them.

This was a distinctly Detroit site: abandoned American monuments, tied to a very special moment in American history, overlooking a sea of cars at the adjacent Chrysler plant (a sea of cars in Detroit is our ocean view - it's what the place is about), surrounded by a volunteer urban woodland.

Truly, this site, for us, was as uniquely Detroit as we'd ever seen.

Regardless, these elements didn't contribute to a ripe environment for urbanism:

Although a sea of cars at an auto factory is an "Ocean View" in Detroit, it doesn't inspire. Although these monuments marked a special moment in American history and architecture, they were more frightening than grand. And to most people, an overgrown urban woodland communicates abandonment.

Where others saw liabilities we saw amazing assets.

We spent months stripping and cleaning up the buildings and site; there were decades of dumped debris. In the process, we spent countless hours exploring.

After cleaning and mostly securing the buildings, the site was a focal point for architecture studio courses at Yale University, University of Arkansas School, and IIT - Chicago.

My brief to the students was always the same: the site is already amazing, do as little as you possibly can to make it WORK.

Before letting the site go, we considered taking a portion of the site and selling or leasing it, but with all the work we still had to do in Core City, and pressure from the City to either fully renovate or demolish the buildings, we sold the property and worked our way back West.

At first, the testing cell building made to sense - the building had some seriously special moments that wed never see in a building of today; but as we explored, we understood that the nature of a building that tests plane engines for max capacity needs to deal with heat, exhaust and the possibility of explosions.

As such, the building was designed to move rising heat and toxic fumes in a safe manner. Today's technology deals with these conditions differently, and therefore, we won't ever see a building that looks like this today. That's my belief, at least.

Where heat formerly rose, light now entered. Holy moments within the monument. The buildings offered some seriously spiritual spaces.

We were consistently inspired by the mysterious light, spiritual scale of the spaces, the rough and raw textures of concrete, brick and steel, and how you were always able to view the arcitecture of the building, from within the building.

The building never seemed to make any sense, although it was logical, it was built for the logic of another time, and therefore activated a different part of the mind.

All images in this section documented by Chris Miele in 2019.

The volunteer landscapes around the buildings also inspired us. Green was taking over. Trees materialized right up on the structures, in the structures and around them. Every crack had something growing out of it. An absolute inspiration for our coming projects.

Collaborators and architects visited the site. It was a pilgrimage and fact-finding journey, of sorts. Everyone wanted to experience the magnificence of Continental and think about how to activate it.

Most importantly, Edwin Chan and Jordan Squires of EC3, spent a couple of days with me at Continental. We studied the site, as we worked on the design of the, now built, Canopy Project.

Edwin took a different approach - instead of thinking about how to activate the existing site, he seriously considered how we employ its lessons in the future.

As we explored Continental, a concept for Canopy's site, elevation and landscape plans emerged: an abundant, wilderness with different height, shape and size buildings blasting out of lush, untamed greenery. This plan matched the wild, diverse, village feeling on the roof of the monumental "testing cell" building.

As we considered Continental and worked in Core City we realized that making a place, a real place with a dedicated community, considered and thoughtful projects and authentic vibrancy can’t be "scaled."

We decided to focus all our energy on Core City, and sold Continental in November of 2021, to ensure that Core City becomes a neighborhood that radiates myth, magic and sustainable vibrancy in the near and far future.

And although these buildings have now been demolished, their lessons are all over Core City.

A sincere thank you to Chris Miele for his amazing documentation of this property throughout all of 2019!