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Muro Arte | Arte Muro, Urban Interventions
University of Detroit Mercy | School of Architecture
Genevieve Fisk Loranger Architecture Center
September 18 to 22, 2006

Muro Arte | Arte Muro (Wall Art : Art Wall) is a new exhibition presented by the Study Abroad students of the University of Detroit Mercy's School of Architecture and professors Amy Green Deines and Constance Bodurow. These outdoor installations are representative of Detroit's social, psychological, and perceptual walls, initially inspired by a trip to Italy's ancient walled city of Volterra.

This studio class aimed for students to develop an awareness of walls, boundaries, portals, and the defining physical, social and cultural characteristics of both Volterra and Detroit, and ultimately, each individual city and town on this planet. With a mixture of art, architecture, and urban design backgrounds, the class was able to explore "walled conditions" from a number of viewpoints.

Our work focused on inquiry and commentary on future urban form and inhabitation: How do walls (both tangible and abstract) define cities? How does the wall function as an edge / seam / divide? How, given their embedded meaning, can wall conditions inspire design and change?

We asked them to investigate the possibility of portals--activating walls in order to define urban form and encourage use. The qualities of urban portals raise our awareness of the walled condition - they possess a duality of purpose: outlet and inlet, shelter and passage, inhibiting and encouraging human use and behavior and embodying a continuum of urban narrative and embedded meaning.

Located at Riverside Park, these "wall" installations celebrate the site's natural beauty while also asking how this environment could be positively utilized.

Dequindre Cut, Detroit's abandoned rail, houses these installations that question what should be done with post-industrial cities that continue to "exist and evolve without design."