Detroit’s Belle Isle Aquarium: An Idiosyncrasy of Identity, Style, Modernity, and Spectacle

Inspired by the city of Detroit’s substantial redevelopment in recent years – particularly the State of Michigan’s capital investments in Belle Isle Park, the Detroit Zoo’s proposal for a new aquarium on the downtown riverfront, and the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy’s plans to establish West Riverfront Park – this thesis examines the cyclical civic interest in the design of public parks and the construction of communal spaces within them through the case study of the Belle Isle Aquarium, completed in 1904. Each chapter functions as an arterial avenue within a theoretical and empirical framework which begins with a consideration of the nuanced circumstances surrounding the aquarium’s commissioning, including how design requirements set forth by the Detroit Parks and Boulevards Commission combined with the European study of architect Albert Kahn to produce an aesthetic which fuses grotesque, Auricular, and Mannerist elements. Also investigated is the way in which aquatic design and international exposition culture coalesced to imbue Detroit with connections to specific histories and influenced the aquarium’s embodiment of grandiosity, mystery, beauty, and spectacle. Later, the way in which the aquarium integrates museological and educatory practices to effectively train its visitors to become more civilized, worldly, and – most indeterminately – modern, is examined, thus returning the dialog to the backdrop of the contemporary.