Deadline Detroit photo
The Heidelberg Project, a collection of unique outdoor projects in the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood on Detroit's east side, has survived quite a bit since its creation in 1986. The city tried multiple times over the years to demolish it. And a series of fires destroyed some of the projects. Some called it unique art. Some argued it was nothing more than creative blight.
Mark Stryker of the Detroit Free Press writes that after 30 years, the creator, artist Tyree Guyton, is dismantling the "internationally acclaimed outdoor wonderland of wit and whimsy, painted abandoned homes and repurposed urban debris."
Guyton won't be eliminating art in the 3600 block of 3600 Heidelberg Street. He's just got something else planned.
Stryker reports:
No, it's not going to happen right away. No, hostile city officials are not dispatching bulldozers to knock it down as they did in 1991 and 1999. No, Guyton is not abandoning his life's work or waving a white flag in the face of 12 arson-fueled fires that have destroyed six houses since 2013. During the next few years, the Heidelberg Project, which draws an estimated 200,000 visitors a year from all over the globe, will morph into something the organization is calling Heidelberg 3.0 — an "arts-infused community" rather than an installation driven by one man.
What exactly that will look like remains an open question. But make no mistake: The Heidelberg Project as the world has known it for decades is coming to an end.
"After 30 years, I've decided to take it apart piece-by-piece in a very methodical way, creating new realities as it comes apart," Guyton tells the Freep. "I gotta go in a new direction. I gotta do something I have not done before."
