A Fisher Building scene from the two-minute video linked to below.
Detroit, where the surprises keep coming.
April begins with this amazement: Four days of skateboarding inside Albert Kahn's 1928 golden tower of marble, mosaics, brass and bronze.
Professional skateboarders, BMXers and bladers will do halfpipe stunts under the majestic, painted arches of the Fisher Building lobby on West Grand Boulevard. It's definitely "something you don’t see every day," as Curbed Detroit editor Robin Runyan writes.
She explains what's up:
From April 3-6, a skateboarding and BMX halfpipe will be set up in the Fisher Building, and spectators can watch from below.
It's open to the public for free from 6-9 p.m. Monday through Thursday this week. Participants who plan to attend are asked to click "Going" on this Facebook event page.
The pop-up attraction in a landmark called "Detroit's largest art object" is "curated" by a New York brand strategist, Everard Findlay. He's credited as director of a snazzy, two-minute promotional video by Detroit cinematographers Jordan Garland and Nate Reed.
Ramped Construction of Detroit is building the halfpipe. "Humbled to be able to make sawdust in such an iconic building in our home of Detroit," it posts on Facebook.
This online description from Findlay's crew has a few fancy flips and airy leaps of its own:
Fisher Halfpipe explores the idea of the commons, and the way that certain sports -- such as skateboarding -- transcend barriers of race, class and culture to draw disparate groups into community. An individual sport, in which the skater must contend with the laws of physics and physicality, skating is a true meritocracy; a level playing field, on which raw ability is readily apparent.
The Halfpipe itself will be a monolithic mass bisecting the main arcade of the Fisher Building lobby. Patrons will walk through gateways beneath and will be able to view skaters above with the magnificent Fisher as a backdrop, curves of the structure and the arcs of skaters cutting through space mirroring the Fisher’s vaulted, frescoed and inlaid walls and ceilings.
The Fisher Building holds a unique place in the Detroit story, emblematic of the dramatic highs and lows Detroit has experienced in the past century, built upon the velocity and momentum afforded by the motor vehicle. Through these fluctuations, beauty and humanity has survived and thrived.
FisherHalfpipe continues this story, with another kind of vehicle, another kind of momentum, another kind of high and low -- the Skateboard and the Rider -- triumphantly activating the phenomenal space through motion once again.
Whew, right? Elegant and airborne, just like . . . well, y'know.
