Detroit

We’re so back. Work travel is bouncing back in 2023! In May I went to Detroit for a few days with Brand New Box colleagues to kick off a new project and get some face time with a new client. They’re really interesting and I hope I can write more about them in the future, although the project is NDA’d to death right now. But it was great to meet them and learn about their business. They’ve got a very unique company culture that the founder has built, and I hope we get to work together a lot more.

In the actual travel notes, I’ve never been outside the Detroit airport before, so it was fun to see downtown a bit, visit the Detroit Institute of Art where they’ve got a Tilman Riemenschneider. That place has an incredible collection. I didn’t know what a top-tier museum it is! The American paintings were really cool, and there’s a can’t miss big mural by Diego Rivera, something I didn’t think I had much interest in until I saw it. Of course my fave was a small display on stone carving techniques, including some unfinished carvings.

Fun for me to go down to the riverfront and look across the river at Windsor, Canada. I’ve never been to Canada (still haven’t) and this was the closest so far. One day, you Canucks.

We explored as much of the Guardian Building as we could, a very neat art-deco ish building.

Then the bulk of the trip was out in a very nice bedroom community, which reminded me a lot of a smaller, weller-heeled Lawrence. But even out there, it’s clear the influence of the auto industry is ever-present. I’ve never really been to such an ‘industry town’, unless you count LA or SF. Interesting to think about how much a national industry can shape a city.