Please join us for this online presentation.

The Japan America Society of Michigan and Southwestern Ontario’s ongoing series on ‘Japanese-American Design in Detroit’ brings attention to the city’s many long-established Japanese-American achievements. The Society is spotlighting the Noguchi legacy in Detroit’s Hart Plaza, where the ever-soaring stainless-steel pylon and the Horace Dodge Fountain grace a wide open expanse above a sunken theater. Dakin Hart, Senior Curator of The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in New York will make a presentation on the celebrated modern sculptor Noguchi, creator of this renowned public space on the Detroit riverfront next to the Renaissance Center. Generations of Detroiters and visitors share a memory of Hart Plaza where the multi-cultural city celebrates ethnic festivals, the International Jazz Festival, and Detroit’s Techno Music legend began. The atmosphere of this place in the city center is the product of Noguchi’s principles that space is an object to be sculpted, areas for play must be designed, and that sculpture should serve a civic purpose.

As Senior Curator for The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, Dakin Hart oversees the Museum’s exhibitions, collections, catalogue raisonné, archives, and public programming.