On Saturday, the former Good Shepherd Catholic Church reopened as a 16,000-square-foot arts campus run by Library Street Collective. The building has not held mass since 2016. About 4,000 people walked through it during opening weekend.
Anthony and JJ Curis, who founded LSC downtown in 2012, bought the church and surrounding lots in 2020. Brooklyn-based Peterson Rich Office handled the architecture. The original 1911 Romanesque shell stays intact. Inside, two new gallery spaces have been carved into the nave, the altar functions as a performance stage, and Asmaa Walton of Black Art Library is curating a public archive of artists of color housed in one of the transepts. The old confessionals are now multimedia listening booths. A new mezzanine sits over the de-sanctified altar with a five-foot oculus cut through its center, looking down on the gallery floor.
The grounds run another 3.5 acres. Charles McGee Legacy Park anchors the green space with three of the late artist's sculptures, including his first figurative work in public sculpture. McArthur Binion and Tony Hawk designed the skatepark on the southwest side. The bed and breakfast in the former rectory is called ALEO, after the Angel, Lion, Eagle, and Ox figures from the church's old murals. Modern Ancient Brown Foundation, Binion's nonprofit supporting Black and Indigenous artists, takes the third floor.
The first show is Charles McGee: Time Is Now, curated by MOCAD artistic director Jova Lynne. It runs through July 20 and pairs with a sister McGee show opening at MOCAD on June 28. McGee died in 2021. The work on view spans his Linkage Series and the patterned assemblages he built late in life.
Andi Watson, a longtime lighting designer for Radiohead, did the lighting. Office of Strategy + Design did the landscape, including the alley-turned-walkway called The Nave. Allison Glenn, a curator who grew up in Detroit, runs the Shepherd's artistic program.
LSC worked with the East Village Association and Jefferson East, Inc. through the planning process. Rochelle Riley, the city's director of arts and culture, consulted on community input.
Two adjacent houses are being adapted into BridgeHouse, a four-bay culinary commercial space. A garage off the church is becoming a wine and cocktail bar called Father Forgive Me. A Lorcan O'Herlihy-designed gallery for Louis Buhl & Co. opens later in 2024 as part of the same campus. A few blocks west on Kercheval, the LANTERN building, OMA's first Detroit project, opened the day before with Signal-Return, PASC, and Assemble Sound inside. The whole campus has a name now. Little Village.
East Village sits between Indian Village and Jefferson-Chalmers, blocks from the river, and has been associated with the fine arts since Pewabic Pottery built its Tudor home on East Jefferson in 1907. The Shepherd is the most ambitious attempt in a long time to test whether a contemporary arts campus can pull weight in a residential corridor.
1265 Parkview Street, East Village.
