Detroit Institute of Arts

Listen for a moment. Out on Woodward Avenue, traffic hums past. Up here, at the top of the steps, the sound softens. The building in front of you is pale stone, almost white in good light, and cool to the touch even on a warm afternoon. A bronze figure sits near the entrance, chin on his hand, lost in thought. Before you walk inside, take a breath. You are standing at the front door of one of the great art museums in North America.

This is the Detroit Institute of Arts. Its story begins in the 1880s, when it opened as the Detroit Museum of Art in a smaller building downtown. The city was growing fast. Wealthy families wanted Detroit to have the cultural weight of older cities on the East Coast. They gave money, and they gave paintings. Over the next decades, the collection grew far beyond what the first building could hold.

The building you see now opened in 1927. Its architect was Paul Philippe Cret, a French-born designer who worked in the Beaux-Arts style. That style comes from the famous art school in Paris, and it favours symmetry, classical columns, and grand, orderly halls. Think of it as a temple for art. Cret clad the building in marble, and he designed the interior so that visitors move from room to room as if reading a long book, one chapter at a time.

Now, about that bronze figure at the entrance. Yes, it is The Thinker, by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. This is not the only version in the world. Rodin's original design was cast several times in bronze, and museums on different continents hold one. Many visitors walk past without a second look. Pause here. Notice the weight of the shoulders, the tension in the feet, the way the whole body leans into a single idea.

Across the avenue, you may notice another grand stone building. That is the main branch of the Detroit Public Library, designed by Cass Gilbert, the architect of New York's Woolworth Building. The two buildings face each other like old partners. Together they anchor what Detroiters call the Cultural Center, part of the Midtown neighbourhood. Universities, museums, and cafés sit within a few blocks. On a good day, students, families, and office workers all cross these steps.

Step inside, and walk toward the centre of the building. This is where most people feel the floor drop out from under them. You are entering Rivera Court. Every wall here is covered with painting — huge figures, roaring machines, furnaces, and workers bent over their tasks. These are the Detroit Industry Murals, painted by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera in 1932 and 1933. Look up, look around. You are standing inside the artwork.

The murals were commissioned by Edsel Ford, son of Henry Ford, together with the museum's director at the time, William Valentiner. The country was deep in the Great Depression. Detroit's car factories were struggling. Rivera spent weeks studying the Ford Rouge plant in nearby Dearborn, one of the largest industrial complexes in the world. He sketched the assembly lines, the blast furnaces, and the people who worked there. Then he came back here and painted what he had seen.

Here is the first surprise. Rivera did not paint on canvas. He used fresco, an ancient technique in which pigment goes onto fresh, wet plaster. The colour becomes part of the wall itself as the plaster dries. There is no room for hesitation. Each day, plasterers prepared only the section Rivera could finish before it set. So every panel you see is a record of one working day, painted against the clock.

The murals caused a storm when they were unveiled. Some critics called them communist propaganda. Others objected to one panel showing a baby receiving a vaccination, with figures that resemble a traditional Nativity scene. Some local religious leaders were offended, and there were calls to whitewash the walls. Edsel Ford defended the work. The murals survived, and in 2014 they were named a National Historic Landmark. Few artworks in America carry that status.

Rivera was not alone in Detroit. His wife, the painter Frida Kahlo, came with him. Her time here was painful. She suffered a miscarriage during their stay, and she turned that grief into some of her most personal early work. When you stand in this court, it helps to remember that two very different artists lived through this year in Detroit. One painted machines and crowds. The other painted her own body and her loss.

Beyond Rivera Court, the galleries spread out in every direction. In 1922, this museum bought a self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh. It is often described as the first Van Gogh painting to enter an American public museum. Look for his short, restless brushstrokes, the colours set side by side. Nearby, you can find The Wedding Dance by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, full of peasants kicking up their heels at a village celebration.

Here is a second surprise many visitors miss. This museum holds a dark, smoky painting by James McNeill Whistler called Nocturne in Black and Gold, The Falling Rocket. It shows fireworks over a night garden in London. When it was first shown, the critic John Ruskin attacked it in print. Whistler sued him for libel and won — but the court awarded him only a tiny sum. The trial became a famous debate about what a painting is allowed to be.

There is one more story worth knowing. When Detroit went bankrupt in 2013, some creditors pointed at this collection. The city owned it, and they saw it as an asset to sell. For months, it seemed that famous paintings could leave Detroit forever. A rescue deal, often called the Grand Bargain, brought together foundations, the state, and the museum's own donors. The art stayed. The museum moved into the care of an independent nonprofit.

So as you walk these halls, remember that every painting here is still on these walls because people chose to keep it. When you leave, step back out past The Thinker and look down Woodward Avenue. The road runs toward the river and the old factory districts that Rivera painted. Listen to the traffic again. That sound — engines, motion, work — is the same city you just saw on the walls inside.