Detroit Architecture

GM Renaissance Center

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:32:18 -0500

address:
East Jefferson Avenue

data:
Year Built: 1976-1981
Architect: John Portman & Associates

history:

Conceived by Henry Ford II and financed primarily by the Ford Motor Company, the Renaissance Center became the world's largest private development with an anticipated 1971 cost of $500 million. In part, civic leaders intended this ambitious urban renewal project to quell the white flight which followed social unrest from the 12th Street riot in 1967. The project was intended to revitalize the economy of Detroit. In 1970, Ford Motor Company Chairman Henry Ford II teamed up to form Detroit Renaissance, a private non-profit development organization, which he headed in order to stimulate building activity in areas of Detroit that had been severely impacted. The group announced the first phase of construction in 1971. In addition, Detroit Renaissance contributed to a variety of other projects within the downtown area in the ensuing decades. Henry Ford II sold the concept of the Ren-Cen to the City and community leaders. Detroit mayor Roman Gribbs touted the project as "a complete rebuilding from bridge to bridge," referring to the area between the Ambassador Bridge that connected Detroit to Windsor, Canada and the MacArthur Bridge, which connects the city with Belle Isle Park.

The "city within a city" began to rise. The first tower opened on July 1, 1976. In 1977, the central hotel tower of the Renaissance Center, which opened as a Westin Hotel, became the world's tallest all-hotel skyscraper, surpassing its architectural twin, the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel in Atlanta. When it opened, the cylindrical central tower was originally the flagship of the Westin Hotels. The top three floors of the hotel hosted an upscale restaurant, The Summit, that rotated to allow a 360 degree view.

In 1987 the elevated-rail mass transit Detroit People Mover, after many years of construction, began operation with a stop at the Renaissance Center. The forbidding concrete berms located in front of the building carried most of the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning equipment for the complex.

At first, the Ford Motor Company had occupied many offices in the building. In 1996, General Motors purchased the complex and moved its world headquarters to the Renaissance Center downtown from the New Center area. In 1996, GM initially paid $73 million to owner Highgate Hotels in Texas. By 2003, GM had completed an extensive $500 million renovation of the Renaissance Center in 2003, and included the work of many different architects including Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of Chicago, SmithGroup of Detroit, Gensler Detroit office, and Ghafari Associates of Dearborn. This included a $100 million makeover for the hotel. Among GM's first actions was to remove the berms facing Jefferson Avenue. The renovation includes a lighted glass walkway called the "green ring" for its green lights; it circles the mezzanine to make the complex easy to navigate.

GM's bold vision for it's renovation addressed some major short comings of the original John Portman design. The renovations addressed building's orignal urban solitude, difficult circulation, and created a badly needed connection to the river. Each of the renovation features successively draw the visitor deeper into the building eventually leading them to the Detroit River.

articles:
How the Renaissance Center changed the landscape of Detroit
Architectural Record
Metropolis

Comerica Tower

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:31:07 -0500

address:
500 Woodward Avenue

data:
Year Built: 1991 - 1993
Architect: John Burgee & Phillip Johnson
Style: Modern

history:
Formerly known as the One Detroit Center, the Comerica Tower was the last great skyscraper built in Detroit. While some have branded it postmodern, it is more appropriately identified as historicist with gothic inspired detailing and extensive use of granite.

Almost as if creating an entry portal for an enormous modern gothic church, a twin tower dubbed Two Detroit Center was proposed to be built directly east of the tower when the One Detroit Center was proposed, but a soft office market killed the plans, and Two Detroit Center was put on hold, indefinitely; a fate well known to the Fisher brothers. A parking deck now sits on the planned site.

links:
Official Website

Detroit Athletic Club

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:28:46 -0500

address:
241 Madison Avenue

data:
Year Built: 1915
Architect: Albert Kahn
Style: Renaissance

history:
Albert Kahn was influenced by Rome's Palazzo Farnese and other Renaissance works he discovered during his 1912 tour of Italy when he designed this dignified structure for Detroit's auto elite.

links:
Official Site

Articles:
Detroit News Archive

Dime Building

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:26:22 -0500

address:

719 Griswold

data:

Year Built: 1910

Architect: Daniel Burnham

Style: Neo-Classical

history:

Originally known as the Dime Savings Bank Building, this building was one of three remaining buildings designed by one the most celebrated architects at the time.

links:

Official Site

Coleman A. Young Municpal Center

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:24:42 -0500

address:
2 Woodward Avenue

data:
Year Built: 1951 - 1954
Architect: Harley, Ellington, & Day
Style: International Style

history:
Formerly known as the City County Building, it was renamed after the death of the former Detroit Mayor. As a composition, it is very similar to the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The center is comprised of an administration tower, the low 14-story building, and a court tower, the 21-story portion.

The building was part of Eliel and Eero Saarinen's vision for a Civic Center. Their vision included a naturalistic park, terraced to the river, surrounded by public buildings. Unfortunately, Saarinen's vision never materialized and the remote location of the City County Building did little to reinforce the development of the Civic Center.

Cass Technical High School

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:23:49 -0500

address:
?

data:
Year Built: ...
Architect: ?

history:
...

MGM Grand Casino

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:21:58 -0500

data:
Year Built: 2006 - 2007
Architect: Hamilton-Anderson, SmithGroup
Style: Art Deco

history:
Construction started on MGM's permanent gambling facility in 2006. The 17 story building incorporates a larger gambling space and adds much needed hotel rooms to downtown Detroit.

Buhl Building

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:20:57 -0500

address:
535 Griswold

data:
Year Built: 1925
Architect: Wirt C. Rowland (Smith, Hinchman, & Grylls)
Style: Neo-Gothic

history:
The Buhl Building was Detroit's first skyscraper and was the first of many prominent buildings designed by Wirt Rowland during his tenure at Smith, Hinchman & Grylls.

The architectural sculpture on the building was designed by Corrado Parducci.

links:
Official Site

Guardian Building

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:18:40 -0500

address:
500 Griswold Street

data:
Year Built: 1928 -1929
Architect: Wirt Rowland (Smith, Hinchman, & Grylls)

Style: Art Deco

history:
The Guardian Building, a National Historic Landmark, is a skyscraper in downtown Detroit, Michigan. Built in 1928 and finished in 1929, the building (originally called the Union Trust Building) is a bold example of Art Deco architecture, including some art moderne designs. Covering an entire city block, the main frame of the skyscraper rises 36 stories, capped by two asymmetric spires, one extending for four additional stories. The height of the building is 489 feet (149 m). The exterior blends brickwork with tile, limestone, and terra cotta. Nicknamed the "Cathedral of Finance," the building's interior is lavishly decorated with mosaic and Pewabic and Rookwood tile. Native American themes are common inside and outside the building. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and has undergone recent award-winning renovations. Wirt C. Rowland, of the Smith Hinchman & Grylls firm, was the building's architect while Corrado Parducci created the two sculptures flanking the Griswold Street entrance. During World War II, the Guardian Building served as headquarters for war time production; Detroit was called the "Arsenal of Democracy."

The building was purchased by Sterling Group in 2004. Under the Group's watch, the Guardian's office occupancy rate has nearly doubled, its promenade has been opened to the public for the first time in decades, and the building now has a doorman. Since this time the building has received exterior lighting accents at night and a new entrance canopy.

At the top of the Guardian Building's spire, is a huge American Flag, similar to the four smaller flags sitting atop nearby 150 West Jefferson.

links:
Official Website
National Register Entry

Detroit News

Chase Tower

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:58:30 -0500

address:

611 Woodward Avenue

data:

Year Built: 1959

Architect: Albert Kahn Associates

Style: Modern

history:

Like most bank buildings, the currently named Chase Tower has also been known as the The National Bank of Detroit and Bank One Building. The building occupies to former site of the oddly shaped ten-story Hammond Building, which was the first skyscraper in Detroit to employ a steel structural system.

Ford Auditorium

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:55:21 -0500

address:
Corner of Woodward & Jefferson Avenue

data:
Year Built: 1955
Architect: O'Dell, Hewlett, & Luckenbach
Style: Modern

history:
Built as the new home for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Ford Auditorium was placed according to Saarinen's original Civic Center plan. This very simple structure did little to disguise its primary function. Poor acoustics eventually led to the return of the DSO to their original home at Orchestra Hall in 1989. Sadly, the building has sat vacant ever since.

David Stott Building

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:52:44 -0500

address:
1150 Griswold St.

data:
Year Built: 1929
Architect: Donaldson and Meier
Style: Art Deco

history:
Located at the corner of Griswold and State Street, this building incorporates brick, marble (on the first three floors from the street), and limestone as its surface materials. As with many of the other Detroit buildings of the era it contains architectural sculpture by Corrado Parducci.

This building shares alot of similarities with Eliel Saarinen's 1922 competition entry for the Chicago Tribune Building. Both buildings taper as they rise via a series of setbacks and both towers were nearly devoid of any ornamentation - a clear indicator of the forthcoming modern skyscraper.

A. Alfred Taubman Student Services Building

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:49:40 -0500

address:
Lawrence Technological University

data:
Year Built: 2006
Architect: Harley Ellis Devereaux
Style: Modern

history:
The building is a geometic response to the Buell Building to which it is attached. The large curved glass atrium reinforces the west edge of the university's new quadrangleas as well as acting as the public image of the university.

The building incorporates a vegetated roof, geothermal energy, and a bioswale for stormwater management among other things that helped it obtain a LEED silver level certification.

Cranbrook Educational Community

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:48:10 -0500

data:
Year Built: 1930 - present
Architect: Various

history:
The Cranbrook Educational Community, a unique 300 acre campus begun in the 1930s, was envisioned as an artistic community that would help students insert the fundamentals of good design back into everyday life. Cranbrook developed out of a collaboration between Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen and Detroit News owners George and Helen Booth. All three disliked the "shoddy, machine-age goods" produced by America's industrial revolution. The Booths agreed to fund an institution based on Saarinen's belief that, since "creative art" could not be taught directly, artists needed to be part of a community in which they could learn from each other through observation and discussion. The focus of this effort was Cranbrook Academy, which opened in 1932 and quickly attracted students of architecture, sculpture, and painting from around the world. Its success led Saarinen to expand his original plans, and by the the early 1940s, the campus had evolved into what he called a "historic document" of his developing sense of "American" architecture. Various building and landscape designs display the influences of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Prairie" style, the International style, and the traditions of European classicism. World renowned sculptor and faculty member Carl Milles created more than 70 sculptures for the campus to complement Saarinen's architecture, and student-artists designed every gate latch, rug, and light fixture. This environment, one observer noted, encourages students "to invest their own work with the same degree of thoughtfulness, care, delight, imagination, and pride that the things around them showed."

Cranbrook's campus features the work of world-renowned architects such as Eliel Saarinen, Albert Kahn, Steven Holl, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien and Rafael Moneo and sculptors Carl Milles, Marshall Fredericks and others.

buildings:
Williams Natatorium, 1999 (Tod Williams and Billie Tsien)
Saarinen House, 1925 (Eliel Saarinen)
Cranbrook Institute of Science, 1936 (Eliel Saarinen), Addition, 1998 (Stephen Holl)

links:
Official Website
National Register Entry

Cadillac Place

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:45:43 -0500

address:
3044 West Grand Boulevard

data:
Year Built: 1919 - 1923
Architect: Albert Kahn

history:
In 1923, it opened as one of the largest office buildings in the world. Originally, it was known as the General Motors Building since it had housed the company's world headquarters from 1923 until 1996. In 1996, GM moved its world headquarters to the Renaissance Center and sold the magnificent building which is leased by the State of Michigan on a long term basis. Designed by noted architect Albert Kahn, Cadillac Place consists of four parallel 15-story wings connected together by a central backbone perpendicular to them. Kahn used this design to allow sunlight and natural ventilation to reach each of the building's hundreds of individual offices. In 2002, the State of Michigan thoroughly renovated the building and renamed it Cadillac Place. It houses State offices for the Detroit area and a State Court of Appeals.

links:
National Register