AS Featured: Architecture in Detroit
Guardian Building
The main frame of the skyscraper rises 36 stories, capped by two asymmetric spires, one extending for four additional stories. The roof height of the building is 496 ft (151 m), the top floor is 489 feet (149 m), and the spire reaches 632 ft (192.6 m). Its nickname, Cathedral of Finance, alludes both to the building's resemblance to a cathedral, with its tower over the main entrance and octagonal apse at the opposite end and to New York City's Woolworth Building, which had earlier been dubbed the Cathedral of Commerce. Native American themes are common inside and outside the building. Wirt C. Rowland, of the Smith, Hinchman & Grylls firm, was the building's architect. The building rises from a granite and stone six story base with two Corrado Parducci created sculptures flanking the Griswold Street entrance. The exterior blends brickwork with tile, limestone, and terra cotta. Rowland's attention to detail was meticulous. He supervised the creation of the colored brick cladding to achieve the desired color for the exterior. Afterward, the brick was marketed by the manufacturer as "Union Trust Brick" and after 1939, as Guardian brick". Rowland designed furniture for the bank's offices and his attention went as far as designing tableware, linens and waitress uniforms for a restaurant in the building.
The building's three story, vaulted lobby is lavishly decorated with Pewabic and Rookwood tile. The semi-circular exterior domes are filled with Pewabic Pottery; Mary Chase Perry Stratton worked closely with the architect in the design of the symbolic decorations. A Monel metal screen divides the lobby from the banking hall on the second floor, the screen features a clock in the center designed by Tiffany. The building includes works by muralist Ezra Winter in the mosaic above the main lobby desk and the mural at the end of the banking hall. The large mosaic is of a pine tree and text that states the Union Trust Company's purpose for the building, "Founded on principles of faith and understating, this building is erected for the purpose of continuing and maintaining the ideals of financial services which promoted the organization of the institution". The mural highlights Michigan's industries such as manufacturing, farming and mining. In order to dampen the sound in the banking hall, its cement-plaster ceiling features a hand-painted canvas ceiling, which was stretched over a mat of horsehair.
The Fisher Building
The building known as “Detroit’s largest art object" has been dropping jaws in New Center for more than 90 years.
The Fisher -- built by the Fisher brothers of “Body by Fisher" fame -- opened in September 1928, at Second Avenue and Grand Boulevard. Once known as the Cathedral to Commerce, the 441-foot tower is decked to the nines in fancy marbles, mosaics, soaring, painted ceilings and a whole lot of brass and bronze. This world of shops, theater, art and architectural beauty is renowned architect Albert Kahn's masterpiece, “a superbly designed complex which displays some of the finest craftsmanship in any Art Deco style building constructed in the U.S. in the 1920s," the National Park Service says.
Unquestionably, the golden tower of the Fisher Building is one of the most recognizable sights in Detroit’s skyline.
Penobscot Building
The 47-story Greater Penobscot Building towers over Campus Martius, an Art Deco masterpiece that has dominated the city's skyline for more than 80 years.
The building is named after a tribe of American Indians in New England. The name Penobscot means "the place where the rocks open out." Simon J. Murphy, who made a fortune as a lumber baron before coming to Detroit, spent his youth working on the Penobscot River in Maine. As the nation moved west, Murphy’s lumber empire moved with it, and he settled in Detroit. When it came time to name his new building, his thoughts returned to his roots.
There are actually three Penobscot buildings. The first is the 13-story building Murphy erected in 1905, though he died shortly before it opened. It was joined by a 24-story tower in 1916 built. The third, the 47-story tower known as the Greater Penobscot, was built at a cost of $5 million. The latter two Penobscots were built by his family.
The 47-story Greater Penobscot towers over Campus Martius, an Art Deco masterpiece that has dominated the city’s skyline for more than 80 years. Its cornerstone was placed Dec. 17, 1927. It was the eighth-tallest building in the world when it informally opened on Oct. 22, 1928, and the fourth-tallest in the United States. At 565 feet, it remained the king of Detroit’s skyline until 1977, when it was surpassed by the 729-foot Renaissance Center. It has since been demoted to the number three in town.
The building’s formal opening was held Jan. 14, 1929 — less than a month before the death of William H. Murphy, son of the man who erected the first of the three Penobscots.
There is an urban legend that the building’s 100-foot tower with its winking red orb was once used as a port for a dirigible. In truth, this “blazing ball of fire,” as one newspaper article described it at the time, was simply an aviation beacon. These days, the tower and its sometimes-blinking red light are simply for decoration. The orb, which is 12 feet in diameter, was first turned on when the building opened 79 years ago and can be seen 40 miles away — when it’s working, anyway.
The building has not been without controversy over its eight decades. For example, those are indeed swastikas adorning the exterior of the Penobscot, but they weren’t put there by Nazis. The swastikas are part of the building’s American Indian motif and symbolize sun worship. Suggestions during World War II to get rid of them were discarded. The swastikas on the Penobscot also are angled differently than those used in Nazi Germany.
The building's lower floors feature the work of master sculptor Corrado Parducci, who, in a tribute to Murphy's beloved Maine, created a river-like motif and another with logs floating down stream.
THE MASONIC TEMPLE
The Detroit Masonic Temple has been the largest Masonic Temple in the world since 1939, when the Chicago Masonic Temple was demolished. The stage of the auditorium is the second largest in the United States, having a width between walls of 100 feet (30 m) and a depth from the curtain line of 55 feet.
The large complex includes a 16-story 210-foot ritual building connected to a 10-story wing for the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, now known as Shriners International, by the 7-story Auditorium Building. In between these areas are a 1,586-seat Scottish Rite Cathedral, and a 17,500-square-foot drill hall used for trade shows and conventions. The drill hall is also home to Detroit Roller Derby. The drill hall has a floating floor, where the entire floor is laid on felt cushions. This type of construction, also known as a sprung floor, provides 'give' to the floor which tends to relieve the marchers.
The building houses two ballrooms: the Crystal Ballroom; and the Fountain Ballroom, the latter of which measures 17,264 square feet and accommodates up to 1,000 people. An unfinished theatre located in the top floor of the tower would have seated about 700.
Seven "Craft Lodge Rooms" all have different decorative treatments, the motifs of decoration being taken from the Egyptian, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Italian Renaissance, Byzantine, Gothic, and Romanesque styles. All of the artwork throughout the building, especially the decorated ceilings, was done under the direction of Italian artists. The building includes Royal Arch room, as well as a Commandery Asylum for the Knights Templar.