New Center, New Blog

Welcome to my first blog post!  From now on, I will be sharing weekly posts with photographs and stories about my favorite architecture around Michigan, and wherever else I happen to be.  The idea is that I will be constantly creating images outside of my commercial work and thinking more critically about my surroundings.

This week is all about Albert Kahn buildings in New Center, Detroit; two of which are National Historic Landmarks.   If you ever find yourself in Detroit, be sure to check out the New Center neighborhood, just a 10 minute drive up Woodward Ave from Downtown.  Once you arrive, you will be treated to a handful of masterful Albert Kahn buildings in a small, three block vicinity.

Albert Kahn is considered the foremost industrial architect of the 20th Century, perhaps of all time.  He is responsible for a number of design feats that helped turn Detroit into the nation’s fastest growing city in the 1910s, and into a world class city by 1930.

The Fisher Building (shown below), at the corner of 2nd Ave and Grand Blvd has long been referred to as “Detroit’s largest art object.”  The archetypal Art Deco highrise is teeming with 1920s design.  The Fisher Body Corporation provided a groundbreaking solution for a closed body design that was originally used on Cadillacs, and after much success, the company was absorbed into General Motors and was used throughout its many divisions.

Just this week, the Fisher Building  went up for auction, along with the Albert Kahn Building just a block away.  The winning bid went to an unknown buyer out of New York for $12.2M for the pair of Art Deco works.  It is speculated that the Fisher Building may be renovated and converted into residential housing, given it’s central location to the M1 streetcar line which is expected to begin service in late 2016.

Fisher Building (1928) by Albert Kahn. Photo by Jason R. Woods

Directly across (well almost directly across) Grand Blvd stands our second National Historic Landmark.  Cadillac Place (formerly General Motors Building) was built in 1923 as the world headquarters for General Motors, and remained so for for over 80 years.  The fifteen story office building is clad in limestone, with four parallel wings to maximize sunlight and airflow.  It was designed to represent the prominence and strength of the massive automaker.

In 2001, GM moved its offices to the newer Renaissance Center downtown.  Today, over 2000 state workers call the landmark building their office.

Cadillac Place (aka General Motors Building) (1923) by Albert Kahn. Photo by Jason R. Woods

The Argonaut Building (pictured below) was originally a design lab for General Motors.  Occupying the block immediately to the east of Cadillac Place, the stout structure now houses the headquarters and a production space for local watchmaker, Shinola.  The Center for Creative Studies owns the building, and uses it for graduate studies and a charter school.  The industrial nature of the building is softened when you gaze upwards to the horizontal banding, Art Deco style forms in the brickwork, and the arched windows.

Argonaut Building (1928) by Albert Kahn. Photo by Jason R. Woods