Guardian Building

Detroit's Guardian Building looks less like an office tower than a cathedral built out of colour. Its walls are a warm orange brick, set off by tile, limestone and terracotta in geometric bands, and the entrance on Griswold Street opens into a three-storey vaulted lobby lined with glazed Pewabic and Rookwood tile. The nickname "Cathedral of Finance" is apt in two ways: the plan has a tower over the main door and an octagonal apse at the far end, and the name nods to New York's Woolworth Building, earlier dubbed the "Cathedral of Commerce".

The tower was put up in 1928–1929 for the Union Trust Company, a Detroit bank founded in 1890, and was first known as the Union Trust Building. Its architect was Wirt C. Rowland of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, who worked in an Art Deco idiom flavoured with Native American and Mayan Revival motifs. Rowland controlled the details closely: the manufacturer later sold his chosen brick as "Union Trust Brick" and then "Guardian brick", and he also designed the bank's office furniture and even the tableware and staff uniforms for a restaurant in the building. The main block rises 32 storeys to two asymmetric spires, the taller reaching about 192 metres. Sculptures by Corrado Parducci flank the main entrance, Mary Chase Perry Stratton of Pewabic Pottery helped devise the symbolic tile work, and Ezra Winter contributed a mosaic over the lobby desk and a mural celebrating Michigan's industries in the banking hall.

The building was also inventive. Rowland chose Monel metal instead of brass or bronze for the exposed metalwork, a choice later echoed on the Chrysler Building, and the Monel screen dividing the lobby from the banking hall carries a Tiffany-designed clock. The lifts were among the first to stop level with the floor and open their doors automatically. During the Second World War the tower housed the U.S. Army command for wartime production; later it served as headquarters of the gas utility MichCon, which restored the lobby in 1986. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1989 and has housed Wayne County offices since the late 2000s.

Getting there

The Guardian Building stands at 500 Griswold Street in the Financial District of downtown Detroit, Michigan. The closest airport by straight line is Windsor International (YQG), about 10 km away but across the Canadian border; the main airport on the U.S. side is Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW), about 28 km southwest of downtown.