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Does anyone remember the name is the architect who had design the old Michigan Consolidated Gas Company that sit at the foot of Woodward and Jefferson. During the 8th commemertive of september 11 2001 a special came on and had mentioned the Japanese man who had designed the WTC. He had designed the building on Woodward in 1963 then used a similar design for the WTC but made them much taller.
Minuru Yamasaki.
Minoru, but Ray's got the idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ray1936
He's responsible for a lot of buildings around metro Detroit, including the endangered Quo Vadis theater and the McGregor Fountain at Wayne State. I think the Free Press just did a story about the fountain and had more info on Yamasaki, though I couldn't find the link on the newspaper's Web site just now.
He died in 1986 of cancer... and it was the McGregor Conference Center [[with fountain) at WSU he designed. Didn't he also design their School of Education Building? It has that Gothic style of windows that he is famous for.
Birmingham Unitarian Church, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Columbia Center, Troy, Michigan
College for Creative Studies Yamasaki Building, Detroit, Michigan
Daniell Heights married student housing, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan
McGregor Memorial Conference Center, Wayne State University, Detroit
Education Building, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
Gratiot Urban Redevelopment Project, Detroit, Michigan
Helen L. DeRoy Auditorium Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
John Marshall Middle School, Westland, Michigan
McGregor Memorial Conference Center, Wayne State University, Detroit
Michigan Consolidated Gas Co., Detroit, Michigan
Michigan State Medical Society Building, East Lansing, Michigan
Quo Vadis Entertainment Center, Westland, Michigan
Reynolds Metals Regional Sales Office, Southfield, Michigan
Temple Beth El, Detroit, Michigan
University School, Grosse Pointe, Michigan
Two of Yamasaki's most important buildings have to do with his innovative use of concrete. One is the main terminal building at St. Louis Lambert Airport, with its giant vaulted ceiling that set the style for airport terminal buildings for a generation or more. The other is the small American Concrete Institute building on W. Seven Mile, which deviated from the more boxy modernist style then in ascendancy, and leads into his mature style based on triangular forms like the McGregor Center at Wayne, the Michigan Consolidated Gas Building [[One Woodward) and the World Trade Center.
St. Louis Terminal:
http://www.landmarks-stl.org/archite...lambert_field/
American Concrete Institute:
http://detroit1701.org/American%20Concrete%20Institute.html
I used to see him sitting next to the first base dugout at Tiger Stadium. He could be pretty hard on the umpires.
MDoyle, he did not design the former Temple BethEl in Detroit.
He designed the current Temple BethEl in Bloomfield Township.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crawford
Mr know-it-all, at it again. What is it that you don't know? Gotta be something.
Yamasaki was quite the “go-to” architect of the early 1960s, even landing the cover story of TIME in January, 1963.
The buildings in the background of the magazine cover artwork are from the 1963 Seattle World’s Fair [[now the Seattle Center) which he also designed:
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16...630118,00.html
For skyscraper buffs like myself, Ric Burns’ 8th & final installment of his “New York” documentary [[“New York: The Center of the World”) is the definitive film about Yamasaki’s pivotal role in the World Trade Center design.
He was extremely uneasy with the ever-increasing height of the building, fearing it was not possible to engineer it to be structurally sound without interior truss work [[like that of the Empire State Building). Up to that point, Yamasaki was renowned for his fanciful, almost “delicate” designs, and the tallest building he had designed was the MichCon.
However, David & Nelson Rockefeller and Austin Tobin of the Port Authority kept pushing Yamasaki to make it bigger & bigger, so that it would eventually match their egos and ambitions. At one point, Yamasaki almost bowed out, thinking he was out of his league being involved in such a gargantuan project.
Eventually, Yamasaki’s own ego became a factor. He acquiesced and toed the line, and it was actually his idea to build not one- but two-110 story towers. He was a fascinating character----alternately egotistical, arrogant, humble, and polite.
Since the structural support of the WTC was shifted to the outer walls, this necessitated the multiple tall narrow steel beam supports on the exterior, which completely blocked the panoramic view which would, ironically, be the appeal for potential tenants. When this was brought to Yamasaki’s attention, he cavalierly sniffed that office workers are supposed to working---not looking out the window.
Didn't he also design the Wayne State Business School building?Quote:
Originally Posted by MDoyle
Funny how he designed the most beautiful building on Wayne's Campus [[McGregor) and one of the ugliest [[Helen L. Deroy, aka the symmetric windowless concrete conference center in the middle of campus)
When that place was being built, I thought it was a huge drive-in movie screen. then again, I was 8ishQuote:
Originally Posted by crawford
Two of the top architects in Detroit during the fifties and early sixties were Mies Van der Rohe [[Lafayette Towers and Pavillion) and Minoru Yamasaki. Which one do you guys think made a better building design?
Mies had Lafayette Park, but he was based out of Chicago.
I think a better comparison would be between Minoru Yamasaki and Eero Saarinen.