Guardian Building

Between the two World Wars, America was engaged in a period of feverish activity, constructing tall buildings particularly in New York, Chicago and Detroit. The automobile manufacturing city was busy building public and industrial buildings, hotels and movie palaces that were lavish by any national standards. Some of the most startling structures were downtown and a number were the work of Smith, Hinchman and Grylls, an architectural firm that employed a number of talented designers. The Union Trust (now Guardian) is one of the most ebullient examples of the use of Arts and Crafts tiles covering a steel skeleton. Only the 1920's--1930's could have produced such a structure -- an amalgam of the past and present taste in building.

The history of the American skyscraper produced a series of tall buildings that arose starting with Cass Gilbert's Woolworth building in New York. Detroit's Guardian Building is part of that progression. A tall building with a Gothic skin, the Woolworth was a sedate masterpiece which respected its setting. A number of new buildings were not so aesthetically pleasing, so in 1916, New York City established the zoning ordinance limiting the height and area of buildings in relationship to the width of the streets. This required the use of setbacks and permitted more light to filter into the narrow canyon-like streets. The old architectural concept of base, shaft and cap was replaced by the tall building whose top looked like a stepped Assyrian ziggurat.

The Chicago Tribune competition of 1922 served to focus attention on the design problems of the skyscraper. In view of Chicago's priority in this field, it is ironical that the first prize was won by two New Yorkers, John Mead Howells and Raymond M. Hood. Completed in 1924, their Tribune Tower did little more than perpetuate Gilbert's Gothicism. Emphatic vertical piers terminated in flying buttresses which were joined to an octagonal tower that recalled the famed Butter Tower of the Cathedral of Rouen in France.

Far more significant was the design that won the second prize. It was the creation of Eliel Saarinen of Finland, whose reputation was already well established in Europe. Turning his back on historical precedent, he visualized a bold soaring tower with discreet setbacks. Although the design was never realized, it was to have an incalculable effect upon the future evolution of the American skyscraper. In Chicago the aging Sullivan proclaimed it "a voice resonant and rich, ringing amidst the wealth and joy of life. In utterance sublime and melodious," he rhapsodized: it prophesies a time to come and not so far away when we shall escape the bondage and the mania of fixed ideas. It goes freely in advance, and, with the steel frame as a thesis, displays a high science of design such as the world up to this day had neither known nor surmised. Rising from the earth it ascends in beauty, lofty and serene, until its lovely crest seems at one with the sky.

Saarinen had a great deal of influence on American architecture in spite of his second place in the Tribune competition and particularly on one of the winning team's members, Raymond Hood, who became one of the masters of skyscraper design. Architects began to shed the ornamental historicism with which their creations were clad.

With a rapidly expanding economy in Detroit, the demand for downtown office space was critical and Griswold Street, Detroit's Wall Street, was rapidly developed. Three of the tallest buildings in this district were designed by Smith, Hinchman and Grylls. The Buhl, Penobscot and Union Trust went up in four short years.

A lion's share of all building activity fell to the firm of Smith, Hinchman and Grylls, and from their drafting boards came Renaissance public buildings, Gothic churches, Tudor mansions and clubs, and modern skyscrapers. During this period William E. Kapp was head of the architectural department of the firm, and to him was allotted the task of planning the layout of many of the buildings. With him worked several competent designers. One of the most talented of these was Wirt C. Rowland, who was responsible for determining the physical aspect of many of the firm's most important buildings. Rowland had been steeped in architectural history at Harvard. Fundamentally he was a Gothicist; but, like many of his contemporaries, he believed that the Gothic should be adapted to modern usage. This he was able to demonstrate in the design of the Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian Church of 1925. The buttressed pylons, the canopied niches, and the molded arches with their deep reveals were part of an extensive Gothic vocabulary then commonly applied to all types of buildings.

But if there was historicism in their two earlier skyscrapers, the Buhl and Penobscot, this sober dignity was not appropriate for the Union Trust Company, which wanted a cordial, friendly image with the public, the most effective symbol of which would be a warm and colorful building.

Frank W. Blair, the president of the Union Trust Company, was an energetic, public-spirited man. Never afraid of new ideas, he was one of the first bankers in the county to lend support to commercial aviation. In the meantime Wirt Rowland had been developing further his theories of modern commercial architecture, and he realized that the opportune moment had come to bring them to fruition. He submitted a colored sketch of the proposed building to Blair and it met with immediate approval.

The plans for the building called for a thirty-six story structure. On the main floor would be a large banking room and lobby, while the numerous floors above would be devoted to office space. Provision was made for public elevators at the north end of the building and for private elevators for the use of the trust company at the south end. The disposition of the plan immediately suggested to Rowland a huge cathedral with a high tower at the north, a nave and aisles extending to the south, and terminated by an apse or small octagonal tower. He was reminded that the highest cathedral nave in the world (in Beauvais, France) was only half as high as the proposed building. He wondered how such a tall and narrow structure could be given an appearance of stability, since the necessity for window space precluded the use of piers as large as those at Beauvais. This problem he solved by the use of alternate solid and open bays on the vast expanse of wall surface.

Although Rowland was still guided by precedent in his concept of architectural masses, he was already convinced of the unsuitability of Gothic or Classical detail for the skyscraper. The decision to use brick veneer for the Union Trust Building suggested to him that this material might be the key to an entirely new system of decoration. Combined with glazed tile and polychrome terra-cotta, it offered unlimited possibilities of color, texture, and form. Color was desirable because it could be comprehended so easily. "We no longer live in a leisurely age," Rowland reflected: nor do we move on streets from which it is possible to contemplate and enjoy minute sculptured detail. What we see we must see quickly in passing, and the impression must be immediate, strong and complete. Color has this vital power.

There were a number of unique touches -- at the top of the north tower is a polygonal crowning feature decorated with a fret-work of burnished gold. When the building was first completed beams of moving colored lights radiated from this point at night. The brick used to fill in a steel skeleton of this size was unusual and the color of the brick became so popular that the manufacturer later marketed it under the name of "Guardian Brick."

The bank that originally occupied the building was the National Bank of Commerce and it leased the first 15 floors. Security being foremost in the minds of the lending institution, the one (and only) freight elevator has the unusual capacity of 20,000 pounds, making it possible to run an armored car on it through a doorway at the Larned Street end of the building to unload the car indoors. The office of the chief of security was in the second basement, where his force of 32 officers were provided with a shooting gallery for target practice. There was a system for "conditioned air," one of the first tall buildings to use this new idea. Only the first 16 floors were centrally cooled, however. Above that, packaged units cool portions of the building and these have been added in recent years.

In the northwest corner of the sixth floor is the Michigan White Pine room, a conference room paneled in knotty pine cut on the Orion, Michigan estate of Frank W. Blair, president of the Union Trust Company.

One of the most unusual architectural features of the Union-Guardian Building was the use of the stepped or notched arch. This was suggested by the natural way of piling brick without adding any curved or molded forms. The stepped form, in addition to serving as an arch, provided, with various modifications, the principal motif for the decorative scheme of the entire building. Above the Griswold street entrance are three notched arches supporting a recessed semidome decorated with glazed tiles of Pewabic pottery. The barrel-vaulted ceiling of the lobby was enlivened with gaily colored tiles of Rockwood pottery, as were the stepped vaults of the elevator alcoves. At the extremity of each alcove glow the rich colors of stained glass windows, and inserts of opaque glass stand out sharply on the Monel metal elevator doors. From the lobby the lofty barrel vault of the banking room with its massive piers may be glimpsed through a Monel metal grille. No wonder the Guardian Building, when first opened, was hailed as a "Cathedral of Finance."

Unfortunately, six months after the completion of the building, the stock market crashed and the Union Trust Company failed. The company reorganized, however, in March of 1930 under the name of Union Guardian Trust Company and the building became the Union Guardian. In 1942, the building was taken over by the United States Army and in 1952 it sold at auction for $6 million. In 1975, the Guardian Building was sold to Michigan Consolidated, which is, in turn, held by the General Electric Pension Trust with a lease-back contract. Since that time the building has undergone cleaning and repair of its terra cotta tile work and today it looks very much like the building the Detroit News in 1930 described as: Color rampant, design daring freshness, vigor, courage. All in all the Union Trust is the most striking building because, besides size, it has individuality. The building is a blaze of color, both day and night, not to be rivaled by any building that now exists.

The Guardian building was an icon in Detroit -- it still is.

500 Griswold - Union Trust (Guardian) Building - Steel-frame forty-story skyscraper faced in brick, terra cotta and granite (1927-29) — Wirt C. Rowland of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, architects. Corrado G. Parducci, sculptor. National Historic Landmark. Later named the Guardian Building, this skyscraper is finished in an exotic blend of Art Deco, Mayan and Native American motifs. The footprint of the building fills the lot line for a narrow half-length of a north-south city block. The tower at the Griswold (north) end rises forty stories, the remainder of the building to thirty-two stories. Chief designer Wirt Rowland used fine brickwork and colorful terra cotta on the exterior to explore a new form of skyscraper. The theme of the stepped arch is repeated on the exterior and interior of the building. The different roof levels are flat. A semi-circular dome of Pewabic tiles marks the Griswold Street entrance. The base of the exterior is sheathed in red granite, the second and third stories in yellow Mankato stone. Above the third story, the building is faced in a custom-made dark orange brick, given the name “Guardian Brick.” Colorful terra-cotta details at the windows and setbacks draw the eye upward to the tower. Two relief figures designed by Corrado G. Parducci symbolizing Safety and Security also mark the entrance. Incised on the West Congress façade is the year 1928. The lobby rises to a great vault of Rookwood tile in green, red, buff and blue with the space being dramatically lit by tall arched windows. The main banking room is reached via a divided flight of red Nubian marble stairs, through a screen of Monel metal. The main banking room is lit by arched windows along the east and west facades. The central feature of the banking room is a mural map of Michigan designed by artist Ezra Winter. The Union Trust Company, established in 1891 under the then newly adopted Michigan Trust Act, had the building constructed. Initially it housed the National Bank of Commerce, Union Trust, and Union Title & Guaranty Co. in the lower fourteen stories. Among other early tenants, the offices of Robert O. Derrick, Inc., architects, were on the thirty-sixth floor. By 1930 Union Trust became the Union Guardian Trust and the building became the Union Guardian Building. The Union Guardian Trust Company and its parent holding company, the Guardian Detroit Union Group, failed in 1933. Detroit Financial District Name of Property