Michigan Consolidated Gas Company Building

People: Minoru Yamasaki , Smith, Hinchman & Grylls

Date: 1962

City: Detroit

Michigan State Historic Preservation Office, photo by Steve Vorderman.

The Michigan Consolidated Gas Company Building is a steel-frame, thirty-two-story skyscraper (1960-62) located at the prominent intersection of the northwest corner of West Jefferson Avenue and Woodward Avenue. The building is square in plan. Its entrance staircases, fountain, and former water pools lead up to a platform on which the building rests. The pools were later converted to flower beds. Pre-cast white concrete panels hold the vertical, hexagon-shaped windows in place on this landmark skyscraper. The lobby is a thirty-foot tall space illuminated by eighty-two glass panes on all four sides. The lobby columns and stairs are finished in white marble, and the railings and lobby ceiling details are of polished chrome. The top four floors terminate to a recessed square penthouse that contains the heating, ventilating and cooling systems. Both roofs are flat gravel roofs. At night the top four floors are illuminated by colored lights depending on the season. At the two rooflines, the concrete panels project upward past the roofline for a crenelated effect. A pedestrian bridge at the fifteenth floor connects to the Guardian Building across Larned Street.

The MichCon Building, as it became known, was erected on a site identified on the Saarinen plans for state and federal governmental buildings as part of the Civic Center complex in the 1940s. Built for a private utility, the MichCon building is an architectural masterpiece on a prominent site at the northwest corner of West Jefferson and Woodward Avenues. Completed in 1963, the thirty-two-story steel and concrete tower was designed by Seattle-born architect Minoru Yamasaki (1912-1986) as one of his first independent commissions using many design elements, materials, and features that he later used in the World Trade Center towers in New York City (1966 – 2001).

Yamasaki’s rebellion against the popular International style of glass-walled skyscrapers was expressed in his design for the MichCon Building. In it, he displayed his delicate touch in creating the lightness and harmony that caused his buildings to almost float. Entrance staircases lead up to a marble platform on which the building rests. Pre-cast white concrete panels hold the vertical, hexagon-shaped windows in place. Yamasaki, who was fearful of heights, employed narrow windows spaced between numerous columns to admit light without subjecting tenants and office workers to dizzying views. Ironically, he soon went on to design the two tallest buildings in the world, the World Trade Center towers in New York City.

The MichCon Building’s thirty-foot-tall lobby is illuminated by eighty-two glass panes on all four sides, and at night by sparkling blue lights. Its columns and stairs are finished in white marble, and the railings and lobby ceiling details are polished chrome. The two rooflines, one set back on a square penthouse that contains the heating, ventilating and cooling systems, carry concrete panels projecting upward past them for a lightly crenelated, Gothic effect. At night the top four floors are illuminated by colored lights depending on the season

Integral to the design of the building, architect Minoru Yamasaki also planned a formal garden setting with small reflecting pools. Water elements became common features of his architecture, as seen locally at the McGregor Memorial Conference Center and DeRoy Auditorium at Wayne State University. Unfortunately, the pools at the MichCon Building were later converted to flower beds.

(Text excerpted from the Detroit Modern Civic Center/Financial District Tour script developed by the City of Detroit Historic Designation Advisory Board staff.)