Old Detroit Times Building

My current studio project has brought me to Detroit, once one of the greatest cities of the nation, now the poster child for Rust Belt economic and social free fall. Detroit's economic zenith could probably be dated sometime in the 1920s, an era that gave us many of the city's great architectural landmarks. Some of these gems survive - most notably the Guardian Building - but, sadly, many have since met the wrecking ball. One such loss - the Detroit Times Building, particularly piqued my interest.

The Detroit Times was an evening newspaper that was at one point owned by the newspaperman par excellence, William Randolph Hearst (whose California palace at San Simeon is the closest we Americans have come architecturally to the ecstatic revelry of Neuschwanstein). The splendid Art Deco building that hosted the Times was designed by Albert Kahn, a Prussian-born architect who is responsible for much of Detroit's built heritage. Though, we must regret that given Detroit's precipitous decline, knowledge of his work is overshadowed by Louis Kahn, whose work is vastly different (but poetic in its own modernist way).

The Detroit Times building was constructed in 1929 and was finally demolished in 1978, eighteen years after the Times printed its last paper. More information and photos can be found here.