The Home Federal Savings and Loan Association of Des Moines Building, also known as American Federal Savings and the Catholic Pastoral Center, is a historic building located in downtown

Des Moines, Iowa Des Moines () is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, ...

, United States. Completed in 1962, it is considered to be "one of the most well-known examples of mid-century modern architecture in Des Moines." It was designed by the prominent

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

architect

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd ...

, and it is one of the first steel and glass modernist buildings in the city's downtown. Initially, the roof was designed to be suspended from two lengthwise trusses, similar van der Rohe's designs at the

Illinois Institute of Technology Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...

in Chicago. That design was abdoned for a simpler and more direct design that features a steel-frame, glass-infill, and

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

and

travertine marble Travertine ( ) is a form of terrestrial limestone deposited around mineral springs, especially hot springs. It often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, cream-colored, and even rusty varieties. It is formed by a pro ...

on the base. The three-story building rises to the height of . It was built for the Home Federal Savings and Loan Association of Des Moines and later American Federal Savings, which failed in 1990 amid the country's Savings and loan crisis. There was concern that the building would be torn down so the Des Moines City Council designated it as a local landmark. In 1992 philanthropist Ed Ochylski acquired it and donated it to the Diocese of Des Moines, who converted it into their headquarters. From 2016 to 2017, the building underwent a $10 million renovation. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 2017.

References

Office buildings completed in 1962 Office buildings in Des Moines, Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Des Moines, Iowa Bank buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Modernist architecture in Iowa Roman Catholic Diocese of Des Moines {{DesMoinesIA-stub