The Buhl Building is a

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ri ...

and class-A office center in

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and t ...

. Architect Wirt C. Rowland designed the Buhl in a

Neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style with Romanesque accents. Constructed in 1925, it stands at 26 stories in the

Detroit Financial District The Detroit Financial District is a United States historic district in downtown Detroit, Michigan. The district was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on December 14, 2009, and was announced as the featured listing in the ...

across Congress Street from the

Penobscot Building The Greater Penobscot Building, commonly known as the Penobscot Building, is a class-A office tower in Downtown Detroit, Michigan. Constructed in 1928, the Art Deco building is located in the heart of the Detroit Financial District. The Penob ...

and across Griswold Street from the

Guardian Building The Guardian Building is a landmark skyscraper in the United States, located at 500 Griswold Street in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, within the Financial District. The Guardian is a class-A office building owned by Wayne County, Michigan and s ...

, all of which were designed by Wirt C. Rowland. The Buhl Building stands on the corner of Congress St. West, and Griswold St. in Downtown Detroit. The building stands atop what used to be the Savoyard Creek near its confluence with the Detroit River. In 1836, the creek was covered and turned into a sewer. The Savoyard Club occupied the 27th floor of the Buhl Building from 1928 until its membership dwindled and the club closed in 1994. The Buhl Building houses the headquarters of SMART and the Detroit Transportation Corporation. Hubbell, Roth & Clark, a civil engineering firm, is also based in the building. The Citizens Bank Building in downtown

Saginaw, Michigan Saginaw () is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Saginaw County. The city of Saginaw and Saginaw County are both in the area known as Mid-Michigan. Saginaw is adjacent to Saginaw Charter Township and considered part of Greate ...

was modeled after the Buhl Building. The architectural sculpture on the building was designed by Corrado Parducci.

Architect

Wirt C. Rowland, designer of the

, and the Buhl Building was born and raised in Clinton, Michigan. In 1901, he landed a job as an office boy for the

firm of Rogers & MacFarlane, quickly moving on to the prestigious George D. Mason firm. In 1909, he joined the office of Albert Kahn, who had also apprenticed under Mason. In 1910, with the encouragement of both Mason and Kahn, Rowland attended the

Harvard Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, MA for a year. The combination of Rowland's natural design talent, Harvard education, and Detroit's healthy economy positioned him to make major contributions to the city's architecture. Rowland is a case study in design attribution. In 1911, in the office of Kahn, he and

Ernest Wilby Ernest is a given name derived from Germanic word ''ernst'', meaning "serious". Notable people and fictional characters with the name include: People *Archduke Ernest of Austria (1553–1595), son of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor *Ernest, M ...

are said to have been primarily responsible for the

Hill Auditorium Hill Auditorium is the largest performance venue on the University of Michigan campus, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The auditorium was named in honor of Arthur Hill (1847-1909), who served as a regent of the university from 1901 to 1909. He bequeath ...

at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. Rowland worked for the local firm of Malcomson & Higginbotham until 1915. He then returned to Kahn's office, contributing to the firm's classic projects, namely the Hatcher Graduate Library at the University of Michigan, the Detroit News Building, the First National Building (1922), and the General Motors Building (1922) renamed

Cadillac Place Cadillac Place, formerly the General Motors Building, is a landmark high-rise office complex located at 3044 West Grand Boulevard in the New Center area of Detroit, Michigan. It was renamed for the French founder of Detroit, Antoine Laumet de ...

. Rowland's career peaked as Head Designer (1922–1930) of

Smith, Hinchman & Grylls SmithGroup is an international architectural, engineering and planning firm. Established in Detroit in 1853 by architect Sheldon Smith, SmithGroup is the longest continually operating architecture and engineering firm in the United States that ...

(SmithGroup). There, he designed a dozen major structures in downtown Detroit; among these are a number of the city's most accomplished and evocative buildings. To a large extent, Rowland helped define Detroit's architectural genre. For the Guardian Building, he had assembled a multitude of artisans, mosaicists, sculptors, painters, and tile manufacturers including Corrado Parducci, muralist Ezra Winter, and tile from the Rookwood and Pewabic pottery companies. He thus recreated the architectural synthesis of a medieval cathedral. Hence, Rowland had reached a climax when his Union Trust/Guardian Building became known as ''"the Cathedral of Finance."'' The Guardian Building opened in 1930. With the onset of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, Rowland was laid off from

. As a result, he formed his own office where his work decreased to a small number of churches, schools and construction projects. Late in life, he returned to a purer,

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

idiom for his last few projects, notably the Kirk in the Hills church which was built after he died in 1946. During World War II, the Guardian Building would serve as headquarters for wartime production. William Edward Kapp, architect for the firm of

has been credited with interior design work on the Buhl Building.

Tenants

Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation has its headquarters in the building, and the Consulate of Italy in Detroit is located in Suite 1840. Fink + Associates Law's Detroit office is located in Suite 1000. At one time

Real Times Media Real Times Media LLC is the owner and publisher of the ''Chicago Defender'', the largest and most influential African American weekly newspaper, as well as five other regional weeklies in the eastern and Midwestern United States. Its headquarters ...

, the owner of black newspapers in the US, had its headquarters in the building. Michigan Nonprofit Association, a statewide membership organization that serves the nonprofit sector, has its Metro Detroit office in the Buhl Building.

Gallery

File:BuhlBuilding1920.jpg, Buhl Building, circa 1920 File:Buhl Building.jpg, Buhl Building in the shadow of the

References

External links

Official Website (Caution: Macromedia Flash is required to enter)

Where Detroit's elite met to eat

Archive
. ''

The Detroit News ''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival ''Detroit Free Press'' building. ''The News'' absorbed the ''Detroit Tribune'' on Februar ...

''. October 12, 2004. {{Buildings in Michigan timeline Skyscraper office buildings in Detroit Downtown Detroit Historic district contributing properties in Michigan National Register of Historic Places in Detroit Office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan 1925 establishments in Michigan 1920s architecture in the United States Buildings with sculpture by Corrado Parducci Art Deco architecture in Michigan Office buildings completed in 1925

Architect

Tenants

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading

External links