The Northwestern National Life Building, later known as the ReliaStar Building, then known as ING 20 Washington and now known as Voya Financial 20 Washington, is an office building located in the Gateway District of

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

. It was designed by

Minoru Yamasaki was an American architect, best known for designing the original World Trade Center in New York City and several other large-scale projects. Yamasaki was one of the most prominent architects of the 20th century. He and fellow architect Edward ...

as the headquarters of the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company and was opened in 1965. The building was constructed to replace the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company Home Office near

Loring Park Loring Park is a park in the Loring Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. History Loring Park was established in 1883 after the passage of the Park Act, which first created the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. The park was first ...

, which had become too small for the number of employees in the company. The building features an portico that serves as the visual terminus for the

Nicollet Mall Nicollet Mall is a twelve-block portion of Nicollet Avenue running through downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It is the shopping and dining district of the city, and also a pedestrian mall and transit mall. Along with Hennepin A ...

. Yamasaki said that his design was intended to be "appropriate to an office building, monumental and dignified, yet graceful." The building is framed by about 63 slender

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...

-faced concrete columns. He said the porch at the main entrance would be "delicate" and "a delight to walk through". Yamasaki's touches also included reflective pools and landscaping, and he claimed he was designing "a park with a building in it". Architecture critic

Larry Millett Larry Millett (born 1947 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American journalist and author. He is the former (retired 2002) architectural critic for the '' St. Paul Pioneer Press'', a daily newspaper in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the author of se ...

calls it, "a temple to the gods of underwriting, built by an insurance company and mixing luxury and high camp in way that, say,

Liberace Władziu Valentino Liberace (May 16, 1919 – February 4, 1987) was an American pianist, singer, and actor. A child prodigy born in Wisconsin to parents of Italian and Polish origin, he enjoyed a career spanning four decades of concerts, recordi ...

would have appreciated" and "a high point of 1960s modernism in Minneapolis." The company had 475 employees working in the home office in 1964, when this building opened. In 1978, the company had 850 employees, with some working in nearby offices because the main building had been occupied to capacity. In 1978, Northwestern National Life announced plans to build a 20-story office tower across Marquette Avenue, which became

100 Washington Square 100 Washington Square is a 332-ft (101 m) high-rise office building located in downtown Minneapolis. Construction started in 1979 and was completed in 1981.Emporis100 Washington Square.''Emporis.'' Retrieved July 15, 2016. It covers 481,600 square ...

. That building was designed to have two-thirds of its space available to rent to other tenants.

Gallery

File:ING Building in Minneapolis, Minnesota.jpg, ING Building looking northeast File:Northwestern National Life Insurance Company Building, Minneapolis, Minnesota postcard.jpg, Southwest view File:Voya Financial Building, Minneapolis, August 2014.jpg, Portico

References

{{Minoru Yamasaki Buildings and structures in Minneapolis Office buildings completed in 1964 1964 establishments in Minnesota