Fisher Building
When the seven Fisher brothers received $200 million for their body-panel company from General Motors in 1926, they commissioned Albert Kahn to build a monument to their success — and Albert Kahn, who had spent two decades rationalising the factory for Detroit’s auto industry, brought everything he knew about structure and light to the task of building something purely, unapologetically beautiful.
At a glance
The Fisher Building stands at 3011 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit’s New Center district, two miles north of downtown, in the area that General Motors and the Fisher family developed as an alternative commercial hub in the 1920s. Designed by Albert Kahn (1869–1942) and completed in 1928, it rises 30 storeys (441 feet) in a Gothic-inflected Art Déco composition originally conceived as the first of three towers — a plan the Depression ended after only one was built. The building’s defining feature is its interior arcade: a 260-foot-long street-level galleria with a painted vault of gold leaf and mosaic, lined with shops, galleries, and theatres. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989, it was acquired by Bedrock Detroit in 2015 and continues to operate as commercial office and retail space.
Key facts
- Architect: Albert Kahn (1869–1942)
- Client: Fisher brothers (Frederick J., Charles T., William A., Lawrence P., Edward F., Alfred J., Howard A.)
- Completed: 1928
- Height: 30 storeys, 441 ft (134 m)
- Style: Art Déco (Gothic-inflected)
- Interior arcade: 260 ft (79 m) galleria with painted gold-leaf vault
- Address: 3011 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit, MI 48202
- GPS: 42.3697, −83.0770 — Google Maps
- Designation: National Historic Landmark (1989)
- Original plan: Three towers projected; only one built (Depression, 1929)
History
Albert Kahn had built his reputation, and Detroit’s industrial economy, on the engineering of the automobile factory. Between 1903 and the late 1920s, he designed for Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors a series of reinforced-concrete and daylit factory buildings that became the model for twentieth-century industrial architecture worldwide. But Kahn was also the architect of choice for Detroit’s commercial and institutional commissions, and when the Fisher brothers — who had made their fortune supplying body panels to every major auto manufacturer — sold their company to General Motors in 1926 for what was then the largest cash transaction in American business history, they came to Kahn with an instruction that was essentially open-ended: build us something worthy of the sum.
The site on West Grand Boulevard was part of a deliberate programme to develop a second business district north of downtown. General Motors had already committed to building its headquarters there (the General Motors Building, completed 1923, also a Kahn design), and the Fishers saw their tower as the centrepiece of a complex that would eventually include three towers arranged around a central plaza. The Depression halted that plan after the first tower, but the single building that exists is so fully resolved — so complete in its ornamental programme, so generous in its public interior — that the absence of its intended companions is not felt as a loss.
The Fisher Theatre, on the ground floor of the arcade, opened in 1928 as a film and vaudeville venue in a Mayan-themed interior; it was redesigned in 1961 by Rapp and Rapp in a more restrained mid-century manner that it retains today. The building as a whole passed through periods of neglect in the 1970s and 1980s before its National Historic Landmark designation in 1989 helped stabilise its condition. The 2015 acquisition by Bedrock Detroit, Dan Gilbert’s real estate arm, initiated a restoration campaign that returned the arcade vault and exterior stonework to something approaching their original condition.
What you see
The Fisher Building’s exterior presents a vertical shaft of light granite that steps back above the twentieth floor in a composition more Gothic than strictly Déco: pointed arches punctuate the upper setbacks, and the corner buttresses at the tower’s base read as abstract references to cathedral structure rather than classical column. The colour of the stone — a warm buff-grey — changes dramatically between overcast and sunny days, and the tower’s silhouette against the northern sky reads most powerfully from the boulevard to the south.
The arcade is the building’s soul. Enter from West Grand Boulevard and the street opens into a 260-foot interior galleria: the vault above is painted in a programme of gold leaf, polychrome mosaic, and figural panels — an interior ceiling that has no American equivalent at this scale outside of a state capitol building. The shops and galleries that line the arcade bring the space to life at street level; the Fisher Theatre entrance is at the far end. The quality of light in the arcade — filtered through the leaded glass of the arcade roof and reflected off the gold of the vault — is the specific sensation that visitors carry away from the building.
Practical information
- The arcade is open during business hours and is freely accessible to the public.
- The Fisher Theatre presents Broadway touring productions; tickets at the theatre box office or online.
- Office tenants occupy the upper floors; lobby access is available to arcade visitors.
- The building is connected to the New Center transit hub; DDOT and SMART bus routes serve West Grand Boulevard.
- Parking available in the Fisher Building garage on Second Avenue.
Getting there
The Fisher Building is at 3011 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit’s New Center, approximately 2 miles north of downtown. The QLine streetcar (now discontinued) historically served the corridor; DDOT bus route 16 connects to downtown. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) is 28 miles southwest; rideshare or taxi to New Center takes approximately 35–50 minutes. The Detroit Institute of Arts is 10 minutes’ walk east.
Nearby
- General Motors Renaissance Center — 3 miles southeast, GM’s 1977 riverfront headquarters complex
- Detroit Institute of Arts — 10-minute walk east, home of Rivera’s Detroit Industry murals (1933)
- New Center One — adjacent, Albert Kahn’s 1936 Art Moderne companion building across the boulevard
- Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History — 15-minute walk south on Warren Avenue
Photo gallery
Sources
- Historic Detroit (historicdetroit.org): Fisher Building — Albert Kahn architect; Fisher brothers commission; 1928; 30 storeys 444 ft; arcade 260 ft with painted vault; three towers planned; National Historic Landmark 1989
- SAH Archipedia (sah-archipedia.org): Fisher Building entry — Gothic-Déco composition; Kahn biography in industrial and commercial context; arcade interior analysis
- National Register of Historic Places (NRHP): Fisher Building (NHL) — designation 1989; criteria A and C; architectural significance
- Albert Kahn Associates Archives: West Grand Boulevard development programme; General Motors Building (1923) and Fisher Building relationship
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