Completed the same year as the Foshay Tower one block south, the Rand Tower at 527 Marquette Avenue is a 26-story Art Deco skyscraper by Chicago firm Holabird & Root — its setback limestone crown and geometric ornamental programme a precise contemporary counterpoint to Foshay’s obelisk ambition.
At a glance
Standing at 527 Marquette Avenue South in downtown Minneapolis, the Rand Tower was completed in 1929 as the headquarters of the Rand family’s business interests. It was designed by Holabird & Root, the Chicago firm that produced some of the most significant Art Deco commercial architecture in the American midwest — including the Chicago Board of Trade Building and the 333 North Michigan tower. At 26 stories and 403 ft (123 m), the Rand Tower is the smaller of the two major 1929 Deco skyscrapers on Marquette Avenue, but its architectural refinement is at least the equal of the Foshay. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is now operated as a hotel.
Key facts
- Completed: 1929
- Architects: Holabird & Root
- Style: Art Deco
- Address: 527 Marquette Avenue S, Minneapolis, MN 55402
- Height: 26 stories, 403 ft (123 m)
- NRHP: Listed 1989
- Current use: Hotel (boutique conversion)
- Signature feature: Setback limestone crown with carved Art Deco ornament and vertical window piers
History
The Rand Tower was built for Rufus R. Rand Jr., a Minneapolis businessman whose family had made its fortune in flour milling and real estate. The decision to commission a major Marquette Avenue skyscraper in 1928 placed the Rand family in direct architectural conversation with Wilbur Foshay, who was simultaneously building his obelisk tower one block south. Holabird & Root, engaged for the commission, were at the height of their commercial Art Deco practice: their Chicago buildings of the same period — including 333 North Michigan (1928) — share the Rand Tower’s refined vocabulary of setback massing, vertical ornamental piers, and limestone cladding.
The tower opened in 1929, the same year as the Foshay Tower and the same year as the stock market crash. Unlike the Foshay, the Rand Tower survived the Depression without the drama of its builder’s financial collapse, remaining a stable commercial office building through the mid-twentieth century. Its architectural quality was recognised in its listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. In subsequent decades the building was converted to hotel use, converted to a hotel in subsequent decades.
The pairing of the Rand and Foshay towers on Marquette Avenue — two 1929 Art Deco skyscrapers completed within months of each other by different architects with different approaches to the same vocabulary — gives the downtown Minneapolis streetscape a density of 1920s commercial Deco that is unusual even among American cities with strong Deco traditions.
What you see
The Rand Tower’s facade on Marquette Avenue is a study in Holabird & Root’s characteristic Art Deco discipline: vertical piers in Indiana limestone running from street level to the setback zone, spandrel panels with geometric ornament, and at the crown a tiered series of setbacks with carved stone detail that draws the eye upward through a composed sequence of receding horizontal planes. The surface ornament — stylised foliate forms, geometric interlace, and carved eagles at the upper setbacks — is more restrained than the Foshay’s exuberant bronze work, favouring a carved-stone vocabulary that has weathered more evenly over the decades.
Seen from the south along Marquette Avenue, the Rand Tower occupies the mid-distance between the observer and the Foshay Tower’s obelisk silhouette further south. The two towers are different enough in massing — the Rand’s setback profile versus the Foshay’s unbroken vertical — to read as complementary rather than competing. The lobby level at street retains Art Deco bronze and stone work from the 1929 opening, partially incorporated into the hotel entrance.
Practical information
- Access: Hotel lobby open to the public; exterior visible at all times
- Best view: Marquette Avenue looking south (both Rand and Foshay in frame); or from 5th Street looking west
- Time needed: 20 minutes exterior; lobby 5–10 minutes
- GPS: 44.9774° N, 93.2697° W
Getting there
The Rand Tower stands at 527 Marquette Avenue S in downtown Minneapolis, one block north of the Foshay Tower and two blocks from Nicollet Mall. Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport connects by Blue Line light rail to downtown in approximately 25 minutes (Target Field Station, 8 minutes’ walk).
Nearby
- Foshay Tower (1929) — Léon Arnal’s Art Deco obelisk hotel at 821 Marquette Avenue, one block south
- Minneapolis Armory (1936) — PWA Moderne event venue at 500 6th Street S, 6 minutes east
- Hennepin Theatre District — 1920s theatre row on Hennepin Avenue, 5 minutes west
Sources
- National Register of Historic Places, Rand Tower nomination (1989) — nps.gov
- Millett, Larry. AIA Guide to the Twin Cities. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2007
- Holabird & Root firm history — holabird.com
- Minnesota Historical Society, Minneapolis commercial architecture records — mnhs.org
- Wikidata, Rand Tower Q7291442 — wikidata.org
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