The Des Moines Building
A 14-story downtown tower where Art Deco verticality meets Art Moderne restraint — Des Moines’ 1930 skyline statement, now reborn as loft apartments after a century of civic life.
At a glance
The Des Moines Building at 405 6th Avenue is one of Iowa’s finest surviving examples of early-1930s commercial architecture. Designed in 1930 by the Des Moines firm of Proudfoot, Rawson, Souers & Thomas, the 14-story, 190-foot structure straddles the boundary between Art Deco — with its ornamental ambition and vertical emphasis — and Art Moderne, which was already influencing American commercial design by 1930 with its preference for smooth surfaces and streamlined forms. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013 and converted to 146 residential loft apartments the same year.
Key facts
- Built: 1930
- Architect: Proudfoot, Rawson, Souers & Thomas
- Style: Art Deco / Art Moderne
- Height: 14 stories, 190 feet (58 m)
- Current use: 146 residential loft apartments
- NRHP listed: October 16, 2013 (refnum 13000829)
- Address: 405 6th Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa
- Coordinates: 41.5872°N, 93.6248°W
History
In 1930, with the Great Depression beginning to contract commercial real estate, the Des Moines Building was completed as a downtown office tower serving Iowa’s capital city. The architectural firm of Proudfoot, Rawson, Souers & Thomas — one of the state’s most prolific practices — brought a sophisticated formal vocabulary to the project, combining the ornamental emphasis of Art Deco with the emerging preference for cleaner surfaces that would define the Moderne decade.
The building served as a standard office address for most of the twentieth century. By 2011 it had been abandoned, and the city of Des Moines declared it a public nuisance with the intent of acquiring it for redevelopment. That same year the building was sold for $150,000 to Des Moines Apartments LP, which undertook a full conversion to 146 residential loft apartments — preserving the historic shell while giving the structure new life as housing.
The National Register of Historic Places recognized the building on October 16, 2013, acknowledging its contribution to Iowa’s architectural heritage and its place within the broader architectural legacy of the Proudfoot & Bird firm.
What you see
The Des Moines Building’s facade is a study in the transition moment of American commercial architecture. The tower’s vertical piers and setback profile follow Art Deco principles: height expressed through continuous lines, ornamental detail concentrated at the top and base, a skyline silhouette that speaks of aspiration. But the treatment of surfaces already tends toward Art Moderne’s smoothness, avoiding the more elaborate ornamental programs of, say, the Chrysler Building or the Empire State Building completed the same year.
The residential conversion preserves the exterior character of the tower. From 6th Avenue the building still reads as a piece of downtown commercial ambition from 1930 — a fourteen-story assertion that Des Moines, Iowa’s capital, was a city worth building tall in.
Practical information
- Access: Now a residential building — exterior freely viewable from 6th Avenue
- Address: 405 6th Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa 50309
- Season: Year-round for exterior viewing
- Time needed: 15 minutes for exterior; pair with Iowa State Capitol (0.5 miles east)
Getting there
The Des Moines Building is located in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, within walking distance of the Iowa State Capitol and the Hy-Vee Hall convention center. Des Moines is served by Des Moines International Airport, approximately 5 miles southwest of downtown. By car, Interstate 235 connects downtown to the interstate highway system.
Nearby
- Iowa-Des Moines National Bank Building (1932) — another Art Deco tower in downtown Des Moines, 0.3 miles east
- Iowa State Capitol — the Beaux-Arts state capitol (1886) with its distinctive gold dome, 0.5 miles east
- Pappajohn Sculpture Park — an outdoor sculpture garden in the Western Gateway district, 0.3 miles northwest
Sources
- Wikipedia, “Des Moines Building”
- National Register of Historic Places, refnum 13000829, listed October 16, 2013
- NRHP Multiple Property Submission: Architectural Legacy of Proudfoot & Bird in Iowa MPS (ref. 64500144)
- Boscophotos, photographer (CC BY-SA 3.0), Wikimedia Commons
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