Guardian Building
Forty stories of polychrome glazed terra cotta rise from Griswold Street — the Guardian Building is the most exuberant Art Deco skyscraper between New York and Chicago, its Michigan iconography woven into every surface of the building.
At a glance
The Guardian Building stands at the intersection of Congress and Griswold Streets in Detroit’s financial district, its upper crown visible from most approaches to downtown. Designed by Wirt C. Rowland (1878–1946) of the firm Smith, Hinchman & Grylls and completed in 1929, it was originally called the Union Trust Building. The design makes a sustained argument that a modern American skyscraper need not import its ornamental vocabulary from Europe; instead, Rowland built the exterior from polychrome glazed terra cotta in orange, buff, and brown tones, and filled the interior with Rookwood Pottery tile vaults and mosaics referencing the geography and industries of Michigan. The result is one of the most fully realised decorative programs in American commercial architecture.
Key facts
- Completed: 1929 (originally Union Trust Building)
- Architect: Wirt C. Rowland (1878–1946), Smith, Hinchman & Grylls
- Height: 40 floors / 496 ft (151 m)
- Exterior: Polychrome glazed terra cotta — orange, buff, brown
- Interior: Rookwood Pottery tile vaults; Pewabic Pottery tile; Michigan motif mosaics
- Address: 500 Griswold Street, Detroit, MI 48226
- National Historic Landmark: 1989
History
Wirt Rowland had already produced a series of notable Detroit skyscrapers for Smith, Hinchman & Grylls — including the Penobscot Building (1928) — when he received the commission for the Union Trust Company’s new headquarters in 1927. The client wanted the tallest building in Detroit; Rowland wanted something that would outlast the fashion for academic historicism and earn the city a place in the first rank of American commercial architecture. He got both.
Construction proceeded rapidly and the building opened in 1929, a year before the Chrysler Building and two years before the Empire State Building. The Great Depression arrived almost immediately: the Union Trust Company failed in 1931, one of the casualties of the banking crisis that swept Michigan particularly hard. The building was subsequently renamed the Guardian Building after its anchor tenant, the Guardian Detroit Union Group. Private investors eventually acquired the property and undertook a full restoration, completed in phases through the 2000s and 2010s.
The restoration — completed in phases through the 2000s and 2010s — cleaned the exterior terra cotta, repaired the Rookwood tile vaults, and brought the building’s mechanical systems to modern standard while preserving the original decorative program intact.
What you see
The exterior reads differently at every scale. From across the river, or from Belle Isle, the setback silhouette identifies the Guardian against the Detroit skyline: the tower narrows in two setback stages as it rises, each retreat in the massing punctuated by a band of brighter terra cotta. Closer in, standing at the base on Griswold Street, the building becomes almost overwhelming — orange and brown glazed brick at the lower floors, the colour intensifying toward the crown, abstract Native American geometric motifs woven into the spandrel panels at the upper levels. The effect echoes the polychrome ambition of Rowland’s contemporaries in New York and Chicago, but the material palette is emphatically local.
The main banking hall — the central ground-floor space — is the interior climax of the building. Rookwood Pottery tile covers the barrel vault that runs the length of the hall; the colour palette shifts from deep amber at the entrance to lighter tones at the far end. Above the teller counter, a large mosaic map of the Great Lakes region anchors the Michigan iconography that runs through the whole building. The Pewabic Pottery tile borders at the floor level were produced by the Detroit ceramic studio founded by Mary Chase Perry Stratton, another local collaborator Rowland drew into the project.
Practical information
- Access: Ground-floor lobby and banking hall open during business hours; upper floors are office space
- Tours: Guided tours available; check current schedule with building management
- Allow: 30–45 minutes for the lobby and banking hall; longer for a full guided tour
- Photography: Generally permitted in public areas
Getting there
The Guardian Building is at 500 Griswold Street in the Financial District of downtown Detroit. The QLINE streetcar stops on Woodward Avenue, a 3-minute walk east. Detroit People Mover stations at Cadillac Square and Financial District are both within easy walking distance. Windsor, Ontario is accessible via the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel (foot passenger ferry operates seasonally).
Nearby
- Penobscot Building (1928) — Rowland’s immediately preceding skyscraper for Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, one block north on Griswold
- Detroit Institute of Arts — world-class collection including the Diego Rivera Detroit Industry Murals, 1 mile north via Woodward
- Belle Isle — island park in the Detroit River with views back to the skyline, including the Guardian’s upper crown
Sources
- National Park Service, National Historic Landmark nomination, Guardian Building (1989)
- Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) documentation, Library of Congress
- Smith, Hinchman & Grylls records, Michigan History Center
- Rookwood Pottery Company records; Pewabic Pottery museum documentation
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