Cadillac Place - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

"General Motors Building" redirects here, for the office tower in New York City with that name, see General Motors Building (New York)
General Motors Building (New York)
The General Motors Building is a 50-story, 705-foot office tower in Manhattan, New York City, facing Fifth Avenue at 59th Street . The building is one of the few structures in Manhattan that occupies a full city block...

.

Cadillac Place is an ornate high-rise class-A office

Office

An office is generally a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it ; the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the...

complex in the New Center

New Center, Detroit

The New Center is a significant commercial and residential historic district located in Detroit, Michigan, adjacent to Midtown, one mile north of the Cultural Center, and approximately three miles north of Downtown...

area of Detroit, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

constructed of steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

, limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

, granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

, and marble

Marble

Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

between 1919 and 1923 and was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1985. The building houses several agencies of the State of Michigan under a 20-year lease agreement approved in 1998. At the end of the lease, the State has the option to purchase the structure for $1. The 2002 renovation to house State offices was one of the nation's largest historic renovation projects. Upon completion it was renamed Cadillac Place as a tribute to Detroit's founder, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac

Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac

Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac was a French explorer and adventurer in New France, now an area of North America stretching from Eastern Canada in the north to Louisiana in the south. Rising from a modest beginning in Acadia in 1683 as an explorer, trapper, and a trader of alcohol...

. Cadillac Place currently houses over 2,000 state employees including the Michigan Court of Appeals

Michigan Court of Appeals

The Michigan Court of Appeals is the intermediate-level appellate court of the state of Michigan. It was created by the Michigan Constitution of 1963, and commenced operations in 1965...

for District I. The building's former executive office suite serves as the Detroit office for Michigan's governor and attorney general, and several Justices of the Michigan Supreme Court

Michigan Supreme Court

The Michigan Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is known as Michigan's "court of last resort" and consists of seven justices who are elected to eight-year terms. Candidates are nominated by political parties and are elected on a nonpartisan ballot...

have offices in the building.

History

After much pressure by the General Motors Board of Directors, William C. Durant

William C. Durant

William Crapo "Billy" Durant was a leading pioneer of the United States automobile industry, the founder of General Motors and Chevrolet who created the system of multi-brand holding companies with different lines of cars....

agreed in 1919 to construct a permanent headquarters in Detroit for the company he formed in 1908. The corporation purchased the block between Cass and Second on West Grand Boulevard

Grand Boulevard (Detroit)

Grand Boulevard is a thoroughfare in Detroit, Michigan, running east to west in some places and north to south in other places. It once constituted the city limits of Detroit. Grand Boulevard is named the "Berry Gordy, Jr...

and removed the 48 structures from the site to begin work.

Groundbreaking was held June 2, 1919 and the Cass Avenue wing was ready for occupancy in November 1920 while the remainder of the building was under construction. The building was originally named for Durant, but an internal power struggle led to his ouster in 1921 and the structure was renamed the General Motors Building. However, the initial “D” had already been carved above the main entrance and in several other places on the building where they remain today.

The structure served as General Motors world headquarters from 1923 until 2001 when it moved the last of its employees to the Renaissance Center

Renaissance Center

Renaissance Center is a group of seven interconnected skyscrapers in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, United States. Located on the International Riverfront, the Renaissance Center complex is owned by General Motors as its world headquarters...

on the Detroit River

Detroit River

The Detroit River is a strait in the Great Lakes system. The name comes from the French Rivière du Détroit, which translates literally as "River of the Strait". The Detroit River has served an important role in the history of Detroit and is one of the busiest waterways in the world. The river...

. In 1999, General Motors transferred the property to New Center Development, Inc. a non-profit venture controlled by TrizecHahn Office Properties

Brookfield Properties

Brookfield Office Properties Inc. is a North American commercial real estate company. Brookfield Asset Management owns fifty percent of its outstanding common shares. The company has its headquarters operations in New York City and Toronto...

which acted as developer and began renovation on the upper floors which GM vacated in 2000. The Annex was constructed shortly after the main building and in the 1940s, it was connected to the adjacent Argonaut Building

Argonaut Building

The Argonaut Building, renamed in 2009 the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education , is a large office building located in the New Center area of Detroit, Michigan. The building is located at 485 West Milwaukee Avenue, and is located across the street from Cadillac Place...

with a pedestrian bridge on the fourth floor. A parking structure was constructed to the east across Cass Avenue and also connected with a pedestrian bridge. A third bridge was constructed across Grand Boulevard in the early 1980s to connect the building with New Center One and the St. Regis Hotel.

Architecture

Cadillac Place rises 15 stories to a total height of 220 feet (67.1 m) with the top floor at 187 feet (57 m). The building has 31 elevators. It was originally constructed with 1200000 square feet (111,483.6 m²) and expanded to 1395000 square feet (129,599.7 m²). Designated a National Historic Landmark

National Historic Landmark

A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...

on June 2, 1978 it is an exquisite example of Neo-Classical architecture.

Designed by noted architect Albert Kahn, the structure consists of a two-story base with four parallel 15-story wings connecting to a central perpendicular backbone. Kahn used this design to allow sunlight and natural ventilation to reach each of the building's hundreds of individual offices. The entire building is faced in limestone and is crowned with a two-story Corinthian

Corinthian order

The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...

colonnade

Colonnade

In classical architecture, a colonnade denotes a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building....

. In 1923, it opened as the second largest office building in the world (behind the Equitable Building

Equitable Building (Manhattan)

The Equitable Building is a 38-story office building in New York City, located at 120 Broadway in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. A landmark engineering achievement as a skyscraper, it was designed by Ernest R. Graham and completed in 1915...

in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

).

The base of the building is surrounded by an arched colonnade supported by Ionic

Ionic order

The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...

columns. The interior features a vaulted arcade with tavernelle, an Italian marble, covering the walls. The arcade was originally lined by stores and an auditorium which could be used for corporate functions or by community groups. The auditorium space was later converted into an auto showroom. On the lower level were two swimming pools; one was converted into a cafeteria. Tile with a water-theme gives a hint to the original use of the cafeteria space. A depressed driveway extending between Cass and Second divides the lower level of the main building from the lower level of the Annex. When the Fisher Building

Fisher Building

The Fisher Building is an ornate Art Deco skyscraper located on the corner of West Grand Boulevard and Second Avenue in the heart of the New Center area of Detroit, Michigan. It is constructed of limestone, granite, and several types of marble, and was financed by the Fisher family with proceeds...

was constructed across Grand Boulevard in 1927, the two were connected with an underground pedestrian tunnel that also connects north to the New Center Building

New Center Building

The New Center Building is an office building located at 7430 Second Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. It is currently known as the Albert Kahn Building...

allowing workers and visitors transverse all three buildings without venturing into the elements.

The entrance is set into a loggia behind three arches of the Grand Boulevard facade. It intersects the arcade to form a large elevator lobby with a coffered ceiling. Floors on the ground level are gray Tennessee marble. On the upper stories, floors are also gray Tennessee marble while corridor walls remain their original with white Alabama marble.

To the south of the main building is the five-story Annex which served as the original home of General Motors Laboratories. In 1930, the laboratories moved across Milwaukee Avenue to the Argonaut Building and for many years after the Annex housed the Chevrolet Central Office. In 2009 when the Argonaut Building was sold, a fourth-floor pedestrian bridge connecting the two was removed and the Annex facade restored.

Between 2000 and 2002, the building was thoroughly renovated to house the State of Michigan offices, Eric J. Hill

Eric J. Hill

Eric J. Hill, Ph.D., FAIA, is a Professor of Practice in Architecture at the University of Michigan. He earned his Bachelor's degree in Architecture in 1970 from the University of Pennsylvania, a Masters in Architecture from Harvard in 1972, and a Ph.D in Architecture from the University of...

participated in the redevelopment which was headed by Albert Kahn and Associates, the original architects. In addition to upgrading existing systems, reconfiguration of some spaces and redecoration, the project installed central air conditioning. When the building was first occupied, it was cooled in the warmer months simply by opening windows. Later, General Motors simply installed window units to cool various offices and work areas. During the renovation, large-scale systems replaced almost 1,900 window units that were left when GM vacated the structure.

External links

http://www.buildingphotos.com/detroit/DE-3044wgrand.shtml
Cadillac Place at Emporis.com
New Center Council
SkyscraperPage.com's Profile on Cadillac Place
The Mechanical Modernization Of A Classical Icon

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

Architecture

See also

External links