This post was originally authored by Dr. Dale Allen Gyure, a professor of architecture at Lawrence Tech University and a member of the Michigan State Historic Preservation Review Board. He’s also the author of the book Minoru Yamasaki: Humanist Architecture for a Modernist World.
Minoru Yamasaki, who practiced in the Detroit area for over forty years, was one of the world's best-known architects in the early 1960s, appearing on the cover of Time, serving on President Kennedy's committee to redesign Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., and being selected to construct the World Trade Center in New York, which was briefly the tallest building in the world.
His popularity arose from a unique form of architecture developed in the 1950s which melded his interest in invoking feelings of "serenity" and "delight" with insights gained from studying historical buildings in Europe, India, and Japan. His work offered a gentler, more decorated style of modernism distanced from the obsession with function or structure that characterized much of contemporary architecture.
Metro Detroiters are fortunate that many of Yamasaki's most celebrated designs are located in the area. Here are 13 notable examples.
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