Architecture of metropolitan Detroit

The architecture of metropolitan Detroit continues to attract the attention of architects and preservationists alike. With one of the world's recognizable skylines, Detroit's waterfront panorama shows a variety of architectural styles. The city's historic Art Deco skyscrapers blend with the post-modern neogothic spires of One Detroit Center. Together with the Renaissance Center, they form the city's distinctive skyline.

Detroit's architecture is recognized as being among the finest in the U.S. with the National Trust for Historic Preservation listing many of Detroit's skyscrapers and buildings as some of America's most endangered landmarks. Detroit has one of the largest surviving collections of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century buildings in the U.S. Meanwhile, the suburbs contain some significant contemporary architecture and several historic estates.

In the 1880s, Gilded Age architects such as Gordon Lloyd, Harry J. Rill, and others, who had designed churches and homes, turned their attention to office and commercial buildings. They designed some of Detroit's ornately stone-carved nineteenth-century tall buildings, many of which are still standing. Lloyd's Romanesque six-story iron-framed Wright-Kay (1891) at 1500 Woodward Ave and his R. H. Traver Building (1889) at 1211 Woodward are prime examples. The Wright-Kay or Schwankovsky was among the first with an electric elevator. Rill designed the ornate Beaux-Arts facade of Detroit Cornice and Slate (1897) at 733 Antoine. The six-story Romanesque Globe Tobacco Building (1888) at 407 E. Fort built by Alexander Chapoton is another of the city's early surviving commercial buildings. Detroit's Victorian styled Randolph Street Historic District contains some of the city's oldest surviving commercial buildings. The commercial building at 1244 Randoph Street dates from the 1840s, a rare survivor from the Antebellum period.

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