DON GONYEA, HOST:
As we close the show today, one more postcard from Detroit, my home base.
Right in front of us is - hands down - my pick for the coolest building on the planet. It's the Guardian Building. It is a 40-story brick - tangerine-colored brick is the official color of it - that went up in 1928, 1929.
The Guardian Building, as it's now known, was once nicknamed the Cathedral of Finance and was built by the Union Trust Company. The skyscraper was one of many that rose not far from the riverfront in a time when Detroit boomed, flush with cash from the auto industry and the men who created it. Inside, the bold art deco building is adorned with brightly colored tile and other materials.
Some of the tile above the doorway is Pewabic tile. The Pewabic often has kind of a slightly iridescent glaze in it. This is a very live room with all the tile, and it's echoing. You can just hear it. But as we go to the area on the other side of this doorway, with the Tiffany clock at the top, that's where the banking takes place. And acoustically, you can tell that it's dead because there is a woven horsehair mat in the entire ceiling that is painted to kind of look like the tile work out here. But it creates a quiet, serene place for the business of banking to take place.
Like so many banks, the Union Trust Company failed in the 1930s, just three years after this building was finished.
And to me, it speaks to what Detroit was in those glorious years of the 1920s, before the nation was plunged into depression.
But this monument to Detroit's identity, its ambitions in industry, agriculture and transportation, told through stunning mosaics with Native American and Aztec references was preserved. The tangerine-colored brick outside still glows in the evening sun. Today, this dazzling civic landmark is still the city's front porch, welcoming the public for encounters with architecture and awe.
MARTY WELLS: I'd love to see it from the inside 'cause I come here...
GONYEA: Yes.
WELLS: ...Every other week.
GONYEA: Marty Wells (ph) was in Detroit for a business trip, and he joined us as we took a look around. He left fairly wowed.
WELLS: Fantastic. I'm going come in here.
GONYEA: (Laughter) As we do it. So come back and bring friends.
WELLS: Yeah.
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