Buhl Alley Cat Traditional Cache

 

Wirt C. Rowland, architect of the Penobscot Building, Guardian Building, and the Buhl Building was born and raised in Clinton, Michigan. In 1901, he landed a job as an office boy for the Detroit firm of Rogers & MacFarlane, quickly moving on to the prestigious George D. Mason firm. In 1909, he joined the office of Albert Kahn, who had also apprenticed under Mason. In 1910, with the encouragement of both Mason and Kahn, Rowland attended the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, MA for a year.

 

 

The combination of Rowland's natural design talent, Harvard education, and Detroit's healthy economy positioned him to make major contributions to the city's architecture. Rowland is a case study in design attribution. In 1911, in the office of Kahn, he and Ernest Wilby are said to have been primarily responsible for the Hill Auditorium at the University of Michigan. Rowland worked for the local firm of Malcomson & Higginbotham until 1915. He then returned to Kahn's office, contributing to the firm's classic projects, namely the Hatcher Graduate Library at the University of Michigan, the Detroit News Building, the First National Building (1922), and the General Motors Building (1922) renamed Cadillac Place.

 

Rowland's career peaked as Head Designer (1922–1930) of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls (SmithGroup). There, he designed a dozen major structures in downtown Detroit; among these are a number of the city's most accomplished and evocative buildings. To a large extent, Rowland helped define Detroit's architectural genre. For the Guardian Building, he had assembled a multitude of artisans, mosaicists, sculptors, painters, and tile manufacturers including Corrado Parducci, muralist Ezra Winter, and tile from the Rookwood and Pewabic pottery companies. He thus recreated the architectural synthesis of a medieval cathedral. Hence, Rowland had reached a climax when his Union Trust/Guardian Building became known as "the Cathedral of Finance."

 

 

The Guardian Building opened in 1930. With the onset of the Great Depression, Rowland was laid off from Smith, Hinchman & Grylls. As a result he formed his own office where his work decreased to a small number of churches, schools and construction projects. Late in life, he returned to a purer, Gothic idiom for his last few projects, notably the Kirk in the Hills church which was finished after he died in 1946. During World War II, the Guardian Building would serve as headquarters for war time production.