Fisher Building

The Fisher Building

Built in 1928, the Fisher Building has been nicknamed "Detroit's largest art object". Sitting on the corner of West Grand Boulevard and Second Street in Detroit, Michigan, the Art Deco skyscraper lies in the heart of the New Center area of Detroit. The 28-story office building was designed by Albert Kahn to house the car body business of the Fisher Brothers (Frederick, Charles, William, Lawrence, Edward, Alfred, Howard), and it is widely considered his greatest achievement. The year of its construction, the Fisher building was honored by the Architecture League of New York as the year's most beautiful commercial structure.

Initially, Kahn planned for a complex of three buildings, with two 28-story structures flanking a third tower twice that height. However, the Great Depression caused his funding to dry up following the construction of the first phase. Nevertheless, most architectural critics feel that the single Fisher Building functions sufficiently well on its own.

Unable to find a large plot downtown, the Fisher brothers built their building across from the GM World Headquarters, which company has recently purchased their Fisher Body Company. The GM building and the Fisher formed a "New Center" for the city away from the old downtown. The Fisher Theater in the building is a large venue and features Broadway touring productions.

The top of the building was gilt and WJR's radio broadcasts from the rooftop antenna came "from the golden tower of the Fisher Building" to a nation still in the Depression.

The Building is also home to the Fisher Theater, one of Detroit's oldest live theater venues. The theatre originally was a lavish Mayan themed interior with banana trees and live Macaws that the 3500 patrons could feed. After the depression, the theatre operated primarily as a movie house until 1961. The Mayan interior had been replaced by a 2089 seat theatre that allowed seating to be more roomy and comfortable for the patrons. The decor was changed to a more simple mid-century design (which some feel is now far more "dated" in appearance than the grandiose art deco foyer). The Fisher Theater now primarily features traveling productions of Broadway shows.

External links

• Detroit News story on the Fisher Building
• Fisher Building at Emporis.com
• SkyscraperPage.com's Profile on the Fisher Building