Lafayette Apartment Towers

Lafayette Apartment Towers
  1. About the Lafayette Apartment Towers in Detroit
    1. Building Catalogations
  2. Architect and team
  3. Architectural style
  4. Spaces and uses
  5. Structure and materials

The Lafayette Apartment Towers is an International Style skyscraper designed by Mies van der Rohe, and built in 1963 in Detroit, MI.

Its precise street address is 1321 Orleans Street(West), 1301 Orleans Street(East), Detroit, MI. You can also find it on the map here.

The Lafayette Apartment Towers is a structure of significant importance both for the city of Detroit and the United States as a nation. The building embodies the distinctive characteristic features of the time in which it was built and the International Style style. Because of that, the Lafayette Apartment Towers was officially included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

Lafayette Tower Apartments, East and West, are two identical towers that are part of the four towers Mies developed in Lafayette Park. The others are the Windsor Tower and Lafayette Pavilion Apartments.

The four towers were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996, along with all the buildings designed by Mies van der Rohe for Lafayette Park .

Building's timeline

Construction completed
1963
61
Added to the NRHP
1996
28
years ago
2024

Architect and team

Mies van der Rohe was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was born in 1886 in Germany. During the first part of his career, he ran his own practice in Berlin, and later on became the director of the Bauhaus School of Architecture.

Mies is considered one of the fathers of modern architecture. His work played an instrumental role in defining the aesthetics of the International Style, emphasizing simplicity, clean lines, and the use of modern materials like steel and glass. His famous statement, "less is more" sums up his design philosophy, which advocated for the elimination of unnecessary ornamentation and a return to the fundamental principles of architecture.

After the Bauhaus was shut down by the Natzi regime, he emigrated to Chicago. There he became the director of the IIT School of Architecture, as well as ran his own architectural firm. During his years in Chicago he continued to explore and promote the principles of the International Style, and had a huge impact on the development of modern skyscrapers.

His legacy can not only be found spread throughout Europe and the US in the shape of iconic buildings such as the German Pavilion, the Tugendhat House, the Crown Hall or the Seagram Building, but also in the architecture curriculum he developed at the IIT which greatly influenced many generations of architects, even to this day.

Mies Van Der Rohe

Architectural Style

The Lafayette Apartment Towers can be categorized as an International Style building.

The international style originated in Europe in the early 20th century, and made its way to the US a couple of decades later when the rise of the Nazi regime forced figures such as Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, or Mies van der Rohe to flee Europe.

The International Style emerged as a response to the prevailing historicism and ornate architecture styles of the late 19th century, which according to a younger generation of architects didn't represent the new materials and construction techniques that were on the rise at the time.

Architecture in the early 20th century US was marked by the adoption of steel structures, modern construction techniques, and the rise of the skyscraper. As it turns out, this combination of circumstances created the perfect ecosystem for the International Style to flourish, becoming the to-go style for skyscraper designs during the mid-20th century, when American cities were growing fast.

The International Style’s legacy can not only be found in numerous iconic buildings across all major American cities, but also incorporated in contemporary architecture, which still puts a big emphasis on functionality and minimalism.

The Lafayette Apartment Towers was completed in 1963. By 1963 the International Style movement had already left its early days behind and could be considered a mature movement, which does not mean it was loved and accepted by everyone, on the contrary. The International Style was accepted by the architecture community way before it was by the general public, and it is therefore likely that the Lafayette Apartment Towers was not well received by everyone at the time.

Spaces & Uses

The Lafayette Apartment Towers reaches an architectural height of 213ft (65m). It has a total of 23 floors, 22 above ground and 1 basements.

Ever since opening its doors to the public in 1963, the Lafayette Apartment Towers has mainly been used as Residential space.

About the residences

The Lafayette Apartment Towers has a total of 584 residential units throughout its 22 floors. If you are interested in learning more about the residences and their availability, you can check the Lafayette Apartment Towers's website.

213ft (65m)
1 basements

Materials & Structure

The Lafayette Apartment Towers uses a frame structure made of reinforced concrete columns and beams.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade uses a non-load bearing window wall system.

Window wall systems are installed between floor slabs, allowing the edge of the slabs to be visible from the exterior (unlike curtain walls).

Window walls are easier to install than curtain walls, often resulting in reduced construction time and cost. However, the exposed edge of the slabs are weak points in terms of thermal insulation and needs to be carefully detailed to avoid thermal bridging and potential condensation issues

Non-structural Window Wall Facade
Non-structural Window Wall Facade

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a window wall with gray-tinted glass and aluminum frames, that spans from the second level until the top of the building. Each window has two distinct sections, a large fixed glass pane on top and a smaller gid section beneath it, which allows the AC units to exchange air with the outside.

At ground level, a double-height, 4,88m tall, recessed glass wall houses the lobby and some other support spaces, while the space between this glass wall and the perimeter columns serves as a transition space between the outside and the inside..

Other materials found at the Lafayette Apartment Towers include, green marble, found in the elevator cores, and terrazzo, used in lobby and terraces floors .

Sources

  • en.wikipedia.org
  • web.archive.org
  • www.apartments.com
  • detroitmi.gov