Lafayette Pavilion Apartments

The Lafayette Pavilion Apartments is an International Style skyscraper designed by Mies van der Rohe, and built between 1955 and 1958 in Detroit, MI.

Its precise street address is 1 Lafayette Plaisance, Detroit, MI. You can also find it on the map here.

The Lafayette Pavilion Apartments 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 Pavilion Apartments was officially included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

The Lafayette Pavilion Apartments are part of the four towers Mies developed in Lafayette Park. The others are the:

• Windsor Tower
• Lafayette Towers Apartments West and East

All of which were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

Mies van der Rohe was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design. But there was also one other architect involved, as far as we know. We are talking about Ludwig Hilbersheimer.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the Lafayette Pavilion Apartments a reality:

• Herbert Greenwald as the Main Developer
• Alfred Caldwell in charge of Landscape Architecture

The Lafayette Pavilion Apartments can be categorized as an International Style building.

The Lafayette Pavilion Apartments was completed in 1958. By 1958 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 Pavilion Apartments was not well received by everyone at the time.

The Lafayette Pavilion Apartments uses a frame structure made of 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

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a window wall type of facade with aluminum-clad columns that rise from the second floor to the top of the building, creating 10 bays on the wider side of the building's facade, and three on the narrower side.

The tower rises above a two-story base, which retract from the facade plane, exposing the structural columns and creating a covered outdoor space at ground level.

Other materials found at the Lafayette Pavilion Apartments include, green marble, found in the lobby's walls , and terrazo, used for the lobby's floors .