YMCA Philadelphia

skyscraper
art-deco
PA
Philadelphia

About the YMCA Philadelphia in Philadelphia
Architect and team
Architectural style
Spaces and uses
Structure and materials

The YMCA Philadelphia is an Art-deco skyscraper designed by Louis El Jallade, and built between 1926 and 1928 in Philadelphia, PA.

YMCA Philadelphia is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The building has changed names several times over the years, and is also known as:

YMCA Armed Forces Building.
Young Men's Christian association Building.
The Metropolitan.
Metropolitan Apartments from 1980 until this day.

Its precise street address is 115 N. 15th St, Philadelphia, PA. You can also find it on the map here.

The building underwent a major restoration in 1980.

Building's timeline

Construction begins

1926

Construction completed

1928

Restoration

1980

years ago

2024

1980 - Converted into luxury apartments.

Architect and team

Louis El Jallade was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

Architectural Style

The YMCA Philadelphia can be categorized as an Art-deco building.

The Art Deco movement flourished during the 1920s and 1930s, with many historians marking the outbreak of World War II as its final decline. Even though a couple of decades might not seem as much, the Art Deco movement had a great impact on architecture, and it's widely represented in many American cities due to the development boom that happened during that time.

Art Deco marked the abandonment of traditional historicism and the embracement of modern living and the age of the machine. In architecture, that meant leaving behind the ornaments of Beux-Arts and Neo-Gothic buildings and instead favoring simplicity and visual impact through geometric shapes, clean lines, and symmetrical designs. Ornaments were still an important part of the design, but they became bold and lavish, and were often inspired by ancient cultures or industrial imagery, instead of nature.

The YMCA Philadelphia was completed in 1928, right when the Art Deco movement was at its peak, so it kind of went with the trend at that time.

Spaces & Uses

It has a total of 26 floors.

Ever since opening its doors to the public in 1928, the YMCA Philadelphia has mainly been used as Residential space.

About the residences

The YMCA Philadelphia has a total of 120 residential units throughout its 26 floors.

Materials & Structure

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a large base clad in stone, and dark brick from there on. At the last floor level, the facade is decorated with colorful terracotta tiles that create a decorative pattern in green, blue and yellow. 3 stone clad arches connect the two towers at different levels giving the building its distinctive silhouette. The second of these arches also marks the point for an intermediate conice..