Saturday, February 26, 2011

The Detroit Free Press Building

The Detroit Free Press Building stands at 321 West Lafayette Street in Detroit. It was designed by Albert Kahn in 1924 and completed a year later.

The building has a two story basement and 14 stories above ground. It is a steel framed structure with limestone facing. It has an Art Deco style with lots of nice details on the building. To me it has a very utilitarian appearance with some style.

It was occupied by the Free Press from it construction until 1987 when they moved down the street to be closer to their new partner, The Detroit News.

There are lots of neat little details on the building. Sadly it is unoccupied at the moment and shows some signs of disrepair although not as bad as some of the other buildings of Detroit.

This is one of the friezes on the building.

Looking up at the building. You can see alot of the same styling cues that Mr. Kahn used in other buildings.

The front entrance. It was going to be used by the Motor City Film Works as a soundstage but that may be on hold. There is talk that it may be used for apartments, offices and retail space.

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