Detroiters call the Guardian Building, rising in orange brick, the Cathedral of Finance. The Guardian Building, completed in 1929 just before the Crash, is one of the greatest Art Deco skyscrapers in America, designed by Wirt Rowland. Its tower rises in orange brick fired specially for the project, a color so distinctive it was named Guardian brick.
Step into the lobby if the doors are open: the barrel-vaulted ceiling glows with Pewabic and Rookwood tile, Aztec-inspired patterns, Tiffany glass, and a vast Mary Chase Stratton mosaic, an interior meant to make ordinary depositors feel they were entering a temple of commerce. It was built for the Union Trust Company in the brief, dizzying boom before the Depression nearly emptied it. Designated a National Historic Landmark, it remains a working office tower.
Picture the orange tower against the sky, then the blazing tiled ceiling glowing beyond the doors — a bank determined to dazzle a city.