My name upon the altar

That there is the ceiling of the lobby of the Guardian Building in downtown Detroit. The building is known as the "Cathedral of Finance" and the lobby is supposed to be cathedral-like, except honoring some kind of made up Aztec-y non-denominational art deco finance god. Leasing is now quite affordable.

In addition to the remarkable decor, the lobby features clean restrooms and the excellent Rowland Cafe, which I don't own and have never patronized. The cafe is named after Wirt C. Rowland, no relation, who also had a hand in designing Hill Auditorium here in Ann Arbor.

What, you were watching basketball?

Ireland's biggest secret!

While slaving away in the pleasant Irish summer, my colleagues and I happened across Ireland's biggest secret. It concerns this new skyscraper going up in central Cork:



Across the base of the skyscraper are some silly advertisements:





But the final panel revealed the secret!

Ours was built by monks

Uh-Oh. It looks like Ypsilanti's reign as the town with the most phallic building in the world is under threat.

(via)

It's over there, it's over there

Forgotten Detroit is a site dedicated to documenting Detroit's degraded collection of pre-depression architecture. It's really quite something.

I came across it because I was looking for a picture of the building above, the abandoned Detroit Central Station. I first saw the building yesterday morning while on my way to this. Pictures really don't do justice to the scale of the building or the way its hulking ruin dominates the surrounding area. On seeing it, my first thought was that it was past time that somebody knocked the thing down.

But of course I was wrong.

One of the striking things about Detroit architecture -- and I've noticed this before mostly in residential areas -- is that beneath the decrepit surface, a lot of the buildings are really quite impressive. Detroit's buildings were built to last and, even without the most basic maintainance, many of them have. Another of the striking things, of course, is how much of the architecture is gone. There are blocks where vacant lots are the most common feature. I'm not sure which is more depressing, but one things for sure. Detroit already has enough vacant lots.