One of my favorite things to do is get out and explore downtown Des Moines, especially with a focus on all the great architecture that can be found here. The Iowa Architectural Foundation each summer presents the Architecture @ Hand Walking Tours. This year marks the Foundations’s 20th year anniversary. In the past they’ve offered three different tour paths, this year they have four. I’ve already taken one this year and will probably end up taking several more. Check them out!

The American Republic Insurance building located at the corner of 6th Avenue and Watson Powell Jr. Way is a one of the more interesting architectural buildings in downtown Des Moines.

The building reminds me of a filing cabinet. If you look at it from the front, it looks like file drawers that can be pulled out and then look at the side of the building and notice the legs that the filing cabinet stands on.

The building was built in 1965 and designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and is eight stories tall. The building features an incredible collection of contemporary sculpture in their court yard and eastern entrance areas.

Principal’s Corporate One building was built in 1939 and designed by Tinsley, McBroom & Higgins Architects. At the time Corporate One was named the 8th wonder of the world for its Art Moderne architecture and state-of-the-art engineering. Unique features include: glass murals that are place over the front, southeast and southwest entrance doors and stone murals for a west entrance to the Corporate One Auditorium.

Corporate One was designed in the Art Deco Style. The architects called it modified modernism. It was functional, but also had just enough abstract and stylized ornamentation to add beauty. The building is filled with cool art deco features found in the: railings, lighting sconces, rounded corners, etc. In fact, many of the fixtures inside the building were designed by the architects – the light fixtures; furniture, lamps. They designed the decorative ornamentation on the brass handrails and trim on the elevators.

In addition to be named the 8th Wonder, Corporate One was also named Building of the Decade in 1940 by American Architects Magazine due to some of the innovative ideas that were incorporated into the building, such as: air conditioning; large open work areas without columns; a gymnasium; restrooms which had toilets mounted on the walls instead of the floor for easier cleaning; steel walls with cork for insulation; rounded interior corners for ease of cleaning and a pneumatic tube system for transporting paper documents.

The building of course has grown over time, additions were added to the building in 1959 and 1978, and the art deco style was replicated to assure continuity of style.

I was out shopping with a friend this weekend and saw the new issue of DSM Magazine was out. One article in particular caught my eye, A Portrait of Order. I think what grabbed me the most was the wonderful photography of F. Assassi of the downtown view his client has from their loft.

Here a few excerpts from the article by P. Mankins:

In designing this loft, we sought to provide just such a calming space. In its raw form, the 2,800-square-foot space (created by combining three individual units) was very powerful. Its hardy concrete columns, scarred from a century of warehouse abuse, framed a 12-foot-high volume that was at once vast and intimate. With the brick exterior removed, the space provided a panoramic view of Des Moines’ urban core. Moreover, the space possessed a cadence and clear structure that could be built upon (both literally and figuratively) to create an orderly home.

These efforts result in a space that defies many of the conventions we have come to expect in an urban loft. There are no brick walls-no exposed ducts-just an environment with clarity that accommodates a unique set of domestic needs. It is clean but not clinical, minimal but not empty. Our hope is that the space serves as an architectural portrait of sorts. It is not anonymous or generic, but rather a highly contemporary interior that reflects our client’s desire for order as well as his unique predilections to create a fresh take on the urban loft.

Again you can read the full article online, or what I suggest is pick up a copy at various downtown stores.

If you happen to work or live in the downtown core, you probably walk right by our downtown bus stops on Walnut Street every day and never take a second look. Why you ask? Because our bus stops appear to be strictly utilitarian, with no use of creativity whatsoever.

Simple structures such as bus stops could be just the vehicle we need to add some more interest and appeal to our downtown streets, similar to the cool bike racks that have helped provide more character to the East Village. If marketed correctly, the cost of changing our our existing bus stops for something more creative could be paid for by advertising dollars.

I spent a few minutes and searched the internet to see if I could find some cool examples of interesting and creative bus stops. The images in the slide show below are bus stops located both in the United States and abroad. I hope you enjoy these.

During my daily digg, I came across some outstanding architecture for a new church building in Oakland, California. The building is known as the Cathedral of Christ the Light and was just recently completed. The stunning structure makes beautiful use of glass, fly ash concrete, and wood, but what is the most impressing thing is the incredible use of natural light. This building reminds me just a little of the new Davis Brown Tower. I love awesome architecture, and while we don’t have a church or building that is of this magnitude we do have a very interesting architectural designed church that has recently been restored and that I saw as part of the Sherman Hill’s Doors of the Past Walking Tour last weekend.

The restoration of the First United Methodist Church building was part of the church celebrating its 100th year as home to Des Moines’ oldest congregation. The church, located at 1001 Pleasant Street, was built in Classic Revival style and first dedicated in 1908. The church is known for its dome with the revolving cross overlooks downtown from a hilltop perch just east of Iowa Methodist Medical Center.

The church has a 40-foot wheel of stained glass, known as the Kingman Memorial Window. The interior of the church was repainted with 19 different colors as part of the restoration efforts. Also restored were the eight columns, which represent the congregation’s eight founding families.

Here are some pictures of the church from both the outside and inside as well as a video about the restoration.

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Yesterday as part of the Doors of the Past – Sherman Hill Walking Tour, I was able to tour the historic Murillo building. The building is currently located at the corner of 16th Street & High Street in the Sherman Hill’s neighborhood. The building had been originally located at 531 14th Street, just three blocks from it’s current location.

The Murillo building was built in 1905 and is a three story, brick and masonry apartment building with six rental units, two per floor. The building was moved to the new site to help make room for Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shields new headquarters. The building’s move took place on March 1st and 2nd of this year and was even filmed for the History Channel and should debut later this year as part of their National Geographic Monster Moves series. I’ve included a couple of short YouTube videos from local videographers below. The move cost over $1 million and took 17 days to prepare for and took about eight hours to go the three and half blocks to its destination. 

The Murillo buildings is currently on the list for nominations to the National Register of Historic Places. According to it’s nomination details, the building is considered an outstanding example of the “flat building”, a new architectural form that was emerging in Des Moines at the turn of the century. The Murillo Flats was orginally dubbed the “McNamara Flats,” but its owners James McNamara changed the building’s name to Murillo Flats to recognize a favorite Spanish painters, Bartolome Esteban Murillo (c. 1617-1682) who was being featured in a Des Moines art exhibition at the time. The word “flats,” which was used in Britain at the time (and today) to describe an apartment building, enjoyed certain popularity in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, so the building was called the Murillo Flats.

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This morning, me and couple of my friends took the 2008 Doors of the Past Walking Tour in Sherman Hill, Des Moines’ oldest neighborhood. From its beginnings in the 1870s until today, this neighborhood has maintained a prominent place in the city’s heritage and its architecture has earned distinction as Des Moines’ first local historical district in 1982.

Sherman Hill is a neighborhood that has seen a renaissance in the last ten years, but there is still more to do. The pictures I took along the way show some really nice homes and others that are in of desperate attention. According to the neighborhood’s website: There are numerous factors that draw people to Sherman Hill and have helped fuel the renaissance of the neighborhood. Sherman Hill is an “urban” neighborhood that offers a rare concentration of rich architecture and history that can be found few places in the Des Moines metropolitan area. The proximity of Sherman Hill to downtown, the Ingersoll and Cottage Grove Business Districts, and Iowa Methodist Medical Center all contribute to Sherman Hill’s desirability.

Sherman Hill became one of the City’s first recognized neighborhood associations in 1993. In recent years the Sherman Hill Association has succeeded in its efforts to enhance more aspects of quality of life in the neighborhood. That dedication has resulted in many improvements to the area. Among their more notable accomplishments are the addition of historic street lighting, the success of the annual Walking Tour, the preservation of homes slated for demolition in other parts of the city, and reduction in crime, increased property values and numerous rehabilitation projects spearheaded by the residents and the association.

Sherman Hill offers a unique mix of Victorian, Queen Anne, Italianate, Turn-of-the-Century Four Squares, Double Houses, Stick Style and Flemish architecture.

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I think one of the coolest looking buildings downtown right now is the Des Moines Public Library building located on the eastern edge of the Western Gateway Park at 1000 Grand Avenue. This building is gorgeous both during the day when the bright sun is shining on it and fascinating to look at during the evening hours when it’s all lit from inside.

For a mere $32 million, the City of Des Moines, had a famous British architect, David Chipperfield design and build us a 140,000 square feet structure. The building also sports green roof construction, a first of its kind for the City of Des Moines. The function of the Green Roof Infrastructure provides many benefits to the building and the surrounding community as well as the beauty it brings.

The building appears windowless but turns out to have a plethora of full-height glazed surfaces. Triple glazing with an integrated copper mesh enables this optical illusion to occur. During the day, the façade seems opaque and glows with a warm, coppery colour. At night, when interior lights are on, the façade becomes transparent. This transparency allows the people on the inside of the library feel as if they are actually outside in a park.

If you look at the library from above, it resembles an airplane with the wings of the building meeting each other at broad angles. Reports show that the idea behind this shape was for the building to embrace its green surroundings and to create sheltered areas or ‘pocket parks’ between the wings.

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I’m currently working on a virtual tour of downtown but until I get that finished, I wanted to highlight some information on the 10 tallest buildings in downtown Des Moines. Interestingly enough the three tallest are on Grand Avenue, maybe that’s why they call it Grand Avenue.

801 Grand Address: 801 Grand Avenue Height: 192.0 m | Floors: 45 | Built 1991 Architectural Style: Post Modern Architects: Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum This is the tallest building in the state of Iowa. The bottom three floors of this tower are a retail mall connected to the downtown skywalk system. A great restaurant, 801 Steak & Chop is located here. A private restaurant, the Embassy Club resides on the top two floors of this building. The top half of the tower features a series of terraces and setbacks to visually decrease the building’s impact on the city skyline. 801 Grand Avenue is topped by eight-sided pyramid, which being clad with copper provides a unique sign of the tower. It was named one of the 50 Most Significant Iowa Buildings of the 20th Century by the Iowa chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

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So this evening I finally made it to one of the Architecture @ Hand Walking Tours. I did the North tour and had a great time learning about some of the buildings that I walk by everyday. The architectural details that my guide pointed out are things I have totally missed, but now will notice again and again on my walks through downtown. I never knew so many famous architects have designed buildings in our downtown and that we had so many different styles of architecture for a city our size. Now, I can’t wait till next summer when I can do the West, East and the new South tour. I would highly recommend these tours to anyone, it will help you experience downtown in a new and different way.

One of my favorite buildings, the Ruan Building, was completed in 1975, and stands 460 feet tall with 36 floors. It’s the second tallest building in Iowa. The outside is made out of Cor-Ten steel, which is an alloy designed to withstand the weather and require no maintenance (cleaning or painting). The building was supposed to weather to a rich red-brown color, but due to the cleaner atmosphere here, never quite made it to that color. I learned that the streaking on the building came from the window caulking that was used melting and running down the side of the building. A lot of people here thought the building was a big rust bucket, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I love the look of it.

From the Iowa Public Television site, I found this list of the 50 most significant Iowa Buildings
of the 20th Century as selected by the AIA-Iowa Chapter. The majority of these buildings are in downtown Des Moines. Dates listed here are completion dates.
* Designates building of the decade.
** Designates building of the century (which is also building of its decade.)

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One of my favorite hobbies is photography. I’m no Herb Ritz nor do I ever expect to be. I am just a guy with a digital camera who takes as many photos as he can. I tend to focus on architecture, signs and other random elements of life. I’m usually out every week taking photos of something downtown. I think our city is extremely photogenic, and the variety of photographs that I’ve come across on the internet, leads me to believe that’s a pretty common belief.  So I thought I would share with you some great links to some really outstanding Des Moines photography.

One of the best local photographers of city buildings and skylines is absolutedsm.com. I see their pictures all over the place, in advertisements, skywalk billboards and has reference shots in web postings. Here are a couple of links to my favorite galleries:

• Downtown Galleries
  
• Downtown Construction Projects
  

If you like aerial photography, www.urban-photos.com specializes in aerial photography of city skylines and of course Des Moines is one of the featured cities. Their Des Moines gallery has some truly outstanding images that could only be captured from a helicopter high above the city. I think these three are my favorites:

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It looks like over the last few weeks construction has really started up on the new Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield company headquarters building. As a downtown resident this brings hope and anticipation with new construction that continues to bring vitalization to our downtown, but the same time begs the question what’s going to happen to all the current leased spaces that these companies occupied? With Wellmark moving out of the Ruan and Davis Brown Law Firm moving out of the Financial Center, who will move to occupy those large spaces?

Wellmark’s new five-story, 550,000 square feet building, on 6.5 acres will be a huge addition to downtown. The building beautiful architecture will look awesome sitting across from Western Gateway Park the new Pappajohn Sculpture Garden. Here’s a video that shows off the beautiful architecture of the building:

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Summer is almost over and I’m mad at myself for never finding the time to do the Architecture @ Hand Walking Tour. There’s only one more date left for this year, Thursday September 4th. I’m going try my best not to miss it. The Iowa Architectural Foundation offers these walking tours as a unique approach to getting to know downtown Des Moines by learning fun facts about both old and new downtown buildings.

The walking tours are led by local architects and there are three different tours to choose from: North, West and the East Village tour. The tours begin at 5:30pm and Nollen Plaza (corner of 3rd and Locust, across from the Civic Center). The tours are typical 90 minutes long and they recommend everyone to wear comfortable walking shoes. There is a $10 per person suggested donation to benefit the educational programs of the Iowa Architectural Foundation. The foundation’s goal is promote the awareness of the contribution of architecture and community design to the quality of life in Iowa since 1989.

In doing some research for this post, I found a link for some great old postcard shots of Des Moines.

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