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.

In the heart of the Downtown Core Neighborhood lies the Civic Center, located at 221 Walnut Street. Built in 1979 with a collaboration of public and private support. The City of Des Moines provided two prime blocks of real estate on which to build the theater and an adjacent plaza and private sources contributed the money for the construction and interior needs. The Civic Center still operates today as a private, not-for-profit business. The building opened its doors officially to the public in June 1979.

The building was designed by the Des Moines architectural firm of Charles Hebert & Associates. The Civic Center’s Main Hall features a 76-foot wide by 28-foot high proscenium stage and has a seating area that accommodates an audience of 2,735. With the design, every seat has a great fiew and no seat is further than 145 feet from center stage. The building also features two triangle shaped lobbies with 50 foot ceilings, glass walls, skylights and walkways. On the ground level, below the main hall, lies Stoner Studio Theater, a smaller venue that seats as many as 200 people.

The Civic Center is the performing home of the Des Moines Symphony, Drama Workshop, Stage West, and the Civic Music Association. The Civic Center has also been host to major Broadway touring companies, performers and groups since it’s opening. It has been nationally recognized as an excellent facility in which to perform and draws large crowds to it’s performances from throughout the Greater Des Moines area.

Here’s a quick list of some of their upcoming events:

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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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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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