Good evening, everyone:

For our third stop on our tour of Detroit’s architectural interiors (not counting the Peacock Room: previously the Fox Theater and the Guardian Building), let’s move up Woodward to New Center and the Fisher Building. Another temple to the optimism of the era and the emerging industrial centrality of Detroit. It – like the Guardian Building– is a masterwork of Art Deco, immediately recognizable by its gilded crown – which is actually green terra cotta and inspired by Mayan architecture:

Built by the Fisher brothers (there were six of them – “Body by “Fisher”) and designed by Albert Kahn in 1927 (many consider the Fisher to be his masterpiece), it supplements its external grandeur with omnipresent marble, expansive mosaics, and a whole boatload of brass and bronze.  Stepping inside, it’s clear that the building doesn’t want you to wait around to take note of its elegance:

The sweeping grandeur created by the marble, glass, and bronze is complemented by the beautiful detailing – the Tiffany-like light fixtures, the vibrant ceiling mosaics and frescoes, the beautifully detailed railings and balustrades:

These Art Deco guys had a thing for elevator lobbies. Not quite as flamboyant as the Guardian’s, but the Fisher’s gilded space is still pretty remarkable:

And as you wander, you find more marble floors and columns and intricate plasterwork:

The Fisher theater, like the Fox, was originally a movie house vaudeville venue and seated 3,500 people. It has been extensively renovated into a live performance theater seating 2,080 – maybe the only element of this magnificent place that suffered a downgrade – although that is a relative thing in this case:

The Fox, the Guardian, the Fisher. A pretty extraordinary collection.

Rip

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