Architecture & design
Minoru Yamasaki
1912–1986 · architect
Architect of the World Trade Center who built his career in metro Detroit, designing Wayne State's McGregor Center and One Woodward Avenue.
- Born
Seattle, Washington- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 73- Also known as
- Yama
- Detroit years
- 1945–1986
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Yamasaki, the son of Japanese immigrants, moved to Detroit in 1945 to become chief designer at Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, the city's oldest major architecture firm. He soon opened his own practice, working first from Birmingham and later from Troy, and stayed in the Detroit area for the rest of his life. His local work traced his shift from plain modernism to the delicate, arched New Formalism he became known for: the McGregor Memorial Conference Center at Wayne State University (1958), with its glass-roofed atrium and reflecting pool, the Reynolds Metals building in Southfield, the Michigan Consolidated Gas tower at One Woodward Avenue (1962), and Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Hills. From the Troy office he designed the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center, completed in the early 1970s, as well as the ill-fated Pruitt–Igoe housing in St. Louis. He died of cancer in 1986 and is buried in Lakeville Cemetery in Oakland County.
Highlights
- Chief designer at Smith, Hinchman & Grylls from 1945
- McGregor Memorial Conference Center (1958), a National Historic Landmark since 2015
- One Woodward Avenue (1962), downtown Detroit's white-ribbed office tower
- Designed New York's World Trade Center twin towers from his Troy office
- His firm designed more than 250 buildings
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 5
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1955–1958
McGregor Memorial Conference Center
His early masterpiece on the Wayne State campus, with a skylit atrium and reflecting pool; a National Historic Landmark since 2015.
Worked here · 1959–1962
One Woodward Avenue
Downtown office tower he designed for Michigan Consolidated Gas, clad in slender vertical white ribs.
Worked here · 1964
Prentis Building and DeRoy Auditorium
Part of the group of Wayne State buildings he designed in the 1950s–60s.
Worked here · 1973
Temple Beth El
The tent-like synagogue he designed for Detroit's oldest Reform congregation.
Buried here · 1986
Lakeville Cemetery
His grave, in a quiet corner of a small rural cemetery north of Detroit.