John Gallagher

Detroit Free Press

Creating an architectural icon is a tricky task.

Toronto's Eaton Centre mall remains a vibrant tourist destination some 40 years after it opened. But high-concept buildings like the Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the Thompson Center government building in Chicago became best known for falling ice and other design or construction flaws that led to lawsuits and recriminations.

So we should temper early judgments on the stunning design presented recently for businessman Dan Gilbert's Hudson's site project with the realization that so far we have just an idea of how the building will ultimately look, feel and operate.

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Even from this early vantage point, though, we can tell a lot. I predict the building mostly will live up to Gilbert's ambitions of architectural innovation and distinction — but with one large "if."

I give a solid "A" to what Gilbert's team calls the podium, the first nine stories chock full of many different uses. But the residential tower that would rise to become Detroit's tallest building earns an "Incomplete" grade at this point.

Let's deal with the tower first. Plans call for this residential spire to rise to a height of 734 feet, a few feet loftier than the Renaissance Center. But the early renderings just don't tell us enough to say how well it will succeed in either style or function. Indeed, compared to the multi-faceted podium with its interplay of many architectural forms and ideas, the tower seems in these early renderings to be more one-dimensional, almost a separate project distinct from its host base.

The podium, though, promises to be special. Its most obvious feature, those giant slashes dividing the facade, serves as more than mere whimsy; they flow natural light into the interior and signal the many different interior zones into which the core is divided — public market, theater, civic gathering space, technology innovation hub, and more. The facade announces that this is not one building type but many.

The mostly glass facade is softened by metal panels that resemble origami paper or leaves fluttering to the ground. Those panels are denser near the upper floors and grow smaller closer to the street. The smaller panels let in more light to interior zones where light is needed while the bigger metal panels sheathe more of the facade if the interior program requires less light.

Halfway up the podium — a nod to the height of the historic buildings across the street — open-air landscaping rings the structure and creates a base for the floors of rental office space above.

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Taken all together, these elements add up to a most ambitious architectural expression. It goes well beyond the usual formula of ground-floor retail and open-floor office space above.

This complex design comes from the collaboration of New York-based SHoP architects, a young firm known for its eye-popping buildings, working with Hamilton Anderson Associates of Detroit.

William Sharples, a principal at SHoP, said the design began with Gilbert himself, who has long talked of creating something on the Hudson's block worthy of the site's storied history.

"He said it can’t be just a building," Sharples said. "This has to be something giving back to the city but also rediscovering all the great things Hudson’s was — a civic gesture, not just another mixed-use building."

Gilbert wanted what Sharples called a hyper-mixed-use building, a city within a city like the old Hudson's store. He wanted a building that would contain a rich array of ideas, uses and attractions, not just one or two.

Wrap up that concept in the sort of curvy, swirly design enabled by modern digital design programs and you get Gilbert's Hudson's block project.

There's no name yet for this latest variant on modernism. One local architect somewhat sourly refers to it as "show-off architecture." Social media postings question whether this design speaks to Detroit's history and culture or whether it's just a piece of international high design transported from Dubai or Shanghai to Woodward Avenue. Certainly the experiences of MIT's Stata Center or Chicago's Thompson Center would caution us to reserve final judgment for a while yet.

But sometimes the architectural gods smile on a city. Detroit got very lucky during its Golden Age of the 1920s with landmarks like the Guardian and Fisher buildings. With the money, talent and architectural ambition behind Gilbert's Hudson's block project, Detroit may get lucky once again.

Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jgallagherfreep.