Doctoral students in the Architecture program held a study tour on Saturday, March 29, featuring the work of Detroit-based architect Minoru Yamasaki. The one-day event, led by PhD candidate Joss Kiely, focused on Yamasaki's work in the Greater Detroit Metropolitan region and consisted of six buildings that span nearly twenty years of his architectural practice including: Temple Beth-El in Bloomfield Hills, Wayne State Campus buildings including the College of Education, McGregor Conference Center, Helen DeRoy Auditorium and the Prentis Building; and the lobby and exterior of One Woodward/Michigan Consolidated Gas.

McGregor Memorial Conference Center (1958) Minoru Yamasaki

Minoru Yamasaki was born in 1912 in Seattle, Washington. Yamasaki held a variety of jobs and pursued architectural education in and around the Pacific Northwest before migrating east. In 1945 he was hired to be a principal at Smith, Hinchman and Grylls in Detroit, before leaving to form his own firm with partners George Hellmuth and Joseph Leinweber in 1951. Among the firm’s three hundred built projects are well-known works including Pruitt-Igoe Public Housing (1955), The Saint Louis Air Terminal (1956) and the World Trade Center (1970s).