World Trade Center architect’s Detroit vision

By AMANDA PROSCIA
Capital News Service
LANSING — John Gallagher profiles Japanese-American architect Minoru Yamasaki in his new book Yamasaki in Detroit: A Search for Serenity. Best known for his design of the World Trade Center in New York, a number of Yamasaki’s designs adorn Detroit’s urban landscape, including the One Woodward Avenue building (formerly the Michigan Consolidated Gas building). The city was Yamasaki’s adopted home. He moved from New York to a Detroit suburb in his mid-30s and remained in the area until his death in 1986. “The great irony is Yamasaki is known as the architect of arguably the most gargantuan project in the U.S., but mostly all of his other projects were very modest,” Gallagher said.