Metropolitan Building
Encyclopedia
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
significant structures in the history of Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
. It stood from 1890 until it was torn down starting in 1961 as part of major urban renewal
Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
efforts in the city that saw about 40% of the downtown district razed and replaced with new structures. At the time, the pending destruction of the Richardsonian Romanesque
Richardsonian Romanesque
Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after architect Henry Hobson Richardson, whose masterpiece is Trinity Church, Boston , designated a National Historic Landmark...
building provided a catalyst for historic preservation movements in the city and across the state.
The building is considered by some to be the city's first skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
, with 12 stories and standing 218 ft (66m) tall. Small observation towers poked up above the corners, and the rooftop had a popular garden
Garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has...
. It was built of green
Green
Green is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nanometres. In the subtractive color system, it is not a primary color, but is created out of a mixture of yellow and blue, or yellow and cyan; it is considered...
New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
and red
Red
Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked eye...
Lake Superior
Lake Superior
Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...
sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
, with the interiors dressed in antique oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
. A large skylight allowed the interior to be safely lit in a time when the electric light
Electric light
Electric lights are a convenient and economic form of artificial lighting which provide increased comfort, safety and efficiency. Most electric lighting is powered by centrally-generated electric power, but lighting may also be powered by mobile or standby electric generators or battery systems...
was rare (though the building was eventually wired), and the floors of walkways circling the center court were translucent to allow more light to filter through. Architect E. Townsend Mix
E. Townsend Mix
Edward Townsend Mix was an American architect of the Gilded Age who designed several buildings in the Midwestern United States. His career was centered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and many of his designs made use of the region's distinctive Cream City brick.-Biography:Mix was born in New Haven,...
designed the building, and it is considered to be his most notable achievement. Many of the city's most prestigious companies had offices in the Metropolitan.
When it went up, the building was owned by the Northwestern Guaranty Loan Company, which had been founded by Louis F. Menage. Menage (1859-1924) had gained a fortune while speculating on real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
in the Minneapolis area in the 1880s. He spent $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
1 million on the project. Many hailed the building when it was first completed, although some such as Cass Gilbert
Cass Gilbert
- Historical impact :Gilbert is considered a skyscraper pioneer; when designing the Woolworth Building he moved into unproven ground — though he certainly was aware of the ground-breaking work done by Chicago architects on skyscrapers and once discussed merging firms with the legendary Daniel...
did not like the style.
Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893. Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures...
caused Menage's company to collapse, and he fled the country. Thomas Lowry
Thomas Lowry
Thomas Lowry was a lawyer, real-estate magnate, and businessman who oversaw much of the early growth the streetcar lines in the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis, St. Paul, and surrounding communities in Minnesota...
, another major real estate speculator and the owner of the area's streetcar network, purchased the building but only held onto it for a little more than a decade before selling it off to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company
MetLife, Inc. is the holding corporation for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, or MetLife, for short, and its affiliates. MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, annuities, and employee benefit programs, with 90 million customers in over 60 countries...
in 1905. This is where the building gained its "Metropolitan" name, even though it changed hands a few more times before succumbing to the wrecking ball.
There was little practical reason to tear down the building. Records from the day indicate that it was safe and almost fully occupied at the time it was condemned
Eminent domain
Eminent domain , compulsory purchase , resumption/compulsory acquisition , or expropriation is an action of the state to seize a citizen's private property, expropriate property, or seize a citizen's rights in property with due monetary compensation, but without the owner's consent...
. The structure came down because it was in the wrong neighborhood—on the edge of the so-called Gateway District, sitting on the southwest corner of Third Street South and Second Avenue South.
Some giant marble stones from the building were found in an old warehouse in Delano, Minn. in May 2010 and the owner of the building set off a frenzy when he emailed a small group of architects and historical preservationists in Minnesota who now are trying to find money and a way to save the stones, according to the Pioneer Press.