I hadn't posted this place before because I didn't really get a lot of photos here, however the story of the building and the story of the explore itself is definitely worth telling.
Detroit has a large number of stunning mid-century modern buildings, during the time period of the 1930s-1950s there was so much money in the city and so much expansion that companies were able to lure well known architects and designers to put their stamp on the city a lot easier. Reynolds is a company that is primarily known for aluminium foil, but they also produced a lot of parts for the automobile industry. In 1955 they commissioned architect Minoru Yamasaki - who designed a number of Detroit's many mid-century masterpieces including parts of Wayne State University, and would later go on to design the original World Trade Center in New York - to design a building that Reynolds wanted to use as a showpiece to demonstrate the beauty of architectural aluminium. The three storey building was designed as a hollow rectangle with offices arranged around the edge and a massive skylight in the centre, and the whole structure was surrounded by a mesh of gold coloured anodised aluminium rings. The outside of the building was surrounded by a reflecting pool of water, in keeping with other designs by Yamasaki.
In the mid 1980s the building was sold to the Vic Tanny gym chain, who wasted no time in setting about completely butchering Yamasaki's beautiful building. The reflecting pools were filled in and the ground floor extended out to the edges of the supports, the reception area was roofed off and converted into a swimming pool and locker rooms, and a boxing ring was installed on the ceiling built over the swimming pool. It then passed through other owners hands including Bally's Fitness and LA Gym before closing around 2013.
This explore was genuinely one of the most unexpectedly hilarious things I've ever done. As I was there during the tail end of winter the weather was still bloody cold, cold enough to easily freeze any standing water, and on entering here it very quickly became apparent that the whole floor area around the swimming pool, the corridor leading to the stairs, and the only accessible staircase from the ground floor, were completely frozen. And when I say completely frozen, I really mean covered entirely by a few inches of solid ice. So to get up the stairs was more akin to something out of an episode of Takeshi's Castle or Total Wipeout as we slipped and slid comedically to and up the stairs. Luckily the upper floors were devoid of most of the ice, as the water that had frozen appeared to have been pouring in from the rooftop hatch at the top of the one staircase and then pooling down in the swimming pool room. Getting around the swimming pool was equally as treacherous as the ice was lethally slippery and there was a deep drop into the pool on one side of the relatively narrow walkway!
Here are some photos of this stunning building back when it was first built, in happier times.
And here's how it looked in March 2022
Thanks for looking
Detroit has a large number of stunning mid-century modern buildings, during the time period of the 1930s-1950s there was so much money in the city and so much expansion that companies were able to lure well known architects and designers to put their stamp on the city a lot easier. Reynolds is a company that is primarily known for aluminium foil, but they also produced a lot of parts for the automobile industry. In 1955 they commissioned architect Minoru Yamasaki - who designed a number of Detroit's many mid-century masterpieces including parts of Wayne State University, and would later go on to design the original World Trade Center in New York - to design a building that Reynolds wanted to use as a showpiece to demonstrate the beauty of architectural aluminium. The three storey building was designed as a hollow rectangle with offices arranged around the edge and a massive skylight in the centre, and the whole structure was surrounded by a mesh of gold coloured anodised aluminium rings. The outside of the building was surrounded by a reflecting pool of water, in keeping with other designs by Yamasaki.
In the mid 1980s the building was sold to the Vic Tanny gym chain, who wasted no time in setting about completely butchering Yamasaki's beautiful building. The reflecting pools were filled in and the ground floor extended out to the edges of the supports, the reception area was roofed off and converted into a swimming pool and locker rooms, and a boxing ring was installed on the ceiling built over the swimming pool. It then passed through other owners hands including Bally's Fitness and LA Gym before closing around 2013.
This explore was genuinely one of the most unexpectedly hilarious things I've ever done. As I was there during the tail end of winter the weather was still bloody cold, cold enough to easily freeze any standing water, and on entering here it very quickly became apparent that the whole floor area around the swimming pool, the corridor leading to the stairs, and the only accessible staircase from the ground floor, were completely frozen. And when I say completely frozen, I really mean covered entirely by a few inches of solid ice. So to get up the stairs was more akin to something out of an episode of Takeshi's Castle or Total Wipeout as we slipped and slid comedically to and up the stairs. Luckily the upper floors were devoid of most of the ice, as the water that had frozen appeared to have been pouring in from the rooftop hatch at the top of the one staircase and then pooling down in the swimming pool room. Getting around the swimming pool was equally as treacherous as the ice was lethally slippery and there was a deep drop into the pool on one side of the relatively narrow walkway!
Here are some photos of this stunning building back when it was first built, in happier times.
And here's how it looked in March 2022
Thanks for looking
