The Argonaut Building, renamed in 2009 the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education (originally the Argonaut, or General Motors Research Laboratory), is a large office building located at 485 West Milwaukee Avenue in the New Center area of Detroit, Michigan, across the street from Cadillac Place GM's former corporate headquarter office. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.[1]
Description
The building was constructed in two phases between 1928 and 1936,[2] with the finished structure forming an L shape. The high-rise is eleven floors tall, with an additional basement level. The height to the main roof is 42.7 meters (140 feet), and 56.3 metres (180 feet) to the top of the elevator tower. The 275-unit structure is an Art Deco building, and uses primarily red-brown brick and limestone in its materials.
The building is fifteen bays wide along Milwaukee, and eight bays wide along Second. Building corners have wide brick piers, with narrower windows separating the bays along the facade. The windows in each bay are slightly recessed, containing double-hung windows, with ornamental cast iron spandrel panels on the top two floors.