minoru yamasaki

“The purpose of architecture is to

create an atmosphere in which man can live,
work,and enjoy”
 • Minoru Yamasaki was one of the most prominent Japanese American
architects of the second half of the twentieth century.

• He enrolled in the University of Washington program in

architecture in 1929, and graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture

Life (B.Arch.) in 1934. During his college years, he was strongly

encouraged by faculty member Lionel Pries.

NAME –MINORU YAMASAKI

• After moving to New York City in the 1930s, he enrolled at New
BORN-1 -DEC-1912 York University for a master's degree in architecture and got a job
with the architecture firm Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, designers of
DIED-6-FEB-1986 the Empire State Building.
BIRTH LOCATION-SEATTLE(W.
C) • He joined the Detroit firm of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls as head of
design in 1945. 

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• Yamasaki left the firm in 1949, and started his own partnership.
His firm, Yamasaki & Associates, closed on December 31, 2009.
 • His main PHILOSOPHY is “BEAUTY OVER FUNCTION”.
• His early training and experience were influenced by the
austerity and practicality of the modern and international style
movements.

PHILOSOPHY • Every design he created from then strove on:

AND  SURPRISE
 SERENITY

INFLUENCES  DELIGHT
• DESIGN-inspiration by gothic architecture and usage narrow
vertical windows

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 • Yamasaki was elected as a Fellow of the American Institute of
Architects in 1960.
• Yamasaki won the American Institute of Architects' First
Honor Award three times.
• Featured as the cover story of TIME on 18 January 1963.

Awards • He and his fellow architect Edward Durell stone are generally
considered to be the two master practitioners of “New

and recognition Formalism”.

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 • "And a building must be like a human being. It must
have a wholeness about it, something that is very
important."
• "But now I know that it is very important that all
buildings should be consistent, that this is the quality of
the Gothic cathedral, for instance, that we like."
• "We build buildings which are terribly restless. And

QUOTES
buildings don't go anywhere. They shouldn't be restless."
• "In other words, each piece of the building must look as
though it was designed for that particular building.“
• "I have been criticized rather strenuously by painters and
sculptors for not incorporating their work in our buildings."

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 •Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Detroit Branch Building annex,
 Detroit, Michigan, 1951
•Pruitt–Igoe housing project, St. Louis, Missouri,1954
(demolished in 1972)
•Gratiot Urban Redevelopment Project, Detroit, Michigan, 1954
•University Liggett School, Main Campus, Grosse Pointe,

WORKS
Michigan, 1954
•Military Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Missouri, 1955
•Land's Pharmacy, Royal Oak, Michigan, 1955
•United States Consulate in Kobe, Japan 1955
•Lambert-St. Louis International Airport main terminal, 1956
•Woodrow Wilson Elementary School Westland, Michigan, 1956
(Demolished August, 1998)
•Birmingham Unitarian Church, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, 1956
•McGregor Memorial Conference Center, Wayne State University,
Detroit, 1957
•College for Creative Studies, Yamasaki Building, Detroit, 1957
•Albert Schweitzer Elementary School, Westland, Michigan, 19576
•John Marshall Junior High School, Westland, Michigan, 1958
 WORLD • (Jan 18, 1964) –It held the title of Tallest Building

TRADE in the World from 1972–1974. – After a hundred plus

designs he came up with twin towers .
CENTER • The company, Port authority, had wanted 10 million

(Twin towers) square feet of office space. That’s around 11 football fields.
– 1350 feet tall. – Square plan of 63m in dimension on
each side.
• Yamasaki’s design included building facades sheathed in
Aluminum Alloy.
• The world trade center was one of the most-striking
American implementations of the architectural ethic of Le
Corbusier, and it was the seminal expression of
Yamasaki’s Gothic modernist tendencies.

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• Innovation in elevators Yamasaki and the engineers decided to
use a new system with two “SKY LOBBIES”- floors where
people could switch from a large capacity express elevators to
a local elevator that goes.

• ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE IN THE TWIN TOWERS At

the base of the towers, Yamasaki used implied pointed arches-
derived from the characteristically pointed arches of Islam- as
a transition between the wide column spacing below and the
dense structural mesh above. Here, Yamasaki was following
the Islamic tradition of wrapping a powerful geometric form as
in the inlaid marble pattern work of the TAJ MAHAL or the
ornate carvings of the courtyard and domes of the
ALHAMBRA.to each floor in a section.

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• Foundation box Minoru used the so- called “tube within a tube”
architecture where the close external columns form the perimeter
walls of a building. SEARS TOWER also used this architecture.
Structural System Had a 800 x 400 foot foundation box that
was 65 feet deep and had 3 foot thick retaining walls. Called
the bathtub. - Yamasaki’s advanced elevator design allowed for
the WTC to reach the heights that it did. Skeptics thought it
would not work, but it was faster than a regular elevator would
have been.
• Fear of HEIGHTS!! Ironically, Yamasaki had a big-time fear
of heights, which explains his preference for narrow windows
spaced between numerous columns to admit light without
subjecting tenants and office workers to views of how high they
actually were in the building.
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 • Rainier Tower is a 41-story, 156.67 m (514.0 ft) skyscraper in
the Metropolitan Tract of Seattle, Washington, at 1301 Fifth Avenue.
It was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, who designed the World Trade
Center in New York City as well as the IBM Building, which is on the
corner across the street from Rainier Tower to the southeast. Its
RAINIER construction was completed in 1977.
• The skyscraper has an unusual appearance, being built atop an 11-

TOWER storey, 37 m (121 ft) concrete pedestal base that tapers towards
ground level, like an inverted pyramid.

• Beneath the tower is Rainier Square, an underground shopping mall

connecting with One Union Square, which is owned by the University
of Washington (UW).Both the mall and tower were originally
named after Rainier Bank, which was merged in the 1980s
into Security Pacific, which was eventually merged into Bank of
America. The tower was named after Security Pacific in 1989 until
UW chose to rename it back to the more familiar "Rainier Tower"
in 1995.
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• Locals often refer to it as the "Beaver Building" as its physical
appearance looks like a tree being felled by a beaver. It had also been
referred to as the "golf tee" building.
 TECHNICAL INFORMATION:
156.67 m
height
number of floors (above ground) 31
number of floors (below ground) 2
number of parking spaces 114

• In 2015, the University of Washington proposed an 850 ft

office tower to occupy space on the same block as the Rainier
Tower. The project also includes a twelve-story hotel.
Construction is expected to start in 201.

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 • The IBM Building is a 20-story skyscraper in
the Metropolitan Tract at 1200 Fifth Avenue, Seattle,
IBM  Washington.

BUILDING
• The building was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, who also
was architect of Rainier Tower on the corner diagonally
opposite, and the World Trade Center in New York City.
Its construction was completed in 1963.

Height
Roof 84.13 m (276.0 ft)

Technical details
Floor count 20
Floor area 225,000 sq ft (20,
900 m2) 12
 • The McGregor Memorial Conference Center is an office
MCGREGORE building located at 495 Ferry Mall, on the campus

MEMORIAL
of Wayne State University in Midtown Detroit, Michigan.
Completed in 1958

CONFERENCE • The building was designated a National Historic Landmark for

its architecture in 2015

CENTER • The Center was completed in 1958, and opened to

immediate accolades from architectural magazines who called
it "delightful" and "refreshing,"and from the American
Institute of Architects who awarded Yamasaki a First Honor
Award for the design.
• The McGregor Memorial Conference Center is a two-story
symmetrical pavilion covered with travertine marble.
•  The building exhibits a triangular design motif on the outside 13
and inside. 
• The McGregor Center contains 11 meeting rooms, a 600-
seat auditorium, a 2,500 sq ft (230 m2) reception
area, and a 3,500 sq ft (330 m2) exhibit space.

• The conference rooms can be combined to accommodate

groups of various sizes. Interior design features white
marble floors, red carpeting, and black leather chairs
by Mies van der Rohe.

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THANK YOU

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