Cass Gilbert cladding a steel frame became the model for decades. Modernists embraced his work: John Marin painted it several times; even Frank Lloyd Wright praised the lines of the building, though he decried the ornamentation. Gilbert was one of the first celebrity architects in America, designing skyscrapers in New York City and Cincinnati, campus buildings at Oberlin College and the University of Texas at Austin, state capitols in Minnesota and West Virginia, the support towers of the George Washington Bridge, railroad stations (including the New Haven Union Station, 1920), and the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.. His reputation
Lewis Cass Building The Lewis Cass Building is now a six-story (originally seven-story) U-shaped Classical Revival structure with a flat roof, with a facade of cream-colored sandstone above a granite basement. A cornice separates the second and third floors, forming a base for four-story piasters with Tuscan capitals above. An entablature with cornice runs above the pilasters. As originally built, the building had three arched entrances. After the 1951 fire, two entrances were removed, and the main entrance completely rebuilt as a projecting gray granite entryway. State of Michigan government agencies located in Cass Building: The Lewis Cass Building is getting a first-floor