Over the top: Critics of the 1920s frowned on Book Tower’s ornate details.
Source: ODA and Bedrock Detroit/Sarah Schumacher for Bloomberg
How Detroit Reclaimed a Towering Relic From the Roaring ’20s
Architect Louis Kamper’s Book Tower stood vacant for years. After a painstaking restoration from New York firm ODA, the 38-story skyscraper is ready for a new century.
(This story is part of “Look at That Building,” a Bloomberg CityLab series about everyday — and not-so-everyday — architecture. To get more content like it, sign up for the Design Edition newsletter .)
Louis Kamper gave Detroit some of its finest traditional buildings. The German-American architect’s monumental towers grace Washington Boulevard, the epicenter of Detroit’s development in the early 20th century. Markers of the City Beautiful era, Kamper’s ornamental towers represent a period of urban optimism that preceded the Motor City’s peak in the 1950s.