Buhl Building

Stand at the corner of Griswold and Congress and you’re surrounded by one architect having the decade of his life: the Buhl was Wirt Rowland’s first skyscraper, opened May 1, 1925, directly across Congress from his Penobscot and across Griswold from his Guardian. It’s the warm-up act that would embarrass most careers — 26 stories of cream terra cotta in Neo-Gothic dress with Romanesque accents, crawling with Corrado Parducci’s carvings, the same sculptor who decked out the Fisher and the Masonic Temple. Rowland’s clever move hides in the floor plan: above the fourth floor the tower becomes a Greek cross, built before air conditioning to pull in light and breeze — and, not incidentally, to yield eight corner offices per floor instead of four.

It’s a working office tower, but the ground floor welcomes civilians: an L-shaped lobby with a vaulted ornamental ceiling, marble everything, bronze elevator doors — plus a bar and a scoop shop for making an occasion of it. On our list as the opening chapter of the Rowland story, told at a single intersection.