McGregor Memorial Conference Center

The McGregor Memorial Conference Center is where Minoru Yamasaki — the architect who’d go on to design the World Trade Center — first broke from strict Modernism and found the style that made his name. Completed in 1958 on Wayne State’s campus, it was his first major commission after a long illness and a formative trip to Japan, and it won a First Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects almost immediately. It became a National Historic Landmark in 2015.

The two-story pavilion is wrapped in travertine marble with a reflecting pool and sunken sculpture garden on two sides, and the interior atrium uses teakwood columns and abundant natural light to soften what could otherwise be a formal space. Yamasaki went on to design three more buildings for Wayne State over the next several years, making this small stretch of Midtown campus one of the most concentrated collections of his early work anywhere. The reflecting pool and sculpture garden reopened to the public in 2013 after a full restoration.

On our radar for the building that launched an architect who’d later define the New York skyline, or for a genuinely peaceful campus courtyard most visitors to the Cultural Center never wander into.