Knapp's special section: Monument to a bright future

Gleaming slabs of yellow and blue telescoped into the sky above her head.

"The structure is iconic, dynamic, the most interesting building downtown," Bandes said. "Theres nothing like it."

Bandes is a professor of art history and visual culture at Michigan State University and former director of the Kresge Art Museum, predecessor to MSUs Broad Art Museum. Shes a specialist in Art Deco and modernism and editor of a book on Frank Lloyd Wrights Lansing area work.

"This building is in the history books," Bandes said. "Its an important building. Im glad to see they did right by it."

Bruce Kopytek, senior architect at Fieldstone Architecture and Engineering in Auburn Hills and an avid department store buff, is positively dizzy over Knapps.

"It looks like a giant 1930s ocean liner that parked itself in downtown Lansing," Kopytek. "Coming out of the Depression, it was really a statement that the store was moving forward."

The Streamline Moderne style whooshed across America from the late 1930s to the early 1960s.

Streamline Moderne evokes motion – locomotives, zeppelins, ocean liners or cars. It was a transitional style, stretching the zigzag steps and spiky ornaments of Art Deco toward the horizontal lines and clean slabs of high modernism.

"Its part of Art Deco, but it came later," Bandes said. "Its a more simplified style. Art Deco can have lots of loops and curves, but Streamline is more aerodynamic. The ornament is in the curves, the horizontality."

Diners, bars and bus stations around the country, not to mention toasters and Kitchenaid mixers, still sport the Streamline style, but grand examples like Knapps are rare. Last month, Bandes celebrated her birthday by making a pilgrimage to the Chicago Open House, when the Chicago Architectural Foundation opens 150 city gems to the public for one weekend a year.

"Chicago doesnt have anything like this," Bandes said. "There was an Art Moderne church [First Church of Deliverance], but this is a far more interesting building."

As the 20th century went into full swing, older institutions like churches and banks stuck to traditional styles. Upscale exceptions like the ber-Deco Chrysler Building and Royal Oaks Shrine of the Little Flower, the ultimate Deco church, are as spiky as they come. The new temples of the middle class, from bars to restaurants to department stores, were more suited to Streamline Moderne.

"Art Deco, with all its ornament, was kind of upper class," Bandes said. "Its not something most people would have in their houses."

Kopytek cant get over the boldness of the blue and yellow stripes at Knapps. Several years ago, he designed an apartment complex in Ann Arbor with a green-colored roof but was hooted down by the locals.

"They wouldnt let me do green and white in Ann Arbor," Kopytek said. "Knapps whole color theme, from the building to their shopping bags, was blue and gold, and nobody ran them out of town!"

Wolverine-vs.-Spartan passions aside, Bandes said, "the colors are unusual for any building, especially here in Lansing."

Remnants of Deco ornamentation are tastefully deployed throughout the Knapps building. Heraldic "K" insignia are embedded in pilasters that flank the curved corner entrance.

Inside the building, not much remains of the original decor, but a few details are left.

Bandes took extra time to examine the looping handrails inside the Washtenaw Street entrance.

The rails glide into a golden curl, supported by an elegant helix of silver supports.

"Look at the lower part," Bandes said. "It looks like the inner workings of some kind of machine. The curves are simple, but the totality is not quite that simple."

On a moonlight visit last week, Amanda Harrell Seyburn, architectural critic and former contributor to City Pulses Eyesore/Eye Candy column, gravitated to the rounded corner that bends the entire building from Washtenaw Street to Washington Square.

"I love the curving form," Harrell Seyburn said. "Its so shiny and gorgeous. Now you understand what an impact the building had. Its fantastic, the pre-eminent representation of Streamline Moderne in the Midwest."

The corner reminded Bandes of Chicagos famous Carson, Pirie and Scott Co. Department Store building, designed by Louis Sullivan.

"They curve the corners at the street, so youre meant to walk around it, but it also makes the presence of the building really visible from all around, so youre invited in," Bandes said.

After 75 years, people still love to ride that Streamline Moderne train.

"It says theres a bright future ahead," Kopytek said.