Completed in 1964, the ReliaStar Building, formally known as the Northwestern National Life Building, designed by Minoru Yamasaki and Associates, opened at the end of Nicollet Avenue in 1965. The low-rise structure’s 85 foot portico contains a colonnade of 21 quartz-faced concrete columns in the east-west direction and 9 columns in the north-south direction on each side. The building replaced the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company Home Office near Loring Park. Yamasaki created a setting of reflective pools and landscaping, and claimed he designed “a park with a building in it”. The building has seven floors. Two are below ground. The first level contains an enormous marble-sheathed lobby. A sculpture by Harry Bertoia, and several other works of art inhabit the room. The upper floors have similar, open floor plans. The building’s utilities are snuggled up in the structure’s core.
Northwestern National Life’s headquarters was instantly famous and Yamasaki went on to design the World Trade Center towers in New York City. Northwestern National Life employed almost 500 people when the building opened. By 1978 that number grew to over 800 and the company built a 20-story office tower on the other side of Marquette to accommodate their expanding workforce.
