PHILIP JOHNSON HOUSTON PROFESSIONAL

The 3.5 million square foot existing building is located at the southern edge of “the loop” one block south of Union Station. The Chicago Post Office Development is the renovation of Chicago’s old main post office building. The building is fully occupied by the financial company Ernst & Young and is their Holland headquarters.Ĭhicago Post Office Development (in progress), Chicago, Illinois The rotation also serves to give prominence the historic landmark building adjacent to the new tower, and also provides views and a visual connection to the city center. While the building takes its design cues from local buildings and conditions, the principle gesture is the rotation of the body of the tower to allow optimum river views and sunlight in the office spaces. This office tower occupies a narrow site between the Rhine and one of Rotterdam’s many canals. The arrangement of the complex is geared to automobile-dominated Houston. The lobby is floored in slate, lined in light gray marble, and the ceiling is finished in tiny gray tiles.Īltogether there are three towers, a retail building and a garage on a 17 acre site near major highways. Grey slate also paves the approaches, and the sumptuous materials and restrained palette continue on the inside. Surrounding the base ois a single thickness of textured gray slate as plinth. On the exterior, these svelte towers are ringed in charcoal and silver, arranged in an intricately interlocking pattern of ribbons, dressed with the metallic sea green reflections of the Texas sky.

Post Oak Central I, II, III, Houston, Texas

PHILIP JOHNSON HOUSTON PROFESSIONAL

It was the beginning of a very long professional relationship that produced more than a dozen signature projects for this Houston-based developer. Pennzoil Place was an early project done for Hines. Space is also allocated for a restaurant to serve the occupants of Pennzoil Place during the day and theater-goers at nearby theaters during the evening. At the Mall level, a shopping area provides a variety of shops and services. There are approximately 50,000 square feet of retail space in this project. Principal entrances into the complex are through these glass courtyards.

The street level area between the two towers is enclosed within a sloping glass roof creating a space that rises approximately 117 feet or eight stories to its apex. Each typical floor contains 20,500 square feet. Pennzoil Place contains a total gross area of 1.7 million square feet, of which 1.2 million square feet is rentable office space and commercial space. The two identical towers that make up Pennzoil Place rise 495 feet and have 34 levels each. Clad in a curtain wall of bronze colored glass and anodized bronze aluminum, Pennzoil Place is a striking contrast to Houston’s skyline. The tops of the buildings are not cut off in the usual fashion, flat against the sky, but rather silhouette a strong diagonal massing.

In lieu of the predictable glass box, two towers in the shape of trapezoids mirror each other and sit next to one another by a mere 10 feet. This headquarters built for Pennzoil and the Zapata Oil Company exhibits a striking design that marked a turning point in the evolution of the office tower as a building type.

Philip johnson houston