Tag: Johnson (Philip)

  • One PPG Place from Third Avenue

  • Nicholas Building

    If you see a student of architecture suddenly stop in the middle of the Diamond and burst out laughing, this building is the subject of the mirth.

    When it was announced that a gigantic complex to be designed by Philip Johnson was going to take over one corner of the Diamond, the owners of the Nicholas Coffee building, who happened to be ready for a renovation, decided to welcome their new neighbor with a parody of what was then Johnson’s most famous work. At that time, Johnson was notorious everywhere for his AT&T Building (now called just 550 Madison Avenue), which was a deliberate poke in the eye of orthodox modernism; and you have only to see it to get the Nicholas Building’s joke.

    Photograph by David Shankbone; cropped by Beyond My Ken.
  • PPG Place

    View of PPG Place from the Diamond

    A view looking south on what used to be Market Street before PPG Place took it over. The obelisk (or the Tomb of the Unknown Bowler, as Peter Leo liked to call it) is in the middle distance.

  • Abstract Patterns at PPG Place

  • Reflections in PPG Place

    Artsy if not artistic pictures of PPG Place reflecting PPG Place and nearby buildings.

  • One PPG Place from Wood Street

    Looming over the smaller buildings on Fifth Avenue, One PPG Place looks like a fantasy tower in a superhero movie, which is why it tends to play fantasy towers in superhero movies.

  • PPG Place Reflected in PPG Place

    The distinctive pinnacles of PPG Place are reflected in more PPG Place across the street.

    Camera: Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3