AT&T Building by Philip Johnson

The AT & T building designed by Philip Johnson in 1984 is located in New York City. At 197 meters tall, the building is 37 stories high and it now serves as the headquarters for Sony Corporation of America. This postmodern building has a sends a strong message as a corporate building and serves as a landmark. One of the most recognizable elements of the building is the ornamental top. It is also controversial because it resembles the style of the open pediments used in Thomas Chippendale’s furniture. Johnson used these post-modern “Chippendale” forms to give the building a more monumental look. 

The building is a vertical massing that uses a tube frame in its framework with tied trusses at the top and bottom of the tubular columns. The material used on the outside of the building is a grayish-pink granite. Besides its ornamental top another main feature of the building is its entrance. The arched entranceway is about seven stories in height. This remarkable entrance combined with ornamental features challenged the functionalism and purely efficient design of the modernist style architecture. 

In my model I wanted to recreate the massing of the building and the ornamental top because it is such a recognizable feature of the building.