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Building Spotlight: Corporate One
Principal’s Corporate One building was built in 1939 and designed by Tinsley, McBroom & Higgins Architects. At the time Corporate One was named the 8th wonder of the world for its Art Moderne architecture and state-of-the-art engineering. Unique features include: glass murals that are place over the front, southeast and southwest entrance doors and stone murals for a west entrance to the Corporate One Auditorium.
Corporate One was designed in the Art Deco Style. The architects called it modified modernism. It was functional, but also had just enough abstract and stylized ornamentation to add beauty. The building is filled with cool art deco features found in the: railings, lighting sconces, rounded corners, etc. In fact, many of the fixtures inside the building were designed by the architects – the light fixtures; furniture, lamps. They designed the decorative ornamentation on the brass handrails and trim on the elevators.
In addition to be named the 8th Wonder, Corporate One was also named Building of the Decade in 1940 by American Architects Magazine due to some of the innovative ideas that were incorporated into the building, such as: air conditioning; large open work areas without columns; a gymnasium; restrooms which had toilets mounted on the walls instead of the floor for easier cleaning; steel walls with cork for insulation; rounded interior corners for ease of cleaning and a pneumatic tube system for transporting paper documents.
The building of course has grown over time, additions were added to the building in 1959 and 1978, and the art deco style was replicated to assure continuity of style.
Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Architecture | Building Spotlight
