One Liberty Place

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1 year ago

Leo added company Thornton Tomasetti
2 years ago

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If built in the 1920s or '30s, a building the same height as Liberty Place would require 40 to 50 pounds of structural steel per square foot. Amazingly this structure at One Liberty Place contains only 23 pounds of structural steel per square foot. Office floors range from 24,000 square feet on the lower floors to a mere 1,300 square feet at the building's peak. In total there are over 1.2 million square feet used as both office and retail space.

To resist lateral wind loads, a system of super-diagonal outriggers was designed. Essentially the eight outriggers, which are at three locations within the structure, transfer wind loads from the building's facade to the core.

The tower is sheathed in a mix of sapphire-blue glass and metal. All four corners are cut away, breaking the square box form. Blue and gray granite piers and horizontal bands occur at one, two, and four-story intervals on the building's facade.

For nearly 100 years no building in Philadelphia dared to challenge the height of City Hall. An unwritten agreement that the statue of William Penn atop the spire on the Hall would remain the highest point of the city kept the skyline free of any structure higher than 491 feet. Willard Rouse, developer of the tower, lobbied for a high-rise zone district in the heart of the city. Although this idea encountered great controversy, the plan for One Liberty Place was eventually approved by virtue of the prospective increase in revenue and jobs. Also it would open the way for even more such buildings.

The facade echoes the popular Art-Deco style first unveiled at the Paris Exposition of 1925. Although it is often compared to William Van Alen's Chrysler Building in New York, Liberty Place displays a more robust body and less ornate crown in addition to containing more modern materials.

2 years ago