Harrison & Abramovitz
Harrison & Abramovitz was an American architectural firm based in New York and active from 1941 through 1976, a partnership of Wallace Harrison and Max Abramovitz.
The firm was best known for modernist corporate towers on the East coast and Midwestern cities. Most are straightforward. One notable stylistic innovation was the use of stamped metal panels on the facade, first at the 1953 Alcoa Building in Pittsburgh, and repeated at the 1953 Republic Center Tower I in Dallas and the 1956 former Socony-Mobil Building at 150 East 42nd Street in New York City.
Both Harrison and Abramovitz were design architects and worked independently. Some projects are clearly attributable to one or the other: for instance the buildings at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Abramovitz's alma mater, are his designs. Harrison's work at the Empire State Plaza "commanded his attention almost exclusively" for 15 years, from 1962 through 1976,[1] which implies the other work of the partnership in that period is primarily attributable to Abramovitz. After 1976 Abramovitz partnered with others.
The firm was also known as Harrison, Fouilhoux & Abramovitz (1941 through Fouilhoux's death in 1945), Harrison, Abramovitz, & Abbe, and Harrison, Abramovitz, & Harris.
Work
The firm's credits include:
- Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, 1951
- 525 William Penn Place, Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1951
- Regional Enterprise Tower, originally the Alcoa Building, Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1953
- Republic Center Tower I, Dallas, Texas, 1953
- Embassy of the United States, Havana, Havana, Cuba, 1953
- Socony-Mobil Building, 150 East 42nd Street, NYC, 1956
- 129 West Trade, Charlotte, North Carolina, 1958
- Chase Tower, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1961
- Springs Mills Building (Charles H. Abbe, chief designer), 104 West 40th Street, New York, 1961–63, a designated New York City Landmark.[2]
- Jerome L. Greene Hall, Columbia Law School, New York City, 1961
- United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library Building, New York, 1961
- Continental Can Building, New York City 1961
- General site planning and Plaza for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York 1961-1966
- David Geffen Hall (Formerly Avery Fisher Hall, and opened as Philharmonic Hall) at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, 1962
- Assembly Hall, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 1963
- Erieview Tower, Cleveland, Ohio, 1964
- New York Hall of Science, Flushing, New York, 1964
- Columbus Center, Columbus, Ohio, 1964
- Metropolitan Opera House at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, 1966
- Main Place Tower, Buffalo, New York, 1969
- PNC Center, Akron, Ohio, 1969
- Fiberglas Tower, Toledo, Ohio, 1970
- U.S. Steel Tower, originally the USX Tower, the tallest building in Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1970
- 11 Stanwix Street, originally the Westinghouse Tower, Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1970
- CIA Original Headquarters Building, Langley, Virginia, 1961
- National City Tower, Louisville, Kentucky, 1972
- Borden Building, Columbus, Ohio, 1973
- Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, 1974
References
- ↑ Newhouse, Victoria. Wallace K. Harrison, Architect. New York: Rizzoli, 1989.
- ↑ For designation report, see: Postal, Matthew A. Springs Mills Building, Manhattan, April 13, 2010.
