Heron Tower

 office building, high-rise, 1986_construction, postmodern (architecture)

314-foot, 25-story postmodern office building completed in 1986 for Heron International and Stratagen Realty Group. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, it is clad in silver metal, blue glass and grey granite. The evenly spaced square windows give the facade a checkerboard appearance. The central entrance is in a deeply-recessed, double-height portico, with glass double-doors framed by dark-grey granite, in turn surrounded by glass in stainless-steel framing, with an outer frame of dark-grey granite. To the right of the entry is a multi-paned storefront window and door, and to the left is a loading dock and service door designed with matching proportions and materials (the glass panes on the doors are opaque light-green). The end bays at the 2nd floor begin a column of square windows extending up to the 6th floor, where the corners of the end bays are chamfered and banded, setting back to the upper tower. The middle section above the entry has a band of three joined windows at the 3rd floor, topped by a 2-story section of glass covered by a metal grid in a 3-over-3 pattern of thin horizontal, vertical, and diagonal bars. The piers to either side are fluted, and separate a bay on either side of smaller single-windows with rough-faced dark-grey stone spandrels between the 3d & 4th floor, and above the 5th, where the middle section sets back. The two fluted piers extend up a bit above the setback and are capped with steel spheres.

The upper floors, set back from the base, have similar windows in the end bays and intermediate bays, flanking a center section of glass-and-metal curtain wall. The end piers are banded at each floor, with the thin bands continuing around to the side elevations. At the 19th-20th floors there is another metal screen at the center, matching the one on the base. The spandrels at the intermediate bays to the outside of the center section's top and bottom are again rough-faced dark-grey granite, instead of the smooth, tan stone at the other floors.

The top floors are set back at the end bays, where they are clad in darker granite. Glass spandrels replace the stone ones in the intermediate bays at the top floors, and the center section has a different glass curtain wall, with horizontal-oriented window panes and more prominent horizontal metal framing elements. The corners at the crown are chamfered and the very top level is banded.

The side elevations have five bays of windows, except at the top floors, where they narrow to two end bays with a middle section of metal-and-glass curtain wall. The ground floor is occupied by Oon Arvelo Salon.

archive.org/details/usmodernist-PA-1988-07/page/82/mode...