Affectionately referred to as the Blue Whale, the Pacific Design Center was designed by Cesar Pelli when he was Partner for Design at Gruen Associates.  Phase I of the Pacific Design Center, located in the heart of the City's well-established trade center, provides showroom space to serve the specialized needs of professional interior designers, specifiers, decorators, architects and dealers involved in contract and residential design.   

From the second to sixth levels, which vary from 100,000 to 130,000 square feet, a permanent array of showrooms displays furniture, carpeting, floor coverings, specialty decorator items, gifts and accessories.  Corridors on each floor vary from 30 to 120 feet in width.  Contained within the corridors are glass-walled kiosks for additional show space.  The Galleria mall areas on the fifth and sixth floors are covered by a skylit barrel vault that extends the full length of the building.

The Pacific Design Center was conceived as a single, free-standing structure.  The decision to expand the Center raised the complex issue of how to add to a distinctive landmark.  Because of the isolated form of the original building, both Phase II (Green Building) and Phase III (Red Building) additions were designed as a series of oversized fragments to form a collection of pieces.  Each addition has a unique shape and color, although materials, scale and detailing correspond to the original blue structure.  Phase II is clad in green spandrel glass; Phase III is clad in red.  Each is organized as a series of stacked two-level atria, providing high visibility for tenants.  The original building is connected to the Phase II building at the terrace and first floor levels.  

Pacific Design Center

The building located near Third and Brown streets was once part of The Commons Mall designed by Cesar Pelli (then of Gruen Associates, Inc.) and completed in 1973. The Commons Mall and The Commons were part of an urban renewal plan initiated in the late 1960s and overseen by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. The glass-enclosed complex brought retailers to downtown Columbus while also providing a civic gathering space. The large expanses of clear glass on Washington Street allowed passersby to see Jean Tinguely's kinetic sculpture "Chaos 1" and encouraged them to participate in the cultural activities that took place in The Commons. Pelli's The Commons and parts of The Commons Mall were demolished in 2009. Yes! Cinema and IUCA+D (Indiana University Center for Art + Design) currently occupy parts of the former Commons Mall. A new Commons was designed by Koetter Kim and Associates and was completed in 2011. The building is located within the Columbus Arts District.

Commons Mall

Brookfield Place opened in the renovated former World Financial Center&nbsp;

 Projecting from the glittering vault of the Winter Garden and the base of the World Financial Center to the marina of the North Cove and the Hudson waterfront, World Financial Plaza is the center of Battery Park City. It is also the result of a singular collaboration between artists Siah Armajani and Scott Burton, architect Cesar Pelli, and landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg. From the earliest stages, these individuals joined forces to create a welcoming, celebratory public landscape that would look to the past and future alike. The design spans from th egently curving contour of the cove to Burton's stone seating and the fountains girding the plaza. Wooden benches tucked along tree-lined pathways provide a more secluded setting. Inset into the metal railings overlooking the cove are quotes from poets Walt Whitman and Frank O'Hara celebrating the exhilarating spirit of New York City. At once formal and congenial, World Financial Plaza is an ebullient stage set for New York City at the dawn of the 21st century. 

Jessica Edwards Jessica Edwards

  the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy

World Financial Center

World Financial Center Plaza

 Curator Dorothea Basile talks about the collaboration between Scott Burton (site furniture), Cesar Pelli (Architect) and M Paul Friedberg (landscape) and Siah Armanjani (artist). It was one of the earliest recent examples in New York City of Artists being involved in the design of of an urban plaza from the beginning. 

The AIA Guide, describes Cesar Pelli's Wintergarden at the World Financial Center as "a welcome, sunny, barrel-vaulted, palm-filled interior public space measuring 130 x 230 feet, roughly the size of Grand Central's concourse." It has been the public gathering place in Lower Manhattan for concerts, squash tournaments, solar house mock-ups and the exhibitions documenting the rebuilding process for the adjacent World Trade Center site.&nbsp;

The Wintergarden itself was severely damaged on 9/11/01 and was rebuilt quickly thereafter. Adjacent to this grand greenhouse are the commercial structures of the World Financial Center, a collaboration between Cesar Pelli and HLW architects; the tallest of these, 2 World Financial Center, the Merrill Lynch World Headquarters, is dome-topped and 51 stories tall. In total there are 8 million square feet of space. It is also the largest year-round free arts presenter in the East Coast.

The Pavilion at Brookfield Place (formerly the World Financial Center) through its expressive architectural and engineering form is a new and vibrant landmark in Lower Manhattan. Measuring 110-feet wide, 68-feet deep, and 54-feet tall, the 7,800 square foot Pavilion serves as the principal entrance and link to public transportation for the 8.2 million square foot mixed-use Brookfield Place as well as the 35,000 commuters and visitors traveling daily between lower Manhattan and Battery Park City via the new underground concourse under West Street. The new entry Pavilion moves the front door to the sidewalk and street level by replacing a bridge at the second level which linked to the former World Trade Center and was destroyed in 9/11. The Pavilion creates a new public sequence to the river and the esplanades through the great public space of the Winter Garden, one of New York’s great public rooms. The iconic columns that support the roof and enclosure are the Pavilion’s most visually dynamic architecturally engineered features. Responding to the Winter Garden’s strongly arching trusses and palm trees within that soften the grand vaulted space with natural canopies, the columns are a sympathetic and contemporary interpretation in its form and materiality. The elegance of the final glass enclosure was also a product of the resourceful collaboration between city agencies, the owner and the design team. Its gracefully faceted edges allow for a fluid connection to the busy street traffic, while also presenting the viewer with an uninterrupted panoramic overlook of the World Trade Center 9/11 memorial and the city beyond to the east.

Craig Copeland discusses the Glass Pavilion, a room that would receive the Western End of the Concourse to connect to the World Financial Center.  The design was to dissolve the facade as much as possible and to try and create an open and inviting canopy of basket columns to 'turn the Winter Garden back to lower Manhattan'.  

Craig Copeland, the Design Team Leader from Pelli Clarke Pelli talks about the reconfiguration of the World Financial Center into Brookfield Place.  He shares the challenge of returning to the building 25 years later and how the architects tried to maintain the vision while responding to the new program.    

Cesar Pelli was born in Argentina, where he earned a Diploma in Architecture from the University of Tucumán. He worked as Project Designer in the offices of Eero Saarinen, Director of Design at DMJM and Partner for Design at Gruen Associates. From 1977 to 1984, he served as Dean of the Yale School of Architecture. In 1977, he founded Cesar Pelli & Associates, now Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, whose projects include the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the World Financial Center in New York, Canary Wharf in London, and the International Finance Center in Hong Kong. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) named him one of the 10 most influential living American architects in 1991 and awarded him its Gold Medal in 1995. In 2004, he was awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Petronas Towers.

 The fifth stop on the Great Crash of 1929: Tour of the Financial District is on Mill Lane This one block-long street is the oldest in New York City. The Dutch built a mill here, which they used to grind the bark that was used to tan beaver skins. In 1628, the first organized religious service was held on this street, and the Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant surrendered to the British here 1664. 

 The seventh stop on the Great Crash of 1929: Tour of the Financial District is in front of 60 Broad Street, the former home of the now defunct Drexel Burnham Lambert. When this tour first started more than 20 years ago, Drexel Burnham Lambert was one of the most important firms on Wall Street, but several illegal trading convictions in the late 1980s led the firm to its collapse in 1990. 

 Historian James Kaplan elaborates on George Washington Plukitt, a leader in Tammany Hall who was defeated by one of his own lieutenants. 

César Pelli talks about one of his earliest works, a public housing project in Hawaii, and describes the design that won the competition.

César Pelli talks about his 1969 design for San Bernardino's City Hall. 

César Pelli describes his work on the Fox Hills Mall shopping center, which he was involved with during his time with Gruen Associates.

César Pelli addresses how library design must take into account the changing ways that libraries are used. He describes here how his design for the Minneapolis Public Library is flexible and accommodates library evolution. 

César Pelli talks about one of his first projects, the Worldway Postal Center, a mail transfer center near Los Angeles International Airport, which he worked on in 1966.

César Pelli discusses the design and construction process of the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, which includes a large public park.

César Pelli talks about the BOK Center in Tulsa, which hosts a range of events and performances, including sports, music, and circus performances. 

César Pelli talks about the building he designed in 1967 for COMSAT, a satellite manufacturing company in Clarksburg, Maryland.

César Pelli talks about how the design of the US Embassy in Tokyo, and how reinforced concrete (required for security) was made to look paper-thin in its application. 

César Pelli

SITES

PLAYLISTS CURATED by César Pelli