Pennzoil Place

Significance

Pennzoil Place, completed in 1975, is a pair of 36-story trapezoidal office towers designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee and developed by Gerald D. Hines Interests. The towers are mirror images of each other, set just ten feet apart and sheathed in dark bronze glass and aluminum, with two glass-roofed plazas between them. Pennzoil Company chairman J. Hugh Liedtke asked for a building that was dignified but not box-shaped, and Hines wanted a building that could give more than one major tenant a distinct identity. The result broke with the flat-topped modernist glass box and became one of the most architecturally influential American buildings of its era. New York Times critic Ada Louise Huxtable named it a building of the year in 1975. The project brought national recognition to Hines and launched a new, highly productive phase of Johnson's career.

Climate risks tracked

Pennzoil Place's glass curtain wall is its defining feature and its main climate vulnerability. Hurricane winds and flying debris can break glass in downtown's tall building canyons, as storms such as Hurricane Ike in 2008 showed elsewhere downtown. Regular inspection of glazing seals and anchors, and replacement glass that matches the original bronze tint, protect both safety and the building's appearance. The basement concourse, parking garage, and tunnel connections are the most flood-prone parts of the complex, since downtown tunnels have taken in water during major storms. Flood barriers and raised equipment help. The bronze solar glass reduces heat gain, and upgrading mechanical systems for efficiency, rather than altering the facade, keeps the towers' sculptural silhouette intact.

Use the preservation assistant to talk through retrofit strategies for these specific threats.

Location

Nearby landmarks

• 1913 · Beaux-Arts

  Rice Hotel

• 1926 · Spanish Renaissance Revival

  Julia Ideson Building

• 1927 · Italian Renaissance Revival

  Niels Esperson Building

• 1924 · Commercial / Chicago School

  Sam Houston Hotel