The Connecticut Turnpike offers drivers excellent views of the dramatic profile of the Breuer’s headquarters for the Armstrong Rubber Company, later the Pirelli Armstrong Tire Company. The building consists of two volumes: the low base of the research laboratories above which the office tower seems to float. The building makes its structure visible with sculpted concrete sheathing the steel truss from which the office floors are hung. The Armstrong Rubber Company building is an especially innovative example of the modular concrete façade that Breuer used for many buildings in this decade.

Breuer received the commission on the strength of his work for the Department of Housing and Urban Development which he had constructed on time and under budget and upon the suggestion of the mayor of New Haven, Richard Lee, who allowed the company to purchase the land for their headquarters on the condition that a significant contemporary architect design the building.