Projects by Name

Breuer’s firm was one of six to submit competition drawings for an office tower sponsored by the Baltimore Urban Renewal and Housing Agency. Each architect was paired with developers. In Breuer’s case, the group of developers included Thomas Karsten, for whom Breuer had designed a house a few years earlier, in 1956. Breuer’s situated his tower within a plaza. A mixture of sculptural, tree-like columns and angled piers raised twenty-two floors of offices above the ground. An additional two floors were devoted to retail. Had it ever been built, Breuer would have constructed the tower out of concrete floor slabs with exterior walls of load-bearing concrete sheathed in limestone. The staggered fenestration resembled a checkerboard, with a 5-foot-6-inch module creating an 11-foot office with two windows. Like many of Breuer’s other office towers of this era, the structure allowed for economic efficiency and flexibility in plan. While Breuer’s design was not chosen, it was featured along with the other five entries, including one by Mies van der Rohe, in the April 1960 issue of Architectural Forum.