777 Tower

The 777 Tower is a Postmodernist skyscraper designed by César Pelli & Associates, with as lead architect, in association with Langdon Wilson Architect, and built between 1988 and 1991, for a reported $250 million dollars, in Los Angeles, CA.

777 Tower is not the only name you might know this building by though. The building is, or has also been known as Citicorp Center.

Its precise street address is 777 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA. You can also find it on the map here.

The 777 Tower has received multiple architecture awards for its architectural design since 1991. The following is a list of such prizes and awards:

• Best High Rise Commercial Building Award in 1993
• LA Business Council Beautification Award in 1994
• (BOMA) Building of the Year Award in 1996

César Pelli & Associates, with as the lead architect, was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design, in association with Langdon Wilson Architect.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the 777 Tower a reality:

• John A. Martin Associates in charge of Structural Engineering
• Jones & Jones as the Main Contractor
• Mitsubishi Electirc Elevators as the company in charge of the elevators system
• South Figueroa Plaza Associates as the Main Developer

The 777 Tower can be categorized as a Postmodernist building.

The 777 Tower was completed in 1991. By 1991 the Postmodernism movement was experiencing a transition. Critics argued that Postmodernism, initially a rebellious and innovative style, had become formulaic and commercialized, and so the trend started moving away from blending historical styles, irony, and playful ornamentation, and begun to give way to emerging architectural trends concerned with more present matters such as technology, ecology or sustainability.

The 777 Tower uses a framed tube-in-tube structure , with steel columns and concrete, steel slabs.

A framed tube-in-tube structure uses a central core, known as inner tube, which usually holds stairs, lifts and installations, and a perimeter of columns around it, which form the exterior tube. The interior tube is tipically more massive (often made of reinforced concrete), and the exterior tube is "lighter" (made of steel or concrete columns). Both tubes are conencted via horizontal elements which make up the floors and also transmit any horizontal froces from the facade to the core.

The facade of the building is load bearing. This is a direct consequence of the integration of the exterior "tube" into the facade, something which most framed tube-in-tube buildings do in order to liberate the interior space from structural elements and achieve a more flexible interior.

So the facade of the builing is techinically load-bearing, yes, however, in between the load-bearing colums we find a curtain-wall type of facade, which by itself would not be cosnidered load-bearing.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a curtain wall with white metal piers between the windows and white details covering each slab. Each pier acts as an exaggerated mullion between the windows, and consists of a pair of round semi-cylinders separated by a tapered rectangular fin. These nearly sculptural piers manipulate the changing light throughout the day.

The two facades parallel to 8th street are straight, while the ones parallel to Figueroa street are curved.

Another material found at the 777 Tower is italian marble, used in the three-story lobby.