VyStar Tower

The VyStar Tower is a Postmodernist skyscraper designed by KBJ Architects, and built between 1987 and 1989, for a reported $60.0 million dollars, in Jacksonville, FL.

VyStar Tower is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The building has changed names several times over the years, and is also known as:

• American Heritage Life Building between 1989 and 1991.
• SunTrust Tower.
• Jacksonville Center.
• Humana Building.
• VyStar Tower from 2019 until this day.

Its precise street address is 76 South Laura Street, Jacksonville, FL. You can also find it on the map here.

In 1991 the VyStar Tower was awarded with the Award for Excellence in Architecture Arts Assembly of Jacksonville.

The building underwent a major restoration between 2018 and 2022. The architect commissioned to undertake this restoration was RS&H .

KBJ Architects was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

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 VyStar Tower a reality:

• Rouse & Associates as the Main Contractor
• Enclos Corp. in charge of Facade Consultancy

The VyStar Tower can be categorized as a Postmodernist building.

The VyStar Tower was completed in 1989. At that time Postmodernism was the prevailing style. Fresh, bold and daring, architects were exploring the freedom of designing without having to follow the strict, sometimes arbitrary rules of a specific architectural movement (which ironically became a movement itself). The VyStar Tower was therefore every much in line with what the architecture community, and the people liked and wanted at the time.

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

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 employs a non-load bearing curtain wall system. This means the curtain wall modules are anchored to the building's structural frame at the edges of the floor slabs. The perimeter columns are set back slightly from the facade, allowing them to remain independent of the curtain wall system.

This configuration enables a completely free design of the curtain wall, unencumbered by structural elements, thus providing greater flexibility in aesthetic choices and maximizing the visual impact of the exterior.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features beige stone panels at the base, continuing with a curtain wall of two shades of blue glass separated by beige and garnet granite bands. The wider facades feature setbacks starting at a certain height that create several outdoor terraces at the same time as they draw the building's distinctive silhouette.