Healey Building

The Healey Building is a Neogothic skyscraper designed by Morgan & Dillon and built between 1913 and 1914 in Atlanta, GE.

Its precise street address is 57 Forsyth Street NW, Atlanta, GE. You can also find it on the map here.

The Healey Building is a structure of significant importance both for the city of Atlanta and the United States as a nation. The building embodies the distinctive characteristic features of the time in which it was built and the Neogothic style. Because of that, the Healey Building was officially declared as a national landmark on December 23^rd 1991, and was included in the National Register of Historic Places on November 2^nd 1976.

At the time of its completion in 1914 the Healey Building incorporated solutions that were quite advanced at the time, these included a ground-level interior space filled with shops that became a major public space rather than simply an enclosed lobby.

The building has been restored 2 times over the years to ensure its conservation and adaptation to the pass of time. The main restoration works happened in 1987 and 2001.

Morgan & Dillon was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design. But there was also one other architect involved, as far as we know. We are talking about Walter T. Downing.

Morgan & Dillon and the other architects already mentioned were in charge of the architectural design, however, architecture is a complex discipline, which usually involves 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 at the very least we know that there was one other part involved, that was Thomas G. Healey as the Main Developer.

The Healey Building can be categorized as a Neogothic building.

The Healey Building was completed in 1914. These were the late days of the Neogothic movement, which had been around for almost 200 years at the time.

Art-deco would soon take over US architecture, and therefore, even though Morgan & Dillon didn't venture into what was cutting edge in terms of style at the time, and took instead a more conservative approach to the design of the Healey Building, it is possible that the design already started showing some traits that would later become characteristic of the art-deco movement.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features warm gray stone adorned with terracotta details and pillars that rise continuously from the base to the cornice, accentuating the building's verticality. The two-story tall entrances is defined by pointed arches, tracery, and columns. The revolving access door is framed in bronze, just like the skylight above it.

Other materials found at the Healey Building include, bronze, used on lobby's mailbox and elevators doors, dark granite, seen on floors of the lobby's rotonda, dark granite, used on the dome and walls sorrounding the inner rotonda, and glass, found on the corontation of the dome.