Fifth Avenue Place

The Fifth Avenue Place is a Postmodernist skyscraper designed by Stubbins Associates, in association with WTW Architects, and built between 1985 and 1988, for a reported $100 million dollars, in Pittsburgh, PA.

Fifth Avenue Place is not the only name you might know this building by though. Between 1985 and 1988 it was also known as Hillman Tower.

Its precise street address is 120 Fifth Avenue Place, Pittsburgh, PA. You can also find it on the map here.

The building underwent a major restoration between 2019 and 2023. The architect commissioned to undertake this restoration was AE7.

Stubbins Associates was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design, in association with WTW Architects.

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 at the very least we know that there was one other part involved, that was Hillman Associates as the Main Developer.

The Fifth Avenue Place can be categorized as a Postmodernist building.

The Fifth Avenue Place was completed in 1988. 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 Fifth Avenue Place was therefore every much in line with what the architecture community, and the people liked and wanted at the time.

The Fifth Avenue Place uses a frame structure made of steel columns and beams.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade uses a non-load bearing modular, or panelized system. This type of facade can function as either a window wall or a curtain wall, depending on the design. Unlike traditional glass curtain walls or window walls though, the modular facade is not primarily composed of glass. Instead, it often features more opaque panels that mimic masonry or stone-clad finishes, with smaller windows cut into the panels.

This type of facade allows the building to benefit from the modern qualities of a curtain wall while giving the design team flexibility to achieve visual aesthetics beyond the all-glass modern skyscraper.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a panelized system clad in granite with square windows flanking large central spans of glass on each facade.

A hipped roof, also covered with granite slabs and featuring a Greek cross-shaped cutout, supports the central spire.