The One American Center is a Postmodernist skyscraper designed by Morris-Aubry Architects, and built between 1982 and 1984 in Austin, TX.
Its precise street address is 600 Congress Avenue, Austin, TX. You can also find it on the map here.
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 2018 and 2025.
To soften the polished brass finishes, new materials were used, such as illuminated acrylic panels on the ceiling and entirely new glass for the windows of the ground-floor retail stores and mezzanine commercial spaces . The architect in charge was RIOS.
Morris-Aubry 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 One American Center a reality:
The One American Center can be categorized as a Postmodernist building.
Postmodernism in architecture emerged in the United States during the late 1960s as a reaction against the starkness of the International Style, which part of the new generation of architects argued was too impersonal, sterile, and disconnected from historical and cultural contexts.
Postmodernism challenged the International Style's austerity by reintroducing historical elements and ornamentation, although this time not as literally as in the Neo-Classic buildings. Instead, they reinterpreted them within the context of modern materials and construction techniques.
Postmodern buildings often feature bold, contrasting colors, unconventional forms, and a playful blend of various architectural elements from different eras and cultures.
In the United States, Postmodernism was not just an aesthetic choice but also a philosophical stance. It represented a democratization of design, where architects sought to create buildings that were accessible and meaningful to a broader range of people, not just designers and intellectuals.
The One American Center was completed in 1984. 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 One American Center was therefore every much in line with what the architecture community, and the people liked and wanted at the time.
The One American Center reaches an architectural height of 400ft (122m), 423ft (129m) if you count the antenna, with the last accesible floor being 384ft (117m) off the gorund. It has a total of 32 floors, served by 17 elevators, which combined offer a total of 543,523 sqf (50,495m2) of usable space.
In regards to parking space, the building has a total of 872 spots available, which roughly equals 27 spots per floor (above ground), or one parking spot per every 624 sqf (58m2) of usable space.
Ever since opening its doors to the public in 1984, the One American Center has mainly been used as Commercial space.
The One American Center uses a frame structure made of concrete 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 prefabricated panels which are mostly clad in limestone, trimmed with brown granite. The granite used is a "Sunset Red" granite from Granite Mountain in Texas and a "Charlie Brown" granite from Oklahoma.
The volume of the building follows a rhythmic stepped ascension, which creates a total of 13 outdoor terraces.
The arched entrance features pink granite columns and flashy brass accents below a tiered arrangement of skylights .
