Pennzoil Place

The Pennzoil Place is a Postmodernist skyscraper designed in 1970 by Johnson/Burgee Architects, with Eli Attia as lead architect, in association with S.I. Morris Associates, and built between 1973 and 1975, for a reported $50.0 million dollars, in Houston, TX.

Its precise street address is 700 Milam Street, Houston, TX. You can also find it on the map here.

The Pennzoil Place has received multiple architecture awards for its architectural design since 1975. The following is a list of such prizes and awards:

• R.S. Reynolds Memorial Award in 1978
• AIA Twenty-five Year Award in 1999
• Texas Society of Architects 25-Year Award in 2018

Pennzoil Place consists of two twin trapezoidal towers. This article covers the complex as a whole, meaning data such as floor area, or elevator counts, combine both towers.

According to some critics, Pennzoil Place is 'Philip Johnson’s last modern building or his first postmodern one.' .

At the time of its completion in 1975 the Pennzoil Place incorporated solutions that were quite advanced at the time, these included being the first office building in Houston to implement fiber-optic infrastructure for IT communications, utilizing Cisco’s 'Smart+Connected' building model to optimize data and communications management, strengthen physical security, and enhance building automation capabilities..

The building underwent a major restoration in 2009.

Johnson/Burgee Architects, with Eli Attia as the lead architect, was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design, in association with S.I. Morris Associates.

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 Pennzoil Place a reality:

• Ellisor Engineers in charge of Structural Engineering
• Gerald D Hines Interests as the Main Developer
• M. Arthur Gensler Jr. & Associates in charge of Interior Design

The Pennzoil Place can be categorized as a Postmodernist building.

The Pennzoil Place was completed in 1975. 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 Pennzoil Place was therefore every much in line with what the architecture community, and the people liked and wanted at the time.

The Pennzoil Place uses a frame structure made of concrete and 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 curtain wall system. This means the curtain wall modules are anchored to the building's structural frame, typically by being attached to the edge of the floor slabs. The curtain wall system connects to the slabs using brackets, anchors, and mullions, which transfer the loads imposed by wind and temperature changes, to the building's primary structural elements.

This setup allows the curtain wall to accommodate differential movement between the facade and the structural frame, such as thermal expansion, floor deflection, or sway from wind forces. This system's integration with the slab edges also allows for continuous insulation and weatherproofing layers.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features dark bronze-tinted glass supported by an anodized aluminum structure.

The glazed lobbies providing access to the building were also constructed at a 45-degree angle, extending from street level up to the 8th floor.