Architectural Details
Designed in the Art Déco style and built in only 14 months, one of the fastest construction schedules for any 1,000 ft (300 m) building. The Plaza's imposing presence is heightened by the dark color of its exterior. It soars into the sky with vertical lines that reinforce its height while also creating an abundance of revenue-generating corner offices. Located over 3.7 acres (1.5 ha) on Peachtree Street, the tower faces its border streets at a 45-degree angle to maximize the views to the north and south (midtown and downtown).
There is a 90 ft (27 m) obelisk-like spire at the top of the building echoing the shape of the building as a whole. Most of the spire is covered in 23 karat (96 percent) gold leaf. The open-lattice steel pyramid underneath the obelisk glows yellow-orange at night due to lighting. Originally, the lattice was designed to be clad in glass, but the engineers failed to take the weight of the glass into account. At its most basic, this is a modern interpretation of the Art Deco theme seen in the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. The inhabited part of the building actually ends abruptly with a flat roof. On top of this is built a pyramid of girders, which are gilded and blaze at night, with the same type of yellow-orange high-pressure sodium (HPS) lighting now used in most street lights. Its design has been characterized as similar to the Messeturm in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Some low-power TV stations have shared an antenna at the top of the building: WANN-CA 32, WANN-LD 29, and construction permits for WTBS-LP 26 and WTBS-LD 30. (These are two co-owned stations and their digital companions, all co-owned; the digital ones have moved or applied to move to the North Druid Hills site.) Also on the building was WDTA-LP 53, which moved about a half-mile (800m) south to the SunTrust Plaza, where it switched to digital TV in 2010. In addition, the tower also hosts several amateur radio repeaters.
Read more about this topic: Bank Of America Plaza (Atlanta)
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