The Phoenix Financial Center consists of a high-rise office building and two adjacent rotunda buildings located along Central Avenue in the Midtown district of Phoenix, Arizona, United States. They were built in 1968 by the Financial Corporation of Arizona.
The tower fronts Osborn Avenue and is commonly referred to locally as the "Punchcard Building," due to aesthetic similarities between the building's southeastern facade and a computer punch card. Originally, the main tower consisted only of 10 stories; the extra nine were added in 1972. The design included provisions for erecting a second tower that was a mirror image of the first on the north side of the property, but was never built (this area is currently a visitor parking lot).
The two rotundas front Central Avenue and are mirror images of each other. They consist of two stories and a basement, and utilize glass around most of the circumference. Each has a stained glass star at the top of the dome of slightly different designs.
The Phoenix Financial Center is an example of International style architecture, featuring many elements of Googie design. The architect of the building is Wenceslaus Sarmiento. The building is the site of a "fallout-proof" time capsule which is to be opened in 2012.
The complex is located close to the Park Central station of METRO Light Rail, which contains displays detailing the history of the Phoenix Financial Center as well as other buildings in the area.
Read more about Phoenix Financial Center: See Also
Famous quotes containing the words phoenix, financial and/or center:
“A victorious tomcat is like a tiger; a plucked phoenix is not worth a chicken.”
—Chinese proverb.
“A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of gov’t as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by gov’t. Somewhere in between and in gradations is the group that has the sense that gov’t exists for it, and shapes its consciousness accordingly.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)
“I am the center of the world, but the control panel seems to be somewhere else.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)