History
Architect and developer John C. Portman, Jr. originally conceived this building in the 1980s commercial real-estate frenzy as a speculative office building. Its basic design elements, a postmodern square tower with an elaborate base and crown, represented a departure for Portman from his earlier International-style work, and are said to have been inspired by Philip Johnson's wildly successful design for midtown Atlanta's One Atlantic Center.
Ground broke in 1989 with great fanfare, but by completion in 1992, the bottom had fallen out of Atlanta's real estate market and the building sat largely empty, nearly forcing Portman into bankruptcy and causing him to lose control of most of his real estate holdings. His architectural firm, John Portman & Associates, located their headquarters in the building.
In the mid-1990s, Portman sold half his interest in the building to SunTrust Bank, which then moved its headquarters to the building, prompting a name change from One Peachtree Center to its current name.
The two-level lobby is filled with many works of art, sculpture and furniture designed by John Portman.
Read more about this topic: SunTrust Plaza
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