Art: BUILDING WITH A FUTURE

THIS week, in the midst of 280 landscaped acres of rolling Connecticut countryside five miles northwest of Hartford, the blare of bands and cheers of a crowd wall officially dedicate the new $19 million gleaming glass, aluminum and marble headquarters-in-the-country of the Connecticut General Life Insurance Co. Already chosen by the American Institute of Architects as one of the “Ten Buildings in America’s Future.” it is not only a splendid example of the precisely machined modern elegance in which U.S. architects lead the world, but is likely to become the most honored building of the year.

“This is a building that we believe may exert an influence on the office of the future, perhaps even on the city of the future.” says Connecticut General’s President Frazar Wilde. And not without reason. For as industry shifts to the countryside, it can build with a streamlined efficiency almost impossible in the interlocking gridiron of big-city interests. Connecticut General, designed by the Manhattan office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, is a prime example of the best in large-scale planning, functional building and site development.

Out of the Carriage Factory. For a client, huge (a staff of 900 and more than $350 million in current projects) Skidmore, Owings & Merrill had in Connecticut General’s Wilde, 62, a born Yankee who frankly prefers New England colonial, but knows as a good insurance man that “you’d better not invest your money in a carriage factory!” What Wilde decided he wanted was flexibility, high-grade materials for low maintenance, and qualities of beauty and humanity that would attract and hold clerical employees (mostly young women) in labor-short Hartford.

Looking for a firm that could best “express the newest in materials and design,” Connecticut General executives fanned out over the country, picked S.O.M.’s Gordon Bunshaft and William S. Brown, the team that had designed Manhattan’s medal-winning Lever House (TIME, April 28, 1952) and Manufacturers Trust Co.’s Fifth Avenue branch (TIME,’ Aug. 31, 1953). In crewcut, hard-driving Gordon Bunshaft, 48, the insurance company rapidly discovered it was dealing with a stubborn, topflight designer, with a no-nonsense approach. Architect Bunshaft, who keeps one eye cocked on Corbusier’s concern with related forms, the other on Mies van der Rohe’s precise, modular construction, had already put up some of the best in glass, aluminum and steel that the U.S. can boast today.

Unhealthy Renaissance. “I believe in a disciplined approach based on intelligent planning,” says Bunshaft. “Architecture is serving the needs of the people who are using the building. And something more, which is taking the materials and exploring and exploiting them to their maximum excitement. A bold idea, plus precision, care and thought, make a good building.”

The Connecticut General plant, with its module of six feet carried throughout, its sweeping 470-ft. glass façade, cantilevered restaurant, airy, uncolumned work space, four tranquil yet exciting interior courts by Japanese Sculptor Isamu Noguchi, and separate executive block, is Bunshaft’s bold merger of his principles with the company’s needs.

Up with Puzzlement. The end result required some 500 staff conferences between Wilde and Bunshaft. Recalls Wilde “I admit I asked Gordon plaintively if there could be any compromise. I’d have loved a fireplace! Well, I have a magnificent office in plain taste.” A $100,000 mock-up section was thrown up by Turner Construction Co., and everything, from Linotile to venetian-blind drawstrings, wa tried on it. To reduce heat, a new green-tinted glass was used. To break up space, new movable paneling was developed. To keep maintenance cost low, dark grey Quincy granite (12,000 sq. ft.) was used around the base, Vermont white marble (6,000 sq. ft.) to sheathe exterior columns. Aluminum skin was specially anodized for weather resistance.

A swarm of landscape gardeners and foresters came in, built an artificial lake to highlight the building. To adorn the setting Sculptor Noguchi chiseled a brooding group of druidical forms, which President Wilde likes but frankly calls “a puzzlement.” For the interiors, pert, petite Florence Knoll of Knoll Associates furnished new chairs and desks designed to help tradition-bound insurance executives relax in 12-ft.-by-12-ft. offices surrounded by chrome and bold, cheery fabrics.

With the building occupied ahead of dedication and the 2,000 employees purring with content at twelve bowling alleys, beauty and barber shops, card rooms, general store, lending library and ping-pong tables, President Wilde found hirings up 70%, turnover down 20%. And from Architect Bunshaft, already applying the hard-won discoveries on half a dozen even newer buildings, there was a satisfied, “I think this is the best job we’ve done. The big thrill is to see a dream happen.”