Designtel - College Life Insurance Company Headquarters, Kevin Roche

College Life Insurance Company Headquarters [1970]

Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo

Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo struck up their partnership whilst taking on the reins of Eero Saarinen’s practice in 1961 following his passing and went on to produce some of the most ‘aesthetically daring and innovative’ (C. Ray Smith) structures. The College Life Insurance Company Headquarters, an array of three glass and concrete pyramidal forms that was originally intended to be nine arranged as a parallelogram – typifies the architect’s devotion to simple, reduced geometries. Massive concrete walls face the adjacent highway, with cutout voids offering entrances for occupants and sloping glazed volumes opening to the landscape surround.

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