Skip to main content
Phoenix Financial Center
check mark135 votes

Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Phoenix Financial Center

I think a good building should look like a happy marriage of engineering and sculpture.

W.A. Sarmiento

Designed by Peruvian-born architect W.A. Sarmiento in 1964-68, the Phoenix Financial Center provides a welcome visual accent to the city’s largely low rise sprawl. Born of the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s, the Center was meant to be an ensemble of two high-rise, curved towers flanked by two one-story rotundas, but the second tower was never built. The rotunda pictured here has undergone some alteration but retains its exuberant, swooping concrete exo-skeleton of inverted arches. The glass wall was originally shielded by gold-anodized metal screens attached between the arches to protect the interiors from the searing Arizona sun. These were replaced by interior vertical blinds, both diminishing the building’s mid-century glitz and probably increasing the interior heat again.

Submitted by @modernphoenix

Photo Credit: 
© Modern Phoenix
Share