AT&T Building

The AT&T Building, later known as the Sony Tower, is a 37-story postmodern skyscraper at 550 Madison Avenue in New York City, designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee and completed in 1984 as the corporate headquarters of AT&T. Clad in pink granite rather than the glass curtain wall typical of corporate towers of its era, the building is best known for its Chippendale-style broken pediment roofline, an explicitly historical ornamental gesture on an otherwise blocky mass. The design was widely discussed on completion as a prominent break from modernist corporate architecture and is frequently cited as a landmark building of American postmodernism. AT&T sold the building in 1992, and it has since changed hands and names several times while its exterior form has remained a fixture of the Manhattan skyline.