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PPG Place

Commercial and Office Buildings

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PPG Place is a six-building complex in downtown Pittsburgh, designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee as the headquarters of PPG Industries, with construction beginning in January 1981 and the buildings opening between 1983 and 1984. Its 40-story main tower and five satellite buildings are clad in a matching skin of glass, using 19,750 individual glass pieces, and share a silhouette of pointed spires, including 231 glass spires with the largest standing 82 feet tall, that echoes Gothic Revival massing in a modern material. The main tower rises 635 feet to the tip of its central spire, making the complex one of the tallest in Pittsburgh, and construction cost roughly 200 million dollars. At its base, the complex plaza contains a Wintergarden event space and an ice skating rink of about 13,456 square feet, which its architects noted is larger than the rink at Rockefeller Center.

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