bay tower

address: 150 southeast 2nd avenue, miami, united states
architects: morris lapidus and associates
date: 1966

Bay Tower -now American Center- is notable for the use of sun grilles years after reflective thermal glass made them technically unnecessary. In fact, the finely detailed grilles are part of a second skin projected some 2 feet from the glass building wall. The rear facade sports narrow vertical stairwell windows that create a rhythmic, Op-Art effect. The relatively opaque stairwell, in turn bisects the rear facade of ribbon windows. As at Lapidus´s Ainsley Building, a glass-walled penthouse with a folded-plate concrete parapet crowns the tower.

Allan T. Shulman, Randall C. Robinson Jr., James F. Donnelly