Projects

Details

Size: 170,000 SF
Cost: NA
Completion: 1990

ARCO, the Atlantic Ritchfield Company, an oil company, was once one of the largest companies in the world. The chemical and polymer division was headquartered in Newtown Square, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia. A exemplary research and development building was constructed in 1982 on an arboretum site that had once been a private girls’ school. Bauhaus master Herbert Bayer, for twenty years the corporate design consultant for all of ARCO, created an atrium floor ceramic tile inlay at the headquarters in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. This is an outstanding example of the midcentury American corporate campus.

Eight years later additional office space was required and so the present building was designed to occupy the site between the all glass research and development facility and the original stone buildings of the former girls’ school. The new building attempted to blend into its context by inserting stone elements into a glazed structure that matched the original building. No specimen trees were removed for the new building.