Before the concrete had cured on Wenceslaus Sarmiento’s masterpiece punchcard building in the burgeoning metropolis of Phoenix in 1968, it was already on its way to being outdated in some ways. That’s the risk of any art theme based on technology: change. Today, we laugh at punchcards. Someday, our kids will laugh at USB thumb drives. Any monuments we make to the tech-of-the-day are obsolete even before they’re dedicated. But in the case of the Phoenix Financial Center, the architect managed to dream up something beautiful. Beauty is
That’s the risk of any art theme based on technology: change. Today, we laugh at punchcards. Someday, our kids will laugh at USB thumb drives. Any monuments we make to the tech-of-the-day are obsolete even before they’re dedicated. But in the case of the Phoenix Financial Center, the architect managed to dream up something beautiful. Beauty is eternal and isn’t aligned with any particular data storage format.The Phoenix Financial Center is a world-class example of International style midcentury modern architecture. It’s found its way into textbooks around the world. Many students don’t even notice the building is supposed to look like a
The Phoenix Financial Center is a world-class example of International style midcentury modern architecture. It’s found its way into textbooks around the world. Many students don’t even notice the building is supposed to look like a punch card. That’s because they’ve never seen a punch card. If they ever “got” that association, they’d probably regard it as kitschy.
But what’s more, the execution of Sarmiento’s design for the punchcard building was more compromised than most. First, there was supposed to be another tower just like the first, located just across what is now the parking lot. However, aerodynamic studies at the time suggested two semi-circular towers facing each other would have caused them to act as a tornado generator – given the right combination of winds and barometric pressure.
Now, that could have been cool. Think about it: A tornado ripping down Central Avenue. Phoenix: Home of the man-made tornado. We had no consistent source of natural disasters, so we needed to make our own. Come to Phoenix and watch us make tornadoes. OK, maybe not.
I’m probably getting carried away with this. I should show some restraint, just like the developers of the Phoenix Financial Center did in ’68. They showed a little too much restraint, actually. By 1972 the cranes were back, putting another nine stories atop the initial ten. The punchcard had almost doubled its data capacity.
It’s a lovely focal point on Central Avenue, and well worth a visit, either now or in the foreseeable future. It keeps getting better-looking with time, regardless of data storage formats currently in use.
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