High-tech architecture
Name of Building Place Country Architect Year
BMA Tower Kansas City , Missouri United States Bruce Graham 1961
Riverplace Tower Jacksonville , Florida United States Welton Becket 1967
Irvine Company headquarters Newport Beach , California United States William Pereira 1968
John Hancock Center Chicago , Illinois United States Bruce Graham 1969
World Trade Center New York City United States Minoru Yamasaki 1971
Willis Tower Chicago , Illinois United States Bruce Graham 1973
Marquette Plaza Minneapolis , Minnesota United States Gunnar Birkerts 1973
Hopkins House London United Kingdom Michael Hopkins and Partners 1976
One US Bank Plaza St. Louis , Missouri United States Thompson , Ventulett , Stainback & Associates 1976
Centre Georges Pompidou Paris France Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers 1977
Internationales Congress Centrum Berlin Berlin Germany Ralf Schüler , Ursulina Schüler-Witte 1979
Aon Centre Wellington New Zealand Stephenson & Turner 1983
HSBC Hong Kong headquarters building Hong Kong China Norman Foster 1985
Lloyd 's Building London United Kingdom Richard Rogers 1986
Bank of China Tower Hong Kong China I.M . Pei 1989
Hotel Arts Barcelona Spain Bruce Graham 1992
Žižkov TV Tower Prague Czech Republic Václav Aulický , Jiří Kozák 1992
Lord 's Media Centre London United Kingdom Future Systems 1999
Burj Al Arab Dubai United Arab Emirates Tom Wright 1999
City of Manchester Stadium Manchester United Kingdom Arup 2002
Examples
High-tech architecture, also known as Structural Expressionism, is a type of Late Modern architectural style that emerged in the 1970s, incorporating elements of high-tech industry and technology into building design. High-tech architecture grew from the modernist style, utilizing new advances in technology and building materials. It emphasizes transparency in design and construction, seeking to communicate the underlying structure and function of a building throughout its interior and exterior. High-tech architecture makes extensive use of steel, glass, and concrete, as these materials were becoming more advanced and available in a wider variety of forms at the time the style was developing. High-tech architecture focuses on creating adaptable buildings through choice of materials, internal structural elements, and programmatic design. It seeks to avoid links to the past, and as such eschews building materials commonly used in older styles of architecture. Common elements include hanging or overhanging floors, a lack of internal load bearing walls, and reconfigurable spaces. Some buildings incorporate prominent, bright colors in an attempt to evoke the sense of a drawing or diagram. Early high-tech buildings were referred to by historian Reyner Banham as serviced sheds due to their exposure of mechanical services in addition to the structure. Most of these early examples used exposed structural steel as their material of choice. As hollow structural sections had only become widely available in the early 1970s, high-tech architecture saw much experimentation with this material. High-tech utilizes a focus on factory aesthetics and a large central space serviced by many smaller maintenance areas to evoke a feeling of openness, honesty, and transparency.