JOHN C. PORTMAN JR.

RAVI PATEL
■ John Calvin Portman Jr. (December 4, 1924 – December 29,
2017) was an American neofuturistic architect and real
estate developer widely known for popularizing hotels and
office buildings with multi-storied interior atria.

■ Portman also had a particularly large impact on the

cityscape of his hometown of Atlanta, with the Peachtree
Center complex serving as downtown's business and tourism
anchor from the 1970s onward.

■ Portman was born to John C. Portman, Sr. and Edna

Rochester Portman. He has five sisters.

■ He graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in

1950.
■ His firm completed the Merchandise Mart (now AmericasMart) in downtown Atlanta in 1961. The
multi-block Peachtree Center was begun in 1965 and would expand to become the main center of
hotel and office space in Downtown Atlanta, taking over from the Five Points area just to the south.

■ Portman would develop a similar multiblock complex at San Francisco's Embarcadero Center
(1970s), which unlike its Atlanta counterpart, heavily emphasized pedestrian activity at street level.

■ The Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Portman's first atrium hotel, would lead to many more iconic hotels and
multi-use complexes with atria, including the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles (1974–1976)
and the Renaissance Center in Detroit (first phase 1973-1977), whose central tower remained
the tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere until the completion of 1717 Broadway in 2013.

■ His signature work in China, the Shanghai Centre (1990), was the first of many major projects in
China and elsewhere in Asia. The 5-star hotel inside, The Portman Ritz-Carlton, Shanghai (formerly
Portman Shangri-La Hotel), was named after him.
■ Portman married Joan "Jan" Newton. They have six children, Michael Wayne Portman, John Calvin
"Jack" Portman III, Jeffrey Lin Portman, Jae Phillip Portman, Jana Lee Portman Simmons, and Jarel
Penn Portman.

■ Portman died on December 29, 2017, aged 93.

■ Portman was praised for his "cinematic“ interiors artfully relating interior space and elements to the
individual. In the 1960s and 1970s the placement of such buildings in America's decaying
downtowns was considered salvation of the city centers, but some contemporary city planners are
critical of such insular environments that "turn their back" on the city.

■ 1978 Medal for Innovations in Hotel Design — American Institute of Architects

■ 1984 Urban Land Institute Award for Excellence — for Embarcadero Center

■ 2013 Four Pillar Award - Council for Quality Growth .

 1960

■ AmericasMart (formerly the Atlanta Market Center), Atlanta

■ Antoine Graves, Atlanta, 1965*

■ Antoine Graves Annex, Atlanta, 1966*

■ Henderson High School, Chamblee, 1967*

■ Peachtree Center, Atlanta

1970s

■ BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee (now The Westin Chattanooga Hotel), Chattanooga, 1971

■ Embarcadero Center, San Francisco

■ Hyatt Regency Houston, 1972

■ The Mall at Peachtree Center, Atlanta, 1973

1980s

■ The Regent Singapore (formerly the Pavilion InterContinental Hotel), Singapore, 1982

■ George W. Woodruff Physical Education Center, Emory University, 1983

■ Peachtree Center Athletic Club, Atlanta, 1985

■ Atlanta Marriott Marquis, 1985

1990s

■ Shanghai Centre, Shanghai, China, 1990

■ SunTrust Plaza (formerly One Peachtree Center), Atlanta, 1992

■ Cap Square (short for Capital Square), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2000s

■ Bank of Communications, Shanghai, China, 2000

■ Shi Liu Pu Building (also known as the Bank of Telecommunications), Shanghai, China, 2000

■ Bund Center, Shanghai, China, 2002

 Atlanta Marriott Marquis
■ The Atlanta Marriott Marquis is a 53-story, 168.86 m (554.0 ft) Marriott hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. It
is the 14th tallest skyscraper in the city.

■ The building was designed by Atlanta architect John C. Portman, Jr. with construction completed in
1985, and because of its bulging base, it is often referred to as the "Pregnant Building" or the "Coca
Cola" building as it looks like a bottle of Coke from the side elevation.
■ One of the defining features of the Marriott Marquis is its large atrium. It was the largest in the
world upon its completion in 1985, at 470 feet (143 m) high. The atrium spans the entire height of
the building and consists of two vertical chambers divided by elevator shafts and bridges. The
record was later broken by the Burj Al Arab in Dubai.

■ The 42nd floor features a concierge lounge that is only open to guests staying on the 42nd through
the 47th floors

■ In his original architectural concept for the Atlanta Marriot Marquis, Portman expresses his
principles and theories of design applied as the function, order and variety; nature and movement;
and finally, human participation and spectating.

■ The hotel was designed out of the need for additional hotel rooms and meeting spaces in the
downtown area caused by the expansion of both the World Congress Center and Atlanta Market
Center. The main concern was creating fully functional space based around the people who would
use it rather than having function follow form, like so many other architects have and will do.
■ The color and texture of the exterior, though some call it bland, was an intentional choice for the
hotel to blend with the rest of the Peachtree Center, giving in to the order, but the structure itself, a
low-rise podium, gives the variety among the Center.

■ The east and west ends of the structure provide order with their verticality and thinner width, while
the north and south, longer ends, curve, then taper in and end in a rectangular shape.

■ The order and verticality is only represented by the straight lines of the elevator side and the
opposite side, those are then overwhelmed by the curves by not only of the exterior structure, but
the curved wrapping balconies, that when viewed all in context give a resemblance to a large
ribcage.

■ On the forty-seventh floor viewing down it gives the viewer an almost daunting and uneasy feeling, a
tension given by the repeating forms of the wrap around balconies on each level that seem as
though it will never end. Viewing the atrium from the lower floors the spectators see an almost
hollowness and caverness space but at the top the skylight opens it giving it a breath that the space
so desperately calls for without the suspended sculpture.
 Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel
■ The Westin Peachtree Plaza, Atlanta is a skyscraper hotel on Peachtree
Street in downtown Atlanta, Georgia adjacent to the Peachtree Center complex .

■ At 220.37 m (723.0 ft) and 73 stories, a total building area of 1,196,240 sq.ft and a 57 m (187 ft)
diameter, the tower is the fourth-tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere, and the 23rd tallest all-hotel
building in the world.
■ Designed by architect John Portman, the building gained landmark status within the city as
Atlanta's tallest building from its completion, in 1976, to 1987 when it was overtaken by One
Atlantic Center.

■ The building is cast in reflective glass in a cylindrical shape that reflects much of the downtown
skyline (though each of the around 5600 windows are flat and not convex). Another small cylinder
runs the full height of the building on one side, and accommodates two scenic elevators.

■ The uppermost floors hold the Sun Dial Restaurant and Bar, a revolving restaurant that offers
panoramic views of the city and its environs. The top floor of the restaurant completes a full
revolution every 30 minutes, and the bottom every 60 minutes.

■ When the building first opened in 1976, the seven-story tall lobby atrium rose out of a half-acre,
fountain-filled indoor lake known as the "lagoon". The lobby bar was surrounded by large, oval
"cocktail islands" which appeared to float on the lake and the entire area was decorated with
tapestries, sculptures, cages with live birds and over 100 trees.
■ Eventually, the lake was drained and lobby redesigned as a more standard hotel gathering place
with carpet, chairs and sofas.

■ The hotel was also notable for its Peachtree Ballroom, which was the largest in Atlanta when it
opened, seating 3,500 people. It has since been surpassed by the Georgia International Convention
Center, which lays claim to having the largest ballroom in the state of Georgia.

■ On March 14, 2008, the Westin, along with other neighboring skyscrapers, sustained moderate
damage when a tornado tore through downtown Atlanta, with over 500 windows broken. It was the
first tornado to have hit the downtown area. The building reportedly swayed back and forth about
two feet (more than half a meter) in either direction, as it was designed.

■ By 2009, the Westin was the only building in Downtown Atlanta to have not replaced its broken
windows, which instead were still covered with black-painted plywood on the outside, and drywall on
the inside.