Packard Motor Corporation Building, Industrial landmark in Callowhill, Philadelphia, United States.
The Packard Motor Corporation Building is a nine-story industrial building on the corner of North Broad Street in the Callowhill neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its steel frame is clad in reinforced concrete and terra cotta, and the grid-like facade follows the principles of Chicago School architecture.
The building went up in 1910 and 1911 as a showroom for the Packard Motor Car Company, part of a wave of large automotive buildings appearing in American cities at that time. It was later taken over by the Philadelphia Record newspaper, which used it as its headquarters for several decades starting in 1928.
The terra cotta panels covering the exterior show geometric and floral patterns that were a mark of craftsmanship in early commercial construction. These details are easy to spot from the sidewalk and give the building a decorative quality rarely seen in industrial structures of that era.
The building has been converted into residential apartments and can be viewed from the outside along North Broad Street without any restrictions. The corner position makes it easy to step back and take in the full facade from several angles on the surrounding sidewalks.
Albert Kahn, the architect behind this building, went on to design more than 1,000 factories across the United States and was later hired to help modernize Soviet industrial plants in the 1930s. His work here was one of his first experiments with the structural methods he would later apply on a far larger scale.
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