Textron Tower, Corporate skyscraper in downtown Providence, Rhode Island, United States.
Textron Tower is a 23-story office building in downtown Providence, Rhode Island, with a concrete-grid exterior and a marble-clad ground floor. The building sits on a raised podium that lifts it above street level, giving it a solid, box-like presence along Westminster Street.
The building was completed in 1972 and designed by the firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, which had earlier designed the Empire State Building in New York. It was part of a wave of construction that changed the look of downtown Providence during that decade.
The tower is seen in Providence as a typical example of the plain corporate office style that shaped many American downtowns in the early 1970s. Its concrete facade and recessed windows stand in visible contrast to the older brick buildings nearby.
The tower stands on Westminster Street in the heart of downtown Providence and is easy to spot from the surrounding blocks. Walking along the street at ground level gives the best view of the raised podium and the concrete grid of the facade.
Although Shreve, Lamb and Harmon are best known for the Empire State Building, they continued designing corporate towers for decades after, and the Textron Tower belongs to that late chapter of their work. It is one of the few remaining examples of their output from the early 1970s still standing in a New England city.
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