Notice the nine-story Brutalist tower ahead: architect Marcel Breuer designed this building as the Armstrong Rubber Company headquarters, later known for its Pirelli Tire name, in New Haven's Long Wharf district. Designed by modernist architect Marcel Breuer in the Brutalist style, it originally functioned as office headquarters for the Armstrong Rubber Company, with a two-story base used for research and development and a five-story upper section of offices. Those two sections are separated by a two-story air gap with three massive piers, and the facade's Mo-Sai concrete and recessed windows give it a sculpted, monumental presence.
The base once extended further west with warehouses and research laboratories, though most of that base was demolished in 2003. Since 2022 it has operated as a Hilton hotel with 165 rooms, a new chapter for a building already listed on the Connecticut Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places. As you stand here, take in Breuer's massing and the building's distinctive composition of base, air gap, and upper block.
Notice the recessed entrance below the Mo-Sai concrete facade, where three massive piers still separate the base from the upper block above.