Glass spires rise in front of you at PPG Place, one of the most dramatic pieces of postmodern architecture in America. The six-building complex, completed in 1984, was designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee for the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company — now PPG Industries. Johnson clothed the buildings in reflective glass, PPG's own product, and topped them with Gothic spires, creating a structure that looks simultaneously like a Venetian Gothic cathedral and a corporate headquarters from the future.
The main tower rises 40 stories and 635 feet, clad in more than a million square feet of glass. The complex was controversial when it opened: critics called it a cartoon, a historical pastiche, a glass wedding cake. But the building has aged well and is now considered a signature achievement of postmodern design.
The plaza at its base hosts an ice skating rink in winter and a public fountain in summer and is one of downtown Pittsburgh's most used gathering spaces. PPG Industries was founded in 1883 to manufacture plate glass for the factories and buildings the steel boom was constructing across America.