One of the memorable visits we made when we were in the US in 2006 was to a major landmark across from downtown Louisville, the Humana Building, a skyscraper located at 500 West Main Street. This imposing 27-story structure is the headquarters of the Humana Corporation, now one of the leading companies in the US providing affordable and flexible health care plans to millions.

Seeking to build a headquarters structure that would stand as an eloquent statement against the prevailing conventional modernist corporate architecture, this large and prosperous corporation sponsored an architectural competition to determine the best design. Michael Graves, the famous New Jersey architect, emerged as the architect selected from a competitive group of some of the most famous architects. Scale models of those designs are on display in a lobby located directly above the building’s main street entrance.

The Humana Building is the largest and most ambitious work to date by an architect whose career has taken off at astonishing speed. His works include: the Portland Building in Portland, Oregon, the San Juan Capistrano Library in Southern California, the new Emory University museum in Atlanta, and the addition to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

The construction of the Humana Building which began in October 1982 was completed in May 1985. Occupying an area of ​​588,400 square feet, it has been built to house 1,650 people at an approximate cost of 60 million dollars. It is one of Graves’ best-known projects. Because, in addition to receiving National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1987 TIME Magazine listed it as one of top 10 buildings of the 80s. It is also widely recognized as one of America’s most distinctive skyscrapers, as well as a textbook example of postmodernism. It is a richly colored composition made of highly personal, abstract variations on classical forms, a sort of collage of modern and classical elements, assembled in a way that is unlike any of his influences but establishes his unique postmodern identity.

Graves, when designing the building, wanted it to fit into the context of downtown Louisville, referencing the Ohio River, its bridges, and the 19th century Main Street streetscape and skyline. It is pleasantly surprising how well this building blends in with the Louisville cityscape and skyline. “This is a tower built to be on a city street, not behind an empty square, and it easily relates to its neighbors.” In fact, it is quite an achievement to fit in so well with the other structures that are mostly three and four 19th century commercial structures, many of them cast iron, the true architectural treasure of Louisville. “A full city block of these older buildings sits along Main Street just west of Humana, and the base of the new tower unites them as gracefully and neatly as any tall building has ever been found with a group of older buildings. The small old buildings and the big ones a new one sits comfortably, the new never in direct imitation of the old, but its shapes, colors and details carefully fit together.The mutually supportive relationship these buildings have is in striking contrast to the way they that the huge, mute Black Glass tower on Main Street across from Humana relates to its neighbors.This cold box, completely cut off from everything around it, is an anti-urban legacy of the latest generation of architecture in Louisville. Humana is a response to all of that. That building represents, and cannot but be, a civilizing presence in Louisville.” The materials used are expensive: pink granite for most of the surface, with various other polished granites. .

Each side of the building is designed slightly differently, right down to a leaning pyramid style for the upper floors. Like many postmodern skyscrapers, it uses the classical base tripartite division with a strong sense of base: the 8-story loggia extending in front of the office structure, a shaft and a top at the same level as the height. from nearby structures. This eight-story base of flat pink granite has an open arcade of dark red granite square columns occupying the first floors. Above the base, but considerably set back from it, rises the main slab of the tower, clad in pink granite and punctuated by relatively small square windows, with a shaft of solid glass running down the middle. Higher up, square windows give way to a large, multi-story window. A huge metal frame, protruding from the building, supports a huge curved loggia, a kind of flying balcony at the top of the building. This large curved portion towards the top of the building is an open-air viewing platform with. the outermost point of the circle provides space for a few people at a time surrounded by glass, for a spectacular view of the Ohio River and Main Street. Grave’s inspiration for this curved balcony came from a Victorian engraving of a family admiring the Ohio River from an old water tower. Above the loggia, the top of the building slopes inward like a kind of gabled crown. The main points of interest in the building include this loggia, the waterfall, the lobby, the rotunda, the mezzanine and the 25th floor.

the lodge it features a 50-foot waterfall as an architectural gesture to the Ohio River, a reminder of the city of Louisville’s origins at the fall of the Ohio River over 200 years ago. The open-air front of the lodge contains a large fountain. The loggia columns are clad in pink and green granite and decorated with gold leaf.

The entrance is set in a curved wall with cascading fountains on either side. This six-section curved water dam or waterfall is an architectural gesture from the nearby Ohio River. Giant columns surround the entrance area. 50 feet deep on the granite pilasters on opposite sides of the main entrance. Eight vertical fountains in front of the pillars complement the waterfall. The front of the building features an open-air atrium with a skylight above the main entrance

the lobby, built of granite of different colors from different parts of the world It is like the lodge, a public space designed to receive visitors. First there is white and gray granite from Italy and black marble from France. These are beautifully detailed, richly colored, and skillfully combined to provide costless visual variety for overall consistency with a calm, self-assured hand. The lobby is accessed from Main Street through a 450-pound bronze front door, which is itself another valuable feature.

the roundabout, a classical architectural structure, is another point of interest in the building. Also on the first floor, it is accessed through the lobby or through the Fifth Street entrance. The rotunda features the building’s directory, an information desk and two striking original marble Roman statues sculpted approximately 1970 years ago. The one closest to the information desk is titled “Roman Statue of the Goddess Fortuna.” The second is called “Roman statue of a goddess.” Marbles flank the lobby at the Main Street entrance leading to the building’s other point of interest, the mezzanine south of which you will discover a seated statue claimed to be an 1,800 year old marble from the Roman Empire.

the 25th floor It has a solarium on the facade of the building. Each floor has its own south facing curved front sunroom that serves as a break room for employees. The grand pyramid-shaped end of the terrace represents the dam at the Fall of the Ohio. It can be easily accessed from the reception hall. The front terrace is supported by a steel mesh truss as an architectural symbol of the many metal truss bridges that span the Ohio. The bruised steel sculpture in the reception room is titled “Built Head 2” and is said to have been made by a Russian-born artist, Naum Gabo, in 1918.

The building also has a very skillful use of space. The magnificent public space at the base and the large colonnaded arcade are very exciting. Its square columns are hinged with gold leaf fluting, and the space is gently curved to accommodate a waterfall and fountain on either side of the main entrance. There are well-measured sequences between all spaces. The front door leads into a small vestibule, which in turn opens into a large, roughly square, vestibule; which leads to a roundabout, and only after the roundabout do the elevator lobbies arrive. But the sequence is clear and the movement direct and simple. And the three-story-high grand foyer, surrounded by its own second-story archway, provides welcome breathing space and freedom.

In general, as Paul Goldberger appreciates in The New York Times:

It is a compelling shape that exerts a powerful visual appeal. Humana is a warm and welcoming building. It is both serious and visually alive. It’s not deathly boring or frivolous. It is neither boring nor silly: it is both a building of great dignity and a building of great energy and passion..

Not far from this building are other structures owned and occupied by Humana: the Waterside Building at 1st and Main, and Riverview Square at 2nd and Main Street. Humana, which leases space in three downtown buildings: National City in the 400 block of Main Street, the 515 Market Street building and the ISB Building on Magazine Street, plans to lease more space in the Waterfront Plaza East Tower in the 300 block of Main Street.

Humana recently undertook the historic preservation of a city block of several 19th century buildings located in addition to this headquarters building. He is working with preservation experts to ensure the block’s historic integrity is maintained. With more than 8,500 employees in downtown Louisville, Humana is so aggressively and rightly pursuing its dream of not only altering the look of downtown Louisville, but also re-housing and providing close quarters for its growing workforce. He has remained committed and involved in improving the quality of life in various cities, just as they are committed to improving the health of their plan members. Excited to bring all of its Jacksonville employees together in one great downtown location, giving them great potential for continued growth, Humana purchased the largely vacant Jacksonville Center in April 1998 for $32 million with plans to renovate and relocate its then 1,200 employees scattered throughout the city into seven buildings. Employees are part of one of Humana’s four major regional service centers, which handle claims processing and customer service functions for company members in the southeastern US, as well as staff administrative and sales manager for the company’s Jacksonville health plan. around which Humana’s diverse interests and involvements in healthcare, insurance, art collecting, performing arts, charity, creating vast expanses of parks, and giving extraordinary efforts especially among americans.

Sources:

A guided tour of the Humana building in June 2006

EVALUATION; THE HUMAN BUILDING in LOUISVILLE: COMPULSORY WORK by MICHAEL GRAVES By Paul Goldberger, Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES

www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/kentucky/louisville/humana/humana.html