John C. Portman Jr.

John Calvin Portman Jr. (December 4, 1924 – December 29, 2017) was an American neofuturistic architect and real estate developer widely known for popularizing hotels and office buildings with multi-storied interior atria. Portman also had a particularly large impact on the cityscape of his hometown of Atlanta, with the Peachtree Center complex serving as downtown's business and tourism anchor from the 1970s onward.[1] The Peachtree Center area includes Portman-designed Hyatt, Westin, and Marriott hotels. Portman's plans typically deal with primitives in the forms of symmetrical squares and circles.

John C. Portman Jr.
Born
John Calvin Portman Jr.

(1924-12-04)December 4, 1924
Walhalla, South Carolina, U.S.
DiedDecember 29, 2017(2017-12-29) (aged 93)
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
OccupationArchitect
Children6
Awards
  • AIA Medal for Innovations in Hotel Design
  • AIA Silver Medal Award for Innovative Design
  • Urban Land Institute Award for Excellence
PracticeJohn Portman & Associates

Early life and career

Portman was born to John C. Portman, Sr. and Edna Rochester Portman. He had five sisters. He graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1950. His firm completed the Merchandise Mart (now AmericasMart) in downtown Atlanta in 1961. The multi-block Peachtree Center was begun in 1965 and would expand to become the main center of hotel and office space in Downtown Atlanta, taking over from the Five Points area just to the south. Portman would develop a similar multiblock complex at San Francisco's Embarcadero Center (1970s), which unlike its Atlanta counterpart, heavily emphasized pedestrian activity at street level.

The Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Portman's first atrium hotel, would lead to many more iconic hotels and multi-use complexes with atria, including the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles (1974–1976), the New York Marriott Marquis (1982–1985), and the Renaissance Center in Detroit (first phase 1973–1977), whose central tower remained the tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere until the completion of 1717 Broadway in 2013.

His signature work in China, the Shanghai Centre (1990), was the first of many major projects in China and elsewhere in Asia. The 5-star hotel inside, The Portman Ritz-Carlton, Shanghai (formerly Portman Shangri-La Hotel), was named after him.

In 2009 Portman's work was featured in a major exhibition at Atlanta's High Museum of Art.

Portman was a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

Personal life

Portman married Joan "Jan" Newton. They had six children.

Portman died on December 29, 2017, aged 93.[2][3] He was survived, among others, by his wife and five of his children, as well as his daughter-in-law, actress Traylor Howard, and three of his five siblings.

Portfolio
Looking up into atrium of the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, first of Portman's atrium hotels
Embarcadero Hyatt Atrium, San Francisco
Renaissance Center, Detroit, MI
Shanghai Centre
Beijing Yintai Centre
Tomorrow Square, Shanghai
Hilton San Diego Bayfront
JW Marriott Hotel Shenzhen Bao'an, Shenzhen

In chronological order by first listed completion date — for complexes, by completion date of first building in complex

An asterisk (*) following a listing indicates a work done in partnership with H. Griffith Edwards.

1960s
  • AmericasMart (formerly the Atlanta Market Center), Atlanta
    • AmericasMart 1 (also known as the Merchandise Mart), 1961*
    • AmericasMart 2 (also known as the Gift Mart), 1992
    • AmericasMart 2 West, 2008
    • AmericasMart 3 (also known as the Apparel Mart), 1979
  • Atlanta Decorative Arts Center (ADAC), Peachtree Hills, Atlanta, 1961
  • Cary Reynolds Elementary (formerly Sequoyah Elementary and Northwoods Area Elementary before that), 1961
  • Sequoyah Middle School (formerly Sequoyah High School), 1963
  • 230 Peachtree Building (formerly the Peachtree Center Tower), Atlanta, 1965*
  • Antoine Graves, Atlanta, 1965*
  • Antoine Graves Annex, Atlanta, 1966*
  • Henderson High School, Chamblee, 1967*
  • Peachtree Center, Atlanta
    • Peachtree Center North (formerly the Atlanta Gas Light Tower), 1967*
    • Peachtree Center South, 1969
    • Peachtree Center International Tower (formerly the Peachtree Cain Building), 1972*
    • Harris Tower, 1975*
    • Marquis One, 1985
    • Marquis Two, 1989
  • Hyatt Regency Atlanta (formerly the Regency Hyatt House), 1967*
  • Hyatt Regency O'Hare, Rosemont, 1969

1970s

1980s

1990s
  • Shanghai Centre, Shanghai, China, 1990
    • Shanghai Centre West Apartment (also known as the Exhibition Centre North Apartment 1)
    • Shanghai Centre Apartments 2 (also known as the Shanghai East Apartment)
    • The Portman Ritz-Carlton, Shanghai (formerly the Shanghai Centre Main Tower and Portman Shangri-La Hotel)
  • Truist Plaza (formerly One Peachtree Center), Atlanta, 1992
  • Cap Square (short for Capital Square), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
    • Menara Multi Purpose (also known as the Capital Square Tower 1), 1994
    • Capital Square Condominiums, 2007

2000s

2010s

Awards and honors

Criticism

Portman was praised for his "cinematic"[11] interiors artfully relating interior space and elements to the individual. In the 1960s and 1970s the placement of such buildings in America's decaying downtowns was considered salvation of the city centers, but some contemporary city planners are critical of such insular environments that "turn their back" on the city streets.[12] For example, the New York Marriott Marquis with its 8-floor high lobby was praised as a "town square", but is now criticized by some for turning its back to Times Square. Nonetheless, at the time the hotel was built, due to the still-seedy character of Times Square, Portman's style of inwardly-oriented spaces made logical sense. Also, he did, in fact, design buildings (like San Francisco's Embarcadero Center) that heavily emphasized pedestrian activity at street level.[13]

Bibliography
  • Portman, John; Barnett, Jonathan (1976). The Architect as Developer. McGraw Hill. ISBN 0-07-050536-5.

References
  1. "Private Enterprise Breathes New Life Into Old Cities". AMA Management Digest. American Management Association. 2: 25–26. 1979.
  2. "John Portman, renowned architect and developer, dies at 93". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. December 30, 2017.
  3. McFadden, Robert D. (December 30, 2017). "John Portman, Architect Who Made Skylines Soar, Dies at 93". The New York Times.
  4. Pare, Mike (August 7, 2015). "Work on Westin Hotel to Start This Fall in Downtown Chattanooga". Chattanooga Times Free Press.
  5. Hasberg, Eva (December 29, 2018). "John Portman's Entelechy II is a complex map of a long and fruitful life". Wallpaper Magazine. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
  6. Wachs, Audrey (February 13, 2017). "Emory University to replace a remarkable John Portman building with a new campus center". The Architect's Newspaper.
  7. "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
  8. "2009 Lynn S. Beedle Award Winner". Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Retrieved 18 May 2012.
  9. McWilliams, Jeremiah (November 2, 2011). "Harris Street renamed for John Portman, capping controversy". Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
  10. "2013 – John Portman". Four Pillar. May 8, 2014.
  11. Wooten, Kristi York (March 30, 2015). "How 1980s Atlanta Became the Backdrop for the Future". The Atlantic. ISSN 1072-7825.
  12. Craig, Robert M. "John Portman". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on March 14, 2016. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  13. Traub, James (2004). The Devil's Playground: A Century Of Pleasure And Profit In Times Square. Random House. p. 153. ISBN 978-0375759789.
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