Building of the Day

A six story office and warehouse facility comprised of a lower slab and suspended block. A Brutalist icon designed by famous Modernist Marcel Breuer, the building is a landmark, clearly visible from the closely situated interstate highways. The precast concrete structure features a prominent yet simple pattern of crystalline planes and evenly distributed windows. Currently a sustainability-minded specialty hotel operated by Hilton, the building once was a corporate headquarters. Connecticut's Armstrong Rubber Company commissioned the building as a space for administrative offices as well as research and warehousing. It was later purchased by Pirelli, another tire company, for the same purpose. The majority of the structure’s base building was controversially demolished in favor of parking space when the neighboring IKEA took ownership in 2003. Before its conversion to a hotel, the building was home to a year-long public art installation, during which many of the signs of extended vacancy were stripped away.

The building's exterior is distinctly modernist and representative of the Brutalist movement which its architect Marcel Breuer was a central figure of. Hotel Marcel is organized in two distinctive masses: a two-story base that contains public spaces for the hotel, and above it, a five-story block with hotel rooms and maintenance floor. There is a 17-foot gap between the two masses, with three large columns and eight smaller columns separating the two. The east and west sides of the building have a taut grid of deeply recessed window panels that create harsh shadows depending on where the sunlight hits the building. [1]

The structure is steel framing with a cantilevered truss system that suspends the upper block above the base. The mass is then clad in precast and cast concrete. [1] Breuer specified Mo-Sai precast panels, white cement with exposed quarts pebble aggregate, as well as board-formed concrete. The panels' crystalline-like modeling produces the appearance of a sculpture. Furthermore, single pane fixed metal windows sit within the precast units, and the roof is flat with an asphalt covering, decorated with solar panels. [1]

At the northeast corner of the site stands a freestanding three-story concrete sign, about 36 feet wide and 48 feet tall, built from the original construction in 1968. It encases the words HOTEL MARCEL. [1]

In 2003, the additional warehouse wing that extended from the tower's west side was demolished during a site redevelopment. [1] From 2020 to 2022, the property was renovated as Hotel Marcel (Tapestry Collection by Hilton). The project created a fully electric building and added on-site photovoltaic arrays on the rooftop and parking-canopy, earning LEED Platinum and marked the hotel as net-zero in operations. [2, 3] Hotel Marcel is now a 165 room, all-electric building with a public lobby and restaurant (BLDG). [4] The interior of the building went from a previous office building layout before renovation to a now hotel layout with warm and modern minimalist designs. Surviving materials include granite pavers and stair elements. [1]

In 1968, the Armstrong Rubber Company (Armstrong Rubber Building) was designed as a solution to New Haven's desire to fulfill its city's urban renewal goal. Joseph R. Stewart, Vice-President of Armstrong, proposed a plan to build a new headquarters in a piece of land along I-95 in the Long Wharf Development Area, visible from passing motorists so the company's research and development laboratories could be showcased. The Long Wharf District was part of Mayor of New Haven, Richard Lee's plan to create a modern industrial and manufacturing sector of the city. Stewart proposed to build a 3-story building with corporate offices and a 2-story building at the back of the site for R&D. Envisioning a strict plan for the sector, Mayor Lee rejected the proposal, wanting an 18-story tower instead. He believed that "anything built on the site should have an architectural presence and be designed by a master." [1] When Marcel Breuer was given the project, he was very apprehensive of even designing anything. Breuer was tasked with appeasing both the Armstrong Company and Mayor Lee. After bargaining back and forth with both parties, Breuer designed a seven-story building with a gap in the middle. Breuer actually proposed 9 floors, but the Armstrong Company rejected it. [1] The headquarters was built in 1970 and was used for 18 years. Towards the end of the Armstrong Company's ownership, market decline and decreasing sales led Pirelli (an Italian tire company) to buy the Armstrong Building in 1988. [1, 12] As a result, the property became known as the "Pirelli Building."

In the 1990s, many manufacturing companies moved away from the Northeast to places with less unions where they were able to pay workers less. As a result, the Pirelli Building became largely vacant. This pattern in the Long Wharf District thinned as U.S. tire manufacturing consolidated in the 1990s and white-collar jobs decreased. [1, 15]

In 2003, the IKEA store project resulted in the sites long research wing to be demolished, leaving the building as a standalone slab we see today. [1] The building remained hollow and vacant for years. Many debates of preservation sparked during this time, deciding whether it was a forgotten monument or relic to be revived. [1, 15, 16] However, in 2017, American Artist Tim Burr created an exhibit called "Body/Building" showcased the architecture and art forms reflected by not only the Pirelli Building, but also New Haven as a whole. His works incorporated art and personal life into the urban renewal architecture that was set inside the building. [10, 11] In late 2019, developer Bruce Redman Becker of Becker + Becker purchased the property from IKEA. [13, 14] Becker renovated the property into Hotel Marcel, the building known today. Becker planned for an all-electric, net zero-hotel that is the first in the nation. [18, 20] The hotel's emphasis on sustainability is emblematic of a larger trend in prestigious American architecture towards climate-friendly development.