With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
900 Cottage Grove Road, Bloomfield
- Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Headquarters
- Isamu Noguchi
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Noguchi designed three courtyards and the south terrace for the 1957 Connecticut General Insurance Headquarters; surrounded by building on all sides and open to the sky, they combine sculpture and landscape design. He also created a sculpture group.
- Description of Significance/Historical Narrative
- The complex consists of a large office building (the Wilde Building) on the south side of Cottage Grove Road, surrounded by a campus with extensive areas of lawn, a pond, and a sculpture group, with later office and parking structures to the south and west. The 1957 Wilde Building is an important example of International Style architecture by Gordon Bunshaft at Skidmore Owings and Merrill, for which the architects collaborated with interior designer Florence Knoll and sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Noguchi designed "the Family" sculpture group, three of the four original inner courts and the terrace along the south side of the building, incorporating benches, paths, pools and plantings in curving geometric forms. The western third of the building is an enlargement that dates to 1971, but was provided for in the original design.
- Date of Construction
- 1957, 1971
- Historic Designation(s)
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- National Register Individual
- Historic Resource Inventoryfile_download