John Shearer: Examining The Under-Discussion TVA Complex – And Learning Of Its Architects

In light of the recent calls for public comment regarding what to do with the massive TVA Complex in downtown Chattanooga, I decided to walk around the outside of the structure in recent days. While doing that, I was surprised with a couple of interesting and overlooked sights I found.

Through some examination inside the library and online, I was also able to find some information on the people behind the unique building’s designs. They are architects who have seemingly not been mentioned much locally.

As has been documented in the media in recent days, officials are looking at what to do with the TVA complex built in downtown Chattanooga in the 1980s. And they are soliciting a variety of options, from total preservation to partial preservation or total demolition.

The public can provide feedback online by April 10 at a website address linked at the bottom of this story or at a public meeting this Tuesday, March 26, from 5 to 7 p.m. at Miller Plaza. The latter is a drop-in style event where visitors can learn and ask questions with officials on hand, but there is no formal presentation.

As someone interested in a casual way in architecture representing a variety of styles and eras, I walked around the structure last Saturday, March 16. I admit that I had often over the years flown past or even under the large structure in my automobile and only took in the almost-purple-colored brick and funky designs and shapes in places in a general sense.

I had also heard over the years that it was designed to harness smart- and low-energy use at a time when we had just experienced some energy crises around the world, particularly regarding gasoline and oil shortages or perceived shortages in the U.S. market. The collective interest in harnessing solar energy was also just starting in the U.S.

It might be easy to assume in hindsight that perhaps a number of structures were torn down to make way for this gargantuan facility, but it was actually developed on part of the old railroad yard formerly owned by the state of Georgia.

It had opened about the time I started working at the Chattanooga News-Free Press in 1984, so I always felt a connection to it as I would walk around downtown Chattanooga regularly in the 1980s and ‘90s particularly.

But it was not a close connection because I always felt like it was not a place you could pop right into like at your neighborhood Hardee’s at breakfast-time, if you were not a TVA employee. Of course, government-connected buildings have to feature a level of security, too, and that was probably the reason for that, even though they still appear to have a visitor’s entrance in front of Missionary Ridge Place.

And the TVA structure’s vibrancy almost seemed to suffer somewhat within its first few years after Marvin Runyon was hired as chairman in 1988 and eliminated a number of jobs in a move that had apparently not been done before. It earned him the nickname “Carvin’ Marvin,” and I heard stories of some mental suffering from longtime employees, even though he was praised for bringing down TVA’s debt load and making it a leaner public utility.

The TVA employees I have known always seem like decent people, with many of them being engineers or those possessing certain training or educational levels. And you could tell working at TVA was different from working for a for-profit business, even though the employees likely had their own kinds of pressures regarding job expectations.

And as a light-hearted sidenote, I always heard that TVA employees got out for lunch at 11:30 a.m. instead of the noon hour, and that many of them liked to head for the now-closed Mom’s Italian Villa just down Main Street. As someone who liked to eat at Mom’s, that caught my attention!

I actually spotted Mr. Runyon walking down the street with probably some TVA executives one time while he was chairman, although I am not sure if he was headed to Mom’s. I had recognized his face from the media reports after reading he had also been involved at an executive level with Ford and Nissan.

I assume that maybe the number of employees inside the fairly new complex was reduced even beginning way back then with Mr. Runyon’s moves. And, of course, the complex’s on-site staff has been greatly lowered even more after the pandemic hit in 2020, when everyone realized much of the agency’s work could be done remotely at home.

The TVA Complex runs from 11^th to 12^th street – a longer block than some of those blocks closer to the river -- and from Market Street to Chestnut Street, with Broad Street running down the middle separating some of the buildings.

I can remember coming home from college at the University of Georgia in the early 1980s and having to take a detour around the large facility slowly being built instead of being able to go straight through Broad Street.

There are actually two elevated passageways that go over Broad Street. Before examining it up close on Saturday, I would have guessed just one went over the street.

And I would be interested to know if it had a good function and flow on the inside for employees.

Because the overall design is a little unique, I am not sure how people appreciate it, as it features stair-step-like shapes on some of the structures going up, and even some upside-down stair shapes in one or two places. The latter definitely creates a little bit of a double take for a passerby.

The building also has a lot of window space on the south end, a minimal amount on the west and east sides, and a medium amount on the north sides facing Miller Park and the Read House.

Rossville-based architect Jack Killian, who helped convert some of the conceptual designs into construction prints when the building was under construction and later designed some interior renovations, said that was done for a purpose.

“It was so heavily geared toward passive solar energy to find ways to limit electricity consumption,” he said in a phone interview late last week. “They focused on how to capitalize on sunlight, particularly in relation to lighting. With a conventional energy building at the time, so much energy went into lighting.

“You look at the building and you’ve got a huge skylight over the entrance and few windows on the south and you got light shelf windows on the north,” he continued. “You take as much light as you can and bring it from the outside into the inside where you don’t have so much power for light fixtures. The east and west sides have different lighting control, so that’s why they are huge, big brick blocks that don’t let much sunlight in because you don’t control them very well.”

The building at the time was also designed to be heated using waste heat from its computer center that was built earlier and cooled with underground water.

As the Chattanooga newspapers reported in late June 1978 when the plans for the building were publicly first announced in any detail – and longtime News-Free Press business editor John Vass Jr. got another scoop by breaking the story – several design firms were involved.

As Mr. Killian explained last week, the Houston firm of Caudill-Rowlett-Scott did the conceptual drawings of the complex, while the Architects Collaborative of the Boston area did more detailed drawings of these conceptual designs. Later, the two local firms of Derthick, Henley and Wilkerson and James Franklin did detail drawings for the contractors and others, and Mr. Killian was involved in that realm and was later hired to be the on-site architect during construction.

During the official public announcement led by TVA chairman David Freeman at the now-razed Civic Forum just north of where the complex was to be built, Charles Lawrence of the Caudill-Rowell-Scott firm and pioneering woman architect Sarah Harkness of the Architects Collaborative firm were on hand. Both of them evidently had distinguished careers.

The CRS firm was known for being ground-breaking in the use of lighting in its buildings, such as with schools, while the Architects Collaborative was a little ahead of its time in that it used a collaborative effort in design work. As a result, the current shape of the TVA Complex that Chattanoogans have seen for four decades likely had multiple brains behind it.

Both the Houston and Boston/Cambridge firms would do international work, including in the Middle East, but both also suffered financial setbacks within a decade or so of the TVA Complex’s opening and are apparently no longer in operation.

Others said to have taken part in developing the building were the engineering firm of Syska and Hennessy in New York and other consultants and experts that were listed in the original article. These included several individual solar and energy specialists and even an environmental psychologist, Dr. Robert Bechtel.

As Mr. Killian recalled regarding the collective effort, “TVA went across the country to find folks to help them do the design.”

The construction contractors included Blount Brothers of Alabama and T.U. Parks of Chattanooga. Rentenbach Engineering of Knoxville was also involved.

In trying to explain how big the structure was to be, Mr. Vass wrote in the initial articles that it would be the equivalent of two Northgate Malls or four Provident Life (now Unum) buildings.

It was to initially cost $120 million, and house 5,000 employees who at the time were scattered in other buildings throughout downtown.

To encourage energy savings and perhaps carpooling or bus riding, it was initially designed without large parking facilities, although employees could use the nearby public spaces. A big parking garage perhaps also used by the Convention Center visitors now sits on the west side of the TVA Complex.

Groundbreaking ceremonies for the complex were held in 1980, and the first time that most employees saw its interior was in 1984, when TVA chairman David Freeman gave a farewell address to numerous employees in the interior atrium.

It had to have been a special moment for Mr. Freeman, as he was born in Chattanooga way back in 1926 to Jewish immigrant parents. He had gone on to be educated at Georgia Tech and UT-Knoxville, write some energy-related books that likely made him take much interest in the TVA Complex design, and then live until 2020, when he was 94.

An exact opening or ribbon-cutting date for the TVA Complex could not be found with the help of the Chattanooga Public Library, but an open house for the public was not held until May 31, 1986. I remember attending it as a 26-year-old.

As one looks above the structure, Monteagle Place (which was built as the computer/data center) is on the northwest corner, Signal Place is on the east side of it, and Missionary Ridge Place is on the northeast corner. South of them, Lookout Place is on the southwest corner and Blue Ridge Place is on the southeast corner.

TVA media relations official Scott Fiedler emailed some former pamphlet documents sent employees when the structure that was officially called the Chattanooga Office Complex was opening. The booklets talk about everything from proper ways to decorating one’s office in those days when cubicles were becoming popular to using the copy machines – which were prized technology in the 1980s. TVA officials also pointed out that the structure had an open design and that employees should be cognizant of that when carrying on conversations.

Regarding my personal walking tour, I can honestly say that just by strolling around it for 15 or 20 minutes, I actually and somewhat surprisingly developed a little more of an appreciation for the building and its architecture and setting.

It is definitely not a simple symmetrical complex, due likely to the energy considerations in its designs. And it definitely contrasts with most of the other buildings in downtown other than maybe the also-unique Tennessee Aquarium.

What really caught my eye in a positive way – other than the stairstep-like designs and the changing window patterns everywhere -- were all the plaza spaces outside, space I had not really noticed before. For example, there is like a large T-shaped outdoor plaza on the interior footprint, with another smaller outdoor area on the north side, where circular-designed raised brick benches and a small fountain-like area are.

But my favorite part was in the northeast corner up near Patten Towers. Besides a glass-covered entrance that might be where the public enters and that looks different from the rest of the complex’s entrances, there is a giant plaza with an amphitheater. It features such unique designs as sloping brick, and at the top is an area with a great view back toward downtown. When examining that, I actually wanted to stop and rest and soak everything in.

I had never seen that spot before! If the complex site is completely redeveloped, maybe they could at least preserve this and make it an extension of Miller Park and call it Miller Park South.

Regarding whether the entire complex should be preserved, people who love architecture or the story behind the building’s energy-focused and pioneering construction might push for all or at least some of it to be preserved.

Maybe the current complex could be converted into downtown housing where the windows are. And on the north end that has almost greenhouse-like window covering, maybe those could even be opened up as apartment balconies. Who would not want to enjoy the view of downtown Chattanooga from an address like that?

In the other areas, perhaps the federal courthouse could take up space where all the brick is with few window space, although federal officials might have strict guidelines for what they need. The former Whittle Communications campus in downtown Knoxville was converted into some federal courthouse space, so reuse has been done before.

If the site is completely cleared, it could draw interest on what could be done with the massive space in addition to possibly courthouse space, and maybe some might push to add a little more publicly accessible greenspace to some of it.

Disposing of all the construction materials in demolition might be a mess. While perhaps some of the brick could be saved and reused, carting away other materials might create a drain on the landfills and result in an environmental irony that contrasts with the energy consciousness used in the building’s design.

Regarding his wishes for the building he helped work on, architect Mr. Killian said without strong feelings one way or the other, “I don’t have any reservations or preconcessions about what TVA should do with it. It’s their business.”

While its future awaits and I hope to think more about it and offer my input by April 10, I enjoyed learning more about the structure’s past and soaking up its present with a simple walkaround.

And I did it around this building that once housed 5,000 people but seemed hauntingly empty on that Saturday. In fact, I passed only a few people, most of whom seemed to be families going to some kind of sports-related event likely at the Convention Center.

Whether that is what David Freeman and all the architects envisioned for the building 40 years after it opened, I do not know.

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To go to the website to offer public opinion about the TVA Complex, click here.

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Jcshearer2@comcast.net