The Architecture of High Point

Looks like your average downtown street, right? Nearly all of the buildings in the photograph are furniture showrooms, with the exception of the parking plaza. While the downtown is a bustling area during Market, it's all but deserted the rest of the year.

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The International Home Furnishings Center (IFHC) houses 3.5 million square feet of display area. Its twelve floors were a nearly unsolvable labyrinth of showrooms. The imposing windowless facade gives the building a totalitarian sensibility.

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Directly opposite IFHC is the curvilinear glass-faced Showplace Center, whose atrium is flooded with daylight. A reaction to the former? I think so.

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In 2005 a transit terminal was constructed in front of IFHC and has is the hub of a remarkably efficient and well-coordinated shuttle service. The structure is reminiscent of Buckminster Fuller's Octet Truss.

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The Natuzzi showroom was designed by Italian architect Mario Bellini in 19XX. The founder of Natuzzi is an avid sailor and Bellini translated that love for the nautical into this veritable ocean liner.

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The street-facing-facade is entirely glass and the opposite is essentially a gently-curved hull. Upon approach, you tread over gang-plank-like walkway that spans a moat. Yes. A moat.

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Many of the contemporary showrooms were housed in the C&D Building, which boasts a silvery skin, and neighboring 220 Elm.

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One of the most interesting things architecturally is how old manufacturing infrastructure is repurposed for today's needs. The Market Square building was formerly a furniture mill dating from the 1920s. In 1984, it was converted into showrooms. Note the addition to the facade: it's contemporary, but not out of place.

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The interior glistened of varnished and lacquered woods, tin ceilings, and brick walls. I loved that many of the floors creaked as I walked over them.

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Some of the old heavy duty machinery is still viewable from the glass corridors connecting various parts of the building. I really liked that you can get an impression of what it was like to be in a working factory, with remnants of the days when the structure churned out tables, chairs, and highboys.

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The Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams showroom was once a toy factory and is another example of the adaptive reuse found throughout High Point.

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The Halo showroom was once a firehouse.

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Though this stretch looks like a normal main street, all of the storefronts are furniture showrooms. Not a restaurant, pub, or dry cleaner down the line. The building capped by a transmission tower is the aptly named "Radio Building." Nearly everyone I saw downtown was a furniture buyer. On my returning flight, my seatmate (a local of neighboring Greensboro) said that the area is essentially limited to the trade.

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The downtown post office is inside this lovely Deco building. There were so many different styles of architecture throughout the city, and every time I turned a corner something always stood out.

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And here's a church dating from the 1800s.

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Originally built in 1907, the train station was renovated in 2003. High Point received its name because it was the highest point of elevation along the railway line between Charlotte and Goldsboro.

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The eaves are painted in mustard yellow.

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And the famous "World's Largest Chest of Drawers" wraps up my tour of the downtown area.

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