The sculptural passageway of Pietro Belluschi's 1964 Rohn & Haas building (now Dow Chemical Co.) at Sixth and Market Streets, now vividly on display in the Independence Beer Garden. INGA SAFFRON / Staff

One of the unexpected pleasures of the new Independence Beer Garden at Sixth and Market is that it creates the perfect vantage for admiring the sensuous geometry of its host, Pietro Belluschi's 1964 office building. Casual Adirondack chairs and picnic tables are arrayed around the building's base, providing up-close-and-personal views of his remarkable torquing concrete columns and the faceted ceiling in the open-air passageway.

These are the kind of design details we pass all the time in Philadelphia, yet hardly notice. It takes a good eye to pick the treasures out of the crowd. That's the purpose of this new fortnightly column, and the reason for its name. As the architect Mies van der Rohe liked to say, "God is in the details." Even ordinary buildings often exhibit remarkable elements that give them life and enrich our surroundings.....Continue Reading

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