Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Headquarters

In 1995 Brian Clarke was commissioned to produce a major work of art for the refurbishment of Pfizer’s World Headquarters in New York. Over the following two years, he conceived and created a composition that spanned a full Manhattan block within the site, stretching from 42nd and 43rd Street, and measures at 4,833 square feet.

Clarke’s designs respond directly to the function of the existing building, translating medical and scientific imagery through traditionally mouth-blown and acid-etched stained glass and hand-cut Venetian mosaic.

To best employ these designs, each shape was individually worked out by Clarke in 1:1 scale paintings on paper, and then created under his instruction in the molten, mouth-blown glass. A historical first, this new type of glass was christened ‘Zaha-Glas’ after architect Zaha Hadid, as it was first developed by Clarke for their unrealised collaboration on the Spittelau Viaducts Housing Project in 1994.