On the Blue Cross Building

"We've made an effort to make the mechanical system into something more meaningful than just keeping you hot or keeping you cold or keeping you dehumidified, or whatever it is. For instance, in this building the support of course comes from the bottom. But the mechanical system is like a great octopus, coming from the top, and encircles the whole building. The hot air and the cold air and the returns are outside the columns, and then the horizontal branches are clearly shown. So that this becomes like a great vine encircling the whole building."

Rudolph, Paul Marvin, 1918-1997, and John Peter, 1917-1998. John Peter Interviews Paul Rudolph [Transcript of Sound Recording]. Library of Congress, Washington, DC, 1959.