Around the Portfolio
Rockefeller Center’s famous plaza features this winter tradition every year.
What is the Christmas tree lighting (or ice rink)?
This “sport of kings” involves galloping horses, swinging mallets, and people pretending they understand the rules.
What is polo?
The first fireplaces were built for warmth, but now they’re mostly used for this decorative December purpose.
What is hanging stockings?
In Schitt’s Creek, Johnny Rose once made his fortune developing this type of lodging empire — not roses.
What are motels?
This iconic Swedish retailer is known for furniture you assemble yourself — and for blueprints that double as marriage stress tests.
What is IKEA?
Tishman Speyer teamed up with the San Francisco Giants to reimagine this waterfront neighborhood project just south of Oracle Park.
What is Mission Rock?
This worldwide event makes everyone an expert in gymnastics, swimming, and track… for about two weeks every four years.
What are the Olympic Games?
Long before modern kitchens, Pilgrims built these hearth-centered homes out of local wood and thatch — early examples of “design-build” projects.
What are log cabins?
This classic Tom Hanks movie turns a crumbling mansion renovation into a slapstick nightmare for two would-be homeowners.
What is The Money Pit?
This color system, used by designers and printers to ensure consistent hues, assigns codes like “1837 Blue” or “186 C Red.”
What is Pantone?
John D. Rockefeller Jr. leased the land from this Ivy League university to develop Rockefeller Center during the Great Depression.
What is Columbia University?
This sport’s most famous trophy is made entirely of silver — which is ironic, since everyone still wants gold.
What is the Stanley Cup
This national holiday was made official by a president known for building unity — not buildings — during the Civil War.
Who is Abraham Lincoln?
In Arrested Development, this banana stand-owning family struggles to keep their real estate business — and sanity — intact.
Who are the Bluths?
This architectural “-ism,” exemplified by concrete megastructures and bold geometry, gets its name from the French word for “raw.”
What is Brutalism?
This Washington, D.C. complex near the White House was redeveloped by Tishman Speyer and features sweeping terraces and views of the National Mall.
What is Lafayette Tower?
This U.S. soccer star and two-time World Cup champion retired in 2023 — after helping popularize the phrase “equal pay.”
Who is Megan Rapinoe?
This architectural element tops both cathedrals and Christmas trees.
What is a star?
In The Fountainhead, this controversial protagonist refuses to compromise his architectural vision — a thinly veiled version of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Who is Howard Roark?
In architecture, this concept describes the sustainable design philosophy of reducing a building’s environmental footprint — often abbreviated as “LEED.”
What is green architecture (or sustainable architecture)?
Tishman Speyer co-developed this futuristic London skyscraper nicknamed for a kitchen tool.
What is the Gherkin (30 St Mary Axe)?
This team, founded in 1967, won its first-ever Stanley Cup in 2019 — making the Gateway to the West a hockey town at last.
What are the St. Louis Blues?
Before it was a lush oasis, Central Park was designed in the 1850s by these two landscape architects who believed cities needed nature, too.
Who are Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux?
This Netflix movie satire featured a tech billionaire building a glass island paradise.
What is Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery?
The principle that “form follows function” is most associated with this German-born architect and founder of the Bauhaus School.
Who is Walter Gropius?