Architect John Portman Jr. remembers the Atlanta of his childhood in the 1930s as a “big country town.” During Mr. Portman’s lifetime, it grew to be a regional capital and now an expanding international city with the world’s busiest airport.

Speaking May 13 at the World Trade Center Atlanta, which he helped launch in 1982,  Mr. Portman traced that growth, remembering former Atlanta Mayor William Hartsfield’s brash statements decades ago.

“Mayor Hartsfield used to say we were going to have the world’s largest airport and we would say, ‘Bill, you can’t say that,. That makes us look ridiculous,’”  Mr. Portman recounted. “And Bill said, 'Oh yeah, we can say that. And then we have to work like hell to prove we aren’t lying.'”

It was that spirit, that attitude that led to Atlanta’s success, said Mr. Portman. “As we move forward, I think we still have that attitude,” said the architect. “What this city has and has always had is the right attitude.”

Mr. Portman was honored by the World Trade Center Atlanta at its headquarters in SunTrust Plaza, a building on Peachtree Street that he designed and developed.

As a child, Mr. Portman lived only a few blocks away on Merritts Avenue. He would later transform Peachtree Street with landmark buildings such as the Hyatt Regency hotel and the Peachtree Center office, retail and hotel complex.

He reminisced about the smaller, simpler Atlanta of his childhood. “I walked to grammar school, I walked to high school and I walked to college,” recalled Mr. Portman, a 1950 graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

As a young architect in 1957, his firm broke ground on the Merchandise Mart, a million-square foot building at the corner of  Peachtree and Harris streets where retailers can shop for products from a variety of wholesalers, comparing prices and quality all under one roof.

In 1960, as the Merchandise Mart was still under construction, Mr. Portman attended the dedication of a new city, Brasilia, Brazil.  “It was the largest city in the world ever built from scratch,” he said.

The experience left a strong imprint on Mr. Portman, prompting him to “take a larger vision of things,” he told the World Trade Center members. 

He later traveled to Norway, Sweden and Denmark. “I learned a lot from Scandinavia about how they were making their cities more human and how they were putting things together in such a way that they not only functioned but that they added to the enhancement of life,” said Mr. Portman. 

When Mr. Portman returned to Atlanta, he no longer saw the Merchandise Mart as a single building. “How can we not be concerned about what happens up and down the block and across the way?” Mr. Portman said. “Why can’t we start thinking bigger?”

That led to the vision of Peachtree Center.  “We started collecting land and taking 99-year ground leases all over the place,” he said. “ The development of the Merchandise Mart was really the key, the central key to so many things.”  

It produced an increased demand for hotel space downtown, leading Mr. Portman to  build the Hyatt Regency, Marriott Marquis and Westin Peachtree Plaza hotels.

His Scandinavian experience remained a strong influence. In 1967, Mr. Portman became Denmark’s honorary consul here.  He opened a Scandinavian restaurant, the Midnight Sun in Peachtree Center. “I brought over 49 Danes to make it a really genuine legitimate Scandinavian restaurant,” he said.

In the development of Peachtree Center, Mr. Portman sought to help Atlanta in its efforts to truly become an international city. He hosted meetings of the Atlanta consul corps there and tried to convince countries to locate their consulates in the complex. “We were the new kids on the block,” he said. “We were moving as fast as China has moved in the last 20 years.”

Mr. Portman then began venturing outside of Atlanta, outside the United States. ”We became convinced that the future is global,” he said. 

He sought advice from Paul Austin, then-chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola Co. in the 1970s who told him,, ‘Don’t be greedy. Take a little and leave a little. Become a citizen of the community and make a contribution. Get you a strong local partner.”

In 1975, Mr. Portman’s company opened the Brussels International TradeMart in Belgium.  Four years later, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping  visited Atlanta and stayed at the Westin. He admired the architecture, wanted a similar building for his country and invited a Georgia delegation that included Mr. Portman to visit China later that year. “They put me with the minister of tourism because I built hotels,” said Mr. Portman. “They gave me 13 sites to build hotels.”

Shanghai Centre, a high-rise office, residential, retail and hotel complex opened 15 years ago in Shanghai, China. It includes the Portman Ritz-Carlton. John Portman & Associates Inc. has an office in Shanghai and is currently redeveloping the historic Jian Ye  Li neighborhood there.

 The firm also has projects in Beijing and Hangzhou, China and in other cities across the world such as Warsaw, Poland and Incheon, South Korea.

“Seventy-five percent of our work is international,” said Mr. Portman. “This shows you that it is out there. All you have to do is go get it.”

For more information on Mr. Portman’s projects, go to www.portmanusa.com.

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