Weatherhead School

Peter B. Lewis Building at the Weatherhead School of Management

Named for the Cleveland philanthropist who donated $36.9 million towards its construction, the Peter B. Lewis Building was designed by Gehry Partners, LLC . The five story facility is decentralized in its design to facilitate informal interaction between faculty and students.

This undulating 22 Ga. Stainless Steel Metal surface creates an appearance of an unbroken ribbon of metal. The metal surface on the stainless steel was mechanically finished to provide a #4 Satin surface, more reflective than Angel Hair or Glass-Bead, but much more diffused than a mirror-finish.

Each shingle was stamped into a custom Zahner flat seam panel that interlocked with the adjoining panels. This tessellating pattern is made possible by the SuperFlat Seam™ system, which allows these panels to lay flat.

Aerial view of Weatherhead from Bing Maps.

Construction of the Weatherhead School in Cleveland.

Curvilinear forms of the Peter B. Lewis Building.

The stainless steel surface ripples reflections of the clouds.

Detail of the Weatherhead metalwork.

Reflective metal on the Peter B. Lewis Building.

Detail of the Weatherhead School's metal patterned roof.

Construction of the Weatherhead School, prior to peeling the skins.

Completed photograph of the Weatherhead School.

Upward view of the Weatherhead School.

Learn more about the Weatherhead School

The Weatherhead School was completed in 2002, and is a private business school of Case Western Reserve University located in Cleveland, Ohio.

In 2012, a new building for the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA Cleveland) was designed and built on an adjacent site not far from the Peter B. Lewis Building at Weatherhead School. Designed by Farshid Moussavi Architects, the building's facade was fabricated by Zahner.

Aerial view of Weatherhead School adjacent to the upcoming MOCA Cleveland.

Weatherhead School Further Reading

The Peter B. Lewis Building for the Weatherhead School at Case Western was met with critical acclaim. Below are some links to further reading about the building, as well as internal resources on the products and services that Zahner used to build the undulating facade.

Google Maps Weatherhead Location mapped on Zahner Earth.
Modern Steel Award Winner Peter B. Lewis Building , June 2002
Cleveland Museum of Art ExhibitionChallenging Structure , 2002-2003
New York Times How to Make a Frank Gehry Building , April, 2001
Galinsky Peter B. Lewis Building , 2003

More Projects

View All Projects

News & Updates

"Zinc shows its mettle" - The Miami Herald 4/20/2013

Zahner's Director of Marketing, Gary Davis, discusses the benefits and uses of Zinc in architecture.