CBS headquarters NY, 1964-Present

EXTENSION OF THE SIDEWALK

The CBS headquarters in New york is located on the corner of 52nd street and 6th avenue. The building was designed by american - Finnish architect Eero Saarinen and was completed in 1964. Eero Saarinen worked under his father which was also an architect until he won a competition in which he designed the Mississippi arch. This competition allowed him to move from under his father and brought him some fame. He was a modernist architect that designed a variety of building. When given the contract to build the headquarters for CBS in New york it was the height of steel cage office buildings, however Saarinen built the city’s first post war concrete building . During this time steel and glass had become popular. Many buildings tried to be transparent and show both the function and structure of the building.He wanted to move away from glass and have a dense, strong feeling rather than a light transparent structure. The skyscraper is 38 stories tall and made with black granite and black tinted glass, earning the name “Black Rock”. The building is unlike any other around it. The Chief architect Eero Saarinen died before the building’s completion, leaving his firm to finish it. Saarinen’s idea was a vertical free standing tower inside a plaza. The ground floor of the building is commercial while the floors above are corporate offices. He created a partially sunken plaza in which the tower occupies approximately sixty percent of the area.  A plaza allows a building to be seen. Our buildings should be seen, because they are monuments of out time."The plaza is small in an attempt to respect the wall of sixth avenue. The building is on a lower level than the street however the perimeter of the building has green spaces that outline the area on street level, this allows for the sidewalk to remain uniform with the other blocks. He tried to separate the building from the city while giving the illusion that is was not. This sunken plaza allows for a more intimate space between the building and the rest of the city.  “a plaza can be a dangerous thing. We have to remember the street line and we have to remember the the space inbetween is as important as the towers.” When inside the plaza the area becomes smaller and the building becomes feels like the only thing around. The sunken space allows for a person to feel as though they have left the city and is now in a different space. The small plaza allows for a viewer to believe the entrance is flush with the sidewalk like the buildings around it but as they get closer realize it is more complex. The entrance to the building appears to be close to the street because the building itself gives the illusion of being flush with the street. Reinforced concrete triangular piers are placed on the facade around the building which support the building. The triangular shape made of the granite not only supports the building but also creates an optical illusion of the building making it seem more open or closed. When approaching the building The triangles gives the observer the illusion of a solid black wall which is any of the building’s facade. As the observer gets closer to the building the black wall they first saw opens up revealing windows. The triangles become skinny strips along the facade as the building opens fully up to the observer and they witness the many windows and openness of the facade. The building creates an experience that evolves unlike the standard buildings that surround it.

Sources:

http://w

ww.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/eero-saarinens-design-cbs-building-new-york-city/7936/

http://docomomo-us.org/register/cbs-building

Eero saarinen on his work . a selection of buildings from 1947 to 1964