The Seagram building is located in 375 Park Avenue, which is between 52nd and 53rd in Midtown Manhattan.A huge grid bronze skyscraper with a shining glass curtains stand next to a spacious fountain. This 157-meter-high, 38-story glass-walled office building has now been surrounded and covered by some sophisticated and new glass skyscrapers to stop its fame. In fact, it is a monumental design in architecture to open era of skyscraper.
The main materials of decorations for skyscrapers were marble and granite before the Seagram Building completed in 1958. Their structures and technique were almost same as the Seagram Building, and the architects were look forward in culture and aesthetics of traditional European style. The Seagram Building has built a new format of skyscraper.
The German-American architect Mies van der Rohe convinced the Seagram family to have a wealth budget to prepare the building’s material. His famous architectural creed of “less is more” reflects the design as functional supremacy and abandonment of decoration. Essentially, it is the attitude of modernists seeking true aesthetic. Mies was a good designer of using glass, and steel. His design ideas were straightforward: simply exposed the steel structure to replacing as façade. However, due to the limitation of technical specifications, the steel structure surface must be covered with fireproof materials, and usually people would choose concrete to cover the steel structure. Mies changed the method as “fake”: replaced wide flange on the surface of the glass curtain wall to show that the structure that was originally intended to be exposed on the street as a huge vertical bronze creature. This is the bronze vertical that was seen standing on the street today and running through the surface of the building. Ironically, this facade strategy has increased the amount of steel in construction by several hundard tons, and the cost increase has also exceeded the overall 12%.
It can be said that Mies used a false alternative to another fake, “false” form of wide flange, expressing his desire for true expression of respect for function, and it is also more concise in form than the arches. His method has reflected the new era of architecture. Therefore, this design strategy is also referred to as “internationalist”. Now a day, it still influences architects’ ideas of skyscraper.
Another contribution of the Seagram Building to the city is often overshadowed by its “fashionable appearance”, which is the open space of ground floor for public. The idea of that is similar as Le Corbusier’s concept” five points”: Mies has elevate the building form the ground, and the two-story lobby is symmetrical and facing the street. The double height space lobby has connected the shoppers’ private space and the fountain by the glass curtain and exterior columns. It has opened to the public for walk and stay. The building has a awards from New York Government to appreciate that the building has provided a ‘POPS’(Privately Own Public Space)given a beautiful memory for New Yorkers in 1961.
The Seagram building is located in 375 Park Avenue, which is between 52nd and 53rd in Midtown Manhattan.A huge grid bronze skyscraper with a shining glass curtains stand next to a spacious fountain. This 157-meter-high, 38-story glass-walled office building has now been surrounded and covered by some sophisticated and new glass skyscrapers to stop its fame. In fact, it is a monumental design in architecture to open era of skyscraper.
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