Sulaiman Bin Ahmed
Extra Credit
Seagram
Building
Seagram Building is
designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and ex-MoMA staffer and architect Philip
Johnson. The landmark skyscraper is located on Park Avenue between 52nd and
53rd streets in mid-town Manhattan (375 Park Avenue New York, New York 10022) and
it is often loftily hailed as a precedent-setting structure for modern
corporate architecture in New York City. The building's particular conception
and construction were largely driven by the idealistic, principled visions of
Phyllis Lambert, daughter of Seagram's founder Samuel Bronfman. The skyscraper
was originally designed as the headquarters for Joseph E. Seagram’s & Sons,
and was Mies’ first tall office building project. The building is Characterised
by sleek glass and metal, rather than the ornamental heavy stone and brick
facades of previous decades, the Seagram Building signalled a new era of
functional skyscraper, adopting a minimalist corporate aesthetic. The building
stands 157 m (515 ft) tall, with 38 storeys and it was completed in 1958.
The structure of the
building was articulated externally, rather than concealing it under applied
ornamentation. The Seagram was one of the first building built using a
combination of a steel moment frame and a steel and reinforced concrete core
for lateral stiffness, it was the first tall building to use high-strength
bolted connections, and the first to combine a braced with a moment frame. It
was one of the first buildings of its kind to use a vertical truss bracing
system. Mies had intended for the steel frame to be visible, however, this was
prevented by the American building codes which required the covering of all
structural steel with concrete or another fire-resistant material. To give the
building the vertical articulation he wanted, Mies used non-structural
bronze-toned I-beams instead, which run vertically surrounding the large glass
windows, also helping to stiffen the skin for wind loading. This method of a
larger non-structural edifice being supported by an interior reinforced concrete
shell would go on to be widely adopted for other buildings.
The building window
blind have uniform appearance. To avoid the undesirable, disordered
irregularity of window blinds being drawn to different lengths, Mies specified
blinds which were operationally limited to three positions fully open, halfway
open, or fully closed. The interior was designed using expensive, high-spec
materials and glamaorous decoration which made the Seagram Building the world’s
most expensive skyscraper at the time of its completion. The building used
1,500 tons of bronze, in addition to travertine and marble. This was intended
to provide cohesion with the sleek, yet minimalist, external aesthetic. The building
was set back 100 ft from the edge of the street, creating an open plaza. This
was part of Mies solution to the dense environment of Manhattan, and was a
rebuke to the conventional economics of skyscraper design and urban planning. The
plaza incorporates two large fountains and outdoor seating, encouraging the
socialisation of the space, and providing a 'threshold' linking the city with
the building. Such plazas have now become something of an architectural cliché
and norm, but at the time and era it was celebrated as being innovative,
beautiful and unique.
References
Perez, A. (2010). AD
Classics: Seagram Building / Mies van der Rohe. ArchDaily
Alberts, H. R. (20103). 6
Things You May Not Know About The Seagram Building. Curbed Newyork.
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