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Seagram Building

Towers and Skyscrapers

Commissioned after 27-year-old Phyllis Lambert persuaded her father, Seagram president Samuel Bronfman, to pass over the firm's first choice of architect and hire Mies instead. Mies set the tower back 100 feet from Park Avenue to open a public plaza, a gesture so widely admired it was written into New York's 1961 zoning code as the incentive for setback plazas citywide. Philip Johnson, credited as associate architect, designed the lobby and the building's Four Seasons and Brasserie restaurants. It stands among the most closely imitated, and most litigated over as a preservation landmark, towers of the twentieth century.

Facts
Year Created
1958 1
Location
375 Park Avenue, New York City, United States 1
Architectural Style
International Style modernism 1
Structural System
Fireproofed steel frame with applied non-structural bronze I-beam mullions expressing the structural grid; the tower is set back 100 feet from Park Avenue to form a public plaza 1
Primary Material
Bronze-toned extruded bronze and glass curtain wall on a steel frame, travertine-paved plaza 1
Building Type
Corporate office tower 1
Commissioned By
Samuel Bronfman, president of Joseph E. Seagram and Sons; the architect search was led by his daughter Phyllis Lambert 1
Storey Count
38 1
Current Use
Commercial office tower; a New York City designated landmark 1
Visitor Access
Plaza and lobby publicly accessible; office floors private 1
Classification
Genre
Architecture 1
Connections

Created By

Source Wikipedia
Additional Source Seagram Building (Wikipedia)Seagram Building article

Second, coexisting designer credit alongside Mies van der Rohe (entity 99, already recorded); Johnson designed the Four Seasons Restaurant interior.

Source Wikipedia

In Form

Source Gardner's Art Through the AgesFred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner)

In Genre

In Movement

Source Wikipedia
Additional Source Seagram Building (Wikipedia)Seagram Building article
Modernism, Movements
Source Wikipedia
Additional Source Seagram Building (Wikipedia)Seagram Building article
In the Other Atlases

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Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Genre reference
    Commissioned after 27-year-old Phyllis Lambert persuaded her father, Seagram president Samuel Bronfman, to pass over the firm's first choice of architect and hire Mies instead.
  • Created By: Philip Johnson
View the Source
Seagram Building (Wikipedia)
  • Seagram Building article
  • In Group: Skyscrapers of the United States, Lead
    The Seagram Building is a skyscraper at 375 Park Avenue, between 52nd and 53rd streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, United States.
View the Source
Gardner's Art Through the Ages
Fred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner), Cengage LearningIn Form: Architecture, chapters on architectural history across periods
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