Final paper for NYC architecture

Part I:
1. Tudor City is an apartment complex located on the East Side of Manhattan, the New York City. It was built in the 1920’s and was the first Residential Skyscraper complex in the world. The complex consists of 11 apartment buildings built in Neo-Gothic style, and each building has a unique looking close to the Tudor Castle (for example, there are gargoyles, dragons, and other mythic creatures). The complex has a well-known rooftop “Tudor city” sign, which can be seen from 42nd Street. (Emporis.com)

2. Frederick F. French Building – is one of the oldest skyscrapers in the New York, which was constructed in 1927, and is situated at 551 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan. It was architected and designed by Sloan & Robertston and H. Douglas Ives, and developed by Fred F. French. The building has 38 floors and is about 130.76 metres high. The building is composed of limestone, brick and terra cotta, and the inner interior features Roman travertine floors, St. Genevieve marble walls, cast bronze elevator doors and patterned glass chandeliers. It is known for rich decoration, which includes different motives and symbols, that is why this impressive style of Frederick F. French Building has become an integral part of the majestic architecture of Manhattan. (Stichweh, 2009)
3. Secretariat Building at the UN is a part of the United Nations Headquarters complex, which is situated in the eastern part of Manhattan between 42th and 48th streets, First Avenue and the East River. It is a tall skyscraper about 154 metres (505 ft) height, which makes it a centerpiece of the United Nations Headquarters. It was designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and the French Le Corbusier and opened in 1952. (Stichweh, 2009)

4. Citicorp Tower is situated at 53rd Street in midtown Manhattan, between Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue. It was designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes Associates, and architects were recognized with an Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1979. Citicorp Tower is one of the tallest skyscrapers in New York City, being about 279 metres (915-foot) height, and has 59 floors. The building was build in modern style, and has a 45° angled top, which was first designed to contain solar panels to provide energy, but then the plan was canceled. Also it is important to note that Citicorp Tower was the first skyscraper in the U.S. to be built with a tuned mass damper, because the tower was considered capable of collapsing in a strong wind (Emporis.com)

5. Lever House is a skyscraper in the original international style, located on Park Avenue, 390, New York. It is a 24-storey building of 92 meters in height, built in the early fifties of the twentieth century, namely, in the years 1951-1952 by Gordon Bunshaft. The building is 92 metres height and is made of blue-green heat-resistant glass and stainless steel. In 1982, the New York Commission on Historical Monuments introduced Lever House in the register of architectural monuments. (Emporis.com)
6. Seagram’s Building is a famous building, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson in 1957. This building and the international style in which it was built, greatly influenced American architecture. Seagram Building was built on a monocoque steel frame with glass windows. When completed, the skyscraper “Seagram building” became the most expensive skyscraper at the time because of the use of expensive materials and a luxurious interior, including bronze, white Italian marble and limestone. (Emporis.com)

7. Hearst Tower was designed by Norman Foster and built in 1928. It was a six-story building in a monolithic art deco style, which looked like the theater at the time, as the facade of the building was decorated with allegorical statues of comedy, tragedy, music and art, on the one hand, and of sports, industry, science and printing, on the other. During the construction of the tower, Foster embodies the reality of several prominent engineering ideas, some of which have already been used previously in Europe, while others were innovative and not previously applied for the construction of office buildings use (eg, retina). After construction the building was called the International Magazine Building and occupied the whole block on 8th Avenue between 56th and 57th streets. (Wolfe, 2003)

8. George Washington Bridge is a bridge across the Hudson River, connecting Manhattan in New York with Fort Lee, New Jersey, which is one of the biggest bridges in New York, and the fourth-longest bridge in the U.S. It is a suspension two-tier bridge, with vehicular traffic in 14 rows (4 lanes in each direction on the upper level and 3 band – on the bottom)and sidewalks on both sides of the upper tier. The bridge was designed according to the project of Othmar Amman in 1931 and cost about $ 59 million. Its height is 183 m, and span length is 1065 m. From the first day and now the George Washington Bridge is the busiest bridge in the world. In 1962, the main span was added to the lower tier, which increased the capacity of the bridge. (Emporis.com)

9. Paley Park is an urban oasis, located at 3 East 53rd Street in Midtown Manhattan. It was designed by architectural firm of Zion & Breen and opened in 1967. It is 390 m2 and is surrounded by walls covered in ivy. It has waterfalls, airy trees, lightweight furniture and is characterized by simple spatial organization. (Emporis.com)

10. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum of modern Art which was built in 1943 by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, although the final work were finished only in 1959. For the museum was chosen an area near the green zone of Central Park ”“ between 88th and 89th streets on Fifth Avenue. The museum is considered one of the most striking buildings of the twentieth century, as a monument to modernism, with its unique architecture of the space and its spiral ramp riding to a domed skylight. (Stichweh, 2009)

11. TWA Terminal is one of the terminals of the International John F. Kennedy airport in New York, which was put into operation in 1962. This futuristic object was made by the courageous pioneering project of the prominent American architect Eero Saarinen. The original design of the building was intended to reflect the concept of flight, with the use of curvilinear abstract lines and shapes that make up the volume and that seamlessly flow into each other. The roof of the exterior imitates the flight of a bird with two massive “wings”. The interior is composed of a continuous “ribbon” of the elements, that are inseparably linked with each other are both ceilings, walls and floors. (Stichweh, 2009)

12. World Trade Center Towers. The complex of seven buildings of the World Trade Center was opened in 1972. Two elegant silver towers of the Center, which soared into the sky over the lower Manhattan, were one of the main attractions in New York. Once they were the highest buildings in the world – 107 floors of both towers stretched to 407 meters. The uniqueness of these buildings was that they first were built with the so-called “hollow tube” technology.

13. Rose Center for Earth and Space at Museum of Natural History is an ultra modern building, a clear glass cube, which is dominated by the sphere of the new planetarium theater. A spiral walkway winds down from the sphere, through scale models of stars, galaxies and planets hanging from the ceiling, to the gallery’s floor. It was constructed by Polshek Partnership Architects Llp.



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