The Seagram Building, located on Park Avenue between 52nd and 53rd streets in New York City, is a landmark in modern architecture. Designed by the legendary architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and completed in 1958, the building represents a new era in skyscraper design characterized by a minimalist and corporate aesthetic.
Seagram Building Technical Information
- Architect1-4: Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe | Biography & Bibliography
- Restaurant Architect: Philip Johnson
- Location: 375 Park Avenue, New York, United States
- Topics: Office Buildings, Structural Steel, Concrete, Bronze, International Style
- Dimensions: 38 floors. Height: 516 ft | 157 m
- Floor Area: 849,014 sq ft | 78,876.0 m2
- Completion Year: 1958
- Photographs: © Ezra Stoller, © House of Patria (construction), © Richard Pare, © Irving Penn
We refuse to recognize problems of form, but only problems of building. Form is not the aim of our work, but only the result. Form, by itself, does not exist. Form as an aim is formalism; and that we reject.
– Mies Van Der Rohe
Seagram Building Photographs
The Vision of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
The Seagram Building, erected in 1956-58, is the only building in New York City designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Carefully related to the tranquil granite and marble plaza on its Park Avenue site, the elegant bronze and tinted glass curtain wall enfolds the first fully modular modern office tower.
The building’s sleek glass and metal façade, in contrast to the ornamental heavy stone and brick facades of previous decades, marked a turning point in architectural design, focusing on functionality and form. The creation of the Seagram Building was primarily driven by the vision of Phyllis Lambert, the then-twentysomething daughter of Seagram’s founder, Samuel Bronfman. Today, the Seagram Building is recognized as a landmark of 20th-century architecture and continues to inspire architects worldwide.
Constructed when Park Avenue was changing from an exclusive residential thoroughfare to a prestigious business address, the Seagram Building embodies a successful corporation’s quest to further establish its public image through architectural patronage.
Innovative Structural Design
Like virtually all large buildings of the time, it was built in a steel frame, from which non-structural glass walls were hung. Mies would have preferred the steel frame to be visible; however, American building codes required that all structural steel needed to be covered in a fireproof material because improperly protected steel columns or beams may soften and fail in confined fires.
Concrete hid the building’s structure – which Mies wanted to avoid – so the architect used non-structural bronze-toned I-beams to suggest the structure instead. The beams are visible from outside the building and run vertically, like mullions, surrounding the large glass windows. Using an interior reinforced concrete shell to support a larger non-structural tower has since become commonplace. As designed, the building used 1,500 tons of bronze in its construction.
Uniform Aesthetics and Modern Legacy
Another interesting feature of the Seagram Building is the window blinds. Mies wanted the building to have a uniform appearance. One aspect Mies disliked about facades was the disordered irregularity when window blinds are drawn. Inevitably, people using different windows will draw blinds to different heights, making the building appear disorganized. To reduce this disproportionate appearance, Mies specified window blinds that only operated in three positions: fully open, halfway open/closed, or fully closed.
The structure combines a steel moment frame and a reinforced concrete core for lateral stiffness. The concrete core shear walls extend to the 17th floor, and diagonal core bracing (shear trusses) extends to the 29th floor.
According to Severud Associates, the structural engineering consultants, it was the first tall building to use high-strength bolted connections, the first tall building to combine a braced frame with a moment frame, and one of the first tall buildings to use a vertical truss bracing system. It was also the first tall building to employ composite steel and concrete lateral frame.
Influence on Modern Architecture
On completion in 1958, Seagram’s $41 million construction costs made it the world’s most expensive skyscraper due to the use of costly, high-quality materials and lavish interior decoration, including bronze, travertine, and marble. The interior was designed to assure cohesion with the external features, repeated in the glass and bronze furnishings and decorative scheme.
During an interview with ArchEyes, Alex Capozzolo, co-founder of Brotherly Love Real Estate, a real estate developer in Philadelphia PA, shared his admiration for the Seagram Building, stating:
I find the Seagram Building to be an architectural masterpiece. We’re hoping that Philly follows New York City and builds something like this here too. Its use of light and shadow creates a striking presence in the New York skyline. It’s a much-needed serene space in the city.
– Alex Capozzolo, co-founder of Brotherly Love Real Estate
This contemporary appreciation highlights how the Seagram Building continues to inspire architects and developers, reaffirming its importance in modern urban environments.
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About Mies Van Der Rohe
Among the twentieth century’s most prominent and influential architects, German-born Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) was initiated into architecture through masonry, stone carving, stucco decoration, and furniture design before working as an architect in the office of Peter Behrens.
By the end of the 1920s, Mies had emerged as one of Germany’s leading architects, noted for his visionary skyscraper projects wherein the apparently weightless and clearly revealed “skin and bone” modern construction permitted the greatest play of light on the building surface.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s most notable projects included the Farnsworth House, the Crown Hall, the Seagram Building, and the German Pavilion (also known as the Barcelona Pavilion). For the German Pavilion, he designed a set of cantilevered steel chairs known as Barcelona chairs, which became an instant classic of 20th-century furniture design.
Full Bio of Mies | Works from Mies Van der Rohe
- Builder: George A. Fuller Company
- Client: Joseph E. Seagram and Sons, Inc, (Phyllis Lambert)
- Structural Engineer: Severud Associates, Elstad’ Krueger, Jaros, Baum & Bolles
- Sources: Canadian Centre for Architecture | Seagram Preservation Commission
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