Office skyscraper in Manhattan, New York
The Seagram Building is a skyscraper at 375 Park Avenue, between 52nd and 53rd Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe along with Philip Johnson, Ely Jacques Kahn, and Robert Allan Jacobs, the high-rise tower is tall with 38 stories. The International Style building, completed in 1958, initially served as the headquarters of the Seagram Company, a Canadian distiller.
Phyllis Lambert, daughter of Seagram CEO Samuel Bronfman, heavily influenced the Seagram Building's design, an example of the functionalist aesthetic and a prominent instance of corporate modern architecture. A glass curtain wall with vertical mullions of bronze and horizontal spandrels made of Muntz metal form the building's exterior. On Park Avenue is a pink-granite public plaza with two fountains. Behind the plaza is a tall elevator lobby with a similar design to the plaza. The lowest stories originally contained the Four Seasons Restaurant, which was replaced in 2017 with the Grill and Pool restaurants, and the Brasserie restaurant, which was superseded in 1995 by the Lobster Club. On the upper stories are modular office spaces.
Seagram revealed plans for the building in July 1954, when it announced construction of its headquarters on the up-and-coming commercial strip of Park Avenue. After Lambert objected to Pereira &amp; Luckman's original design, Mies was selected as the architect that November. The building's construction began in late 1955 and finished in 1958, although the official certificate of occupancy was not granted until 1959. The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) purchased the building in 1979, and it remained Seagram's headquarters until 2001. TIAA sold the building in 2000 to Aby Rosen's RFR Holding LLC, which has continued to operate the structure.
Upon opening, the Seagram Building was widely praised for its architecture. Described in "The New York Times" as one of "New York's most copied buildings", the Seagram Building has inspired the designs of other structures around the world. Within New York City, the Seagram Building helped influence the 1961 Zoning Resolution, a zoning ordinance that allowed developers to construct additional floor area in exchange for including plazas outside their buildings. In 1989, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Seagram Building's exterior, lobby, and The Four Seasons Restaurant as official city landmarks. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
Site.
The Seagram Building is at 375 Park Avenue, on the east side of the avenue between 52nd and 53rd streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building was never officially named for its original anchor tenant, Canadian conglomerate Seagram, and is legally known only by its address. The building is assigned its own ZIP Code, 10152; it was one of 41 buildings in Manhattan that had their own ZIP Codes as of 2019[ [update]]. The land lot has a frontage of on 52nd Street to the south, on Park Avenue to the west, and on 53rd Street to the north. The site slopes down to the east.
The 53rd Street side contains an alley about wide, facing 100 East 53rd Street; the alley allows the Seagram Building to remain symmetrical despite the site's irregular shape. Other nearby buildings include 345 Park Avenue across 52nd Street to the south; 399 Park Avenue across 53rd Street to the north; Lever House diagonally across Park Avenue and 53rd Street; and the Racquet and Tennis Club Building and Park Avenue Plaza across Park Avenue to the west. In addition, 599 Lexington Avenue and the Citigroup Center, as well as the New York City Subway's Lexington Avenue/51st Street station (served by the 6 , ;6 ;​​, E , and ​ M trains), are on Lexington Avenue less than one block to the east.
During the late 19th century, the Seagram Building's site had included the original Steinway &amp; Sons piano factory, as well as tenements made of brick or brownstone. The Park Avenue railroad line had run in an open cut in the middle of Park Avenue until the 1900s. The construction of Grand Central Terminal in the early 20th century covered the line, spurring development in the surrounding area, known as Terminal City. The adjacent stretch of Park Avenue became a wealthy neighborhood with upscale apartments, including the Montana Apartments, on the site of the piano factory. Largely commercial International Style skyscrapers replaced many of the residential structures on Park Avenue during the 1950s and 1960s. These skyscrapers included the Seagram Building, Lever House, the Union Carbide Building, and the Pepsi-Cola Building. When the Seagram site was assembled in the early 1950s, it contained the Montana Apartments and four smaller row houses and apartment buildings.
Architecture.
German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed the Seagram Building in the International Style. Philip Johnson was the co-architect and the partnership of Ely Jacques Kahn and Robert Allan Jacobs were the associate architects. Numerous consultants were involved in the building's design, including mechanical engineers Jaros, Baum &amp; Bolles; structural engineers Severud-Elstad Krueger; electrical engineer Clifton E. Smith; lighting consultant Richard Kelly; acoustics consultant Bolt Beranek and Newman; graphics consultant Elaine Lustig; and landscape architects Charles Middeleer and Karl Linn.
Phyllis Lambert—a Bronfman family member and the daughter of Seagram CEO Samuel Bronfman, whose idea it was to develop the building—did not impose a budget on Mies. Lambert said the Seagram Building was supposed to "be the crowning glory of everyone's work, his own, the contractor's, and Mies's". The architects used new or redesigned materials if they believed these innovations provided an improvement over existing products. The design used costly, high-quality materials, including bronze, travertine, and marble. The lavish interior, overseen by Johnson, was designed to ensure cohesion with the appearance of the facade. The Seagram Building was the first office building in the world to use extruded bronze on a facade, as well as the first New York City skyscraper with full-height plate glass windows.
Form.
The Seagram Building occupies half the site and is recessed behind Park Avenue. The building's main section is a 38-story high-rise slab topped by a mechanical story; it does not include any setbacks. The slab rises above ground. As planned, the slab measured . Along the eastern end of the slab is a narrow shaft with an emergency-exit stair, which is sometimes referred to as the "spine". The spine, which forms part of the building's framework, contains restrooms on the sixth to tenth floor and offices above.
There are two five-story wings east of the main slab, facing 52nd and 53rd Streets. The 10-story central section between the wings is sometimes characterized as a "bustle". As planned, the "bustle" measured while the wings measured . The April 1955 edition of "Architectural Forum" described the relative simplicity of the building's massing as "a no-setback building but a building all set back".
Plaza.
A pink granite plaza with pools and greenery lies on the western side of the Seagram Building. The plaza is raised slightly above sidewalk level on Park Avenue, with three steps leading from the center of the Park Avenue frontage. A low granite retaining wall runs on either side of the flight of steps, extending around to 52nd and 53rd Streets, where they flank the building. There are marble caps atop the retaining walls on the side streets. At the eastern ends of the retaining walls on 52nd and 53rd Streets are granite steps from street to lobby, above which are travertine canopies. The parapets on the side streets each measure wide by long and are made of 40 pieces of green Italian marble.
The plaza is largely symmetrical with rectangular pools placed on the northwest and southwest corners. The southern pool contains a bronze flagpole, the only deviation from the design's symmetry. The water level of the pools is just below that of the plaza. The cluster of fountain jets at the center of either pool is not part of the original design. The pools measure wide by long and each contain of water recirculated every two-and-a-half hours. The initial plan had been to place abstract sculptures in the plaza. Mies abandoned this when he could not find a sculptor he felt could produce work suited for the landscape. East of both pools are three planting beds with ivy and a gingko tree. These planting beds had contained weeping beeches before November 1959, when they were replaced with hardier gingko trees. The plaza contains a heating system to prevent ice buildup. At the building's completion, the plaza's surface required daily vacuuming with a sweeper.
From its construction, the plaza was intended not only as an urban green space but as a point of interest. Architecture critic Lewis Mumford said of the plaza: "In a few steps one is lifted out of the street so completely that one has almost the illusion of having climbed a long flight of stairs." In its simplicity, the plaza's design was a marked contrast to the Channel Gardens in front of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, which architectural writer Robert A. M. Stern describes as being known for its festiveness.
Facade.
The northern, southern, and western ends of the slab overhang the plaza and are supported by bronze-clad columns at their perimeters, forming an arcade in front of the entrance. Each column measures across and two stories tall. The arcade's ceiling contains recessed light fixtures within a ceramic tile surface. The first-story walls behind the arcade contain full-height glass panes. Above the arcade, on the western side of the building, is a marquee made of Muntz metal, with recessed lighting. The bases of the wings on 52nd and 53rd Streets, beneath the first story, are clad in granite and contain entrances to the restaurant and bar spaces inside. The eastern portions of both wings contain garage doors, while the eastern wall of the 53rd Street wing is faced in brick. The eastern section of the 52nd Street wing has an entrance that leads to the Grill and Pool restaurant while bypassing the main lobby. A similar entrance exists on the 53rd Street wing to the Brasserie restaurant.
The curtain wall begins above the lower stories and is composed of non-structural glass walls, which are colored amber-gray. The glass panels cover about and are designed to be heat- and glare-resistant. Because the windows are sealed permanently, and the tower rises with no setbacks, the Seagram Building's window washing team could not use standard window-washing equipment. Therefore, a custom-made pneumatic scaffold was installed, with a deck that covers six columns of windows at a time. Behind each window, Mies sought to avoid irregularity when window blinds were drawn. As a result, the building uses window blinds with slats angled in 45-degree positions, allowing the blinds to be set in three positions: fully open, halfway open, or fully closed.
The facade used of bronze, manufactured by the General Bronze Corporation at its plant in Garden City, New York. The glass panes are set within vertical bronze mullions made from extrusions of I-beams. The bronze mullions separate the facade into bays, or vertical spaces between columns; each bay contains five windows per floor. The tops and bottoms of the mullions are tapered, exposing their cross-sections. The Seagram Building's mullions are only for aesthetics and are thus susceptible to thermal expansion and contraction. At the building's completion, General Bronze said the facade would need to be cleaned twice a year with soap, water, and lemon oil to prevent discoloration; this work could be performed using the window-washing scaffold. Spandrels, made of Muntz metal, separate the windows on each story horizontally, which gives them an appearance similar to that of copper. A sample facade section, tested in a wind tunnel in 1956, was resistant to winds of up to .
The design of the slab's facade is carried onto the wings and "bustle". The "spine" on the eastern side of the slab is clad with serpentine marble panels instead of glass because of the presence of shear walls made from concrete. The curtain-wall facade cost , equivalent to in 2023. Above the 38th story is a triple-height mechanical story with a louvered screen.
Features.
The superstructure is a steel frame covered with concrete and gypsum. At the time, American building codes required that all structural steel be covered in a fireproof material, such as concrete, because improperly protected steel columns or beams may soften and fail in confined fires.