Office skyscraper in Manhattan, New York
590 Madison Avenue, also known as the IBM Building, is a skyscraper at 57th Street and Madison Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes and Associates the 41-story, -tall tower was developed for the technology company IBM and built from 1978 to 1983.
The building is shaped like an irregular pentagon, with a chamfer cutting diagonally across what would typically be the southwest corner of a rectangular slab. The facade is made of gray-green glass and polished granite, which Barnes intended would give the building the appearance of a prism. The northeast corner of the tower is cantilevered over the main entrance, and there are no setbacks throughout the building's height. Adjacent to 590 Madison Avenue's southwest corner is a privately owned public space covered by a glass structure, which contains chairs, tables, and bamboo trees.
From 1938 to 1964, IBM was headquartered at one of the previous structures on the site. Despite relocating its headquarters to a suburb of New York City, IBM retained office space at multiple locations in the city and proposed the current skyscraper to consolidate some of its operations. IBM owned the tower until May 1994, when it sold the building to Edward J. Minskoff and Odyssey Partners. Until the sale, IBM occupied most of the building's space; the firm continues to maintain offices in the building, though most space has been leased to other tenants.
Site.
590 Madison Avenue is in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The rectangular land lot is bounded by Madison Avenue to the east, 57th Street to the north, and 56th Street to the south. The land lot covers approximately , with a frontage of on Madison Avenue and on both 56th and 57th Streets. The building is on the same city block as Trump Tower and the Tiffany &amp; Co. flagship store to the west. Other nearby buildings include the Corning Glass Building to the southwest, 550 Madison Avenue to the south, Park Avenue Tower and the New York Friars Club to the southeast, 432 Park Avenue to the east, Fuller Building and Four Seasons Hotel New York to the northeast, the LVMH Tower to the north, and the L. P. Hollander Company Building to the northwest.
In 1936, the IBM Corporation acquired a 20-story building at 590 Madison Avenue, at the southwest corner of 57th Street. The IBM headquarters opened within that building two years later. IBM acquired additional adjacent lots in 1973. At the time, a pair of buildings designed by Carrère and Hastings occupied part of the site. One of these buildings, at 14 East 57th Street, was designed for art gallery operator Roland Knoedler. The current skyscraper's site was also occupied by an eight-story apartment studio at 12 East 57th Street. At the northwest corner of Madison Avenue and 56th Street was a 13-story structure.
Architecture.
590 Madison Avenue was originally owned by IBM and thus called the "IBM Building". 590 Madison Avenue was designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes and Associates. John M. Y. Lee and Armand P. Avakian were the associates-in-charge while Richard Klibschon was the project architect. Antanas Vytuvis was the chief resident architect. In addition, James Ruderman was the structural engineer, LeMessurier Associates was the structural consultant, and Joseph R. Loring &amp; Associates was the mechanical and electrical engineer. Turner Construction was the general contractor.
The 41-story building is 603 feet (184 m) tall and contains a pentagonal floor plan. Adjacent to the building on its southwest corner is an enclosed atrium, a privately owned public space covered by a glass structure. As of 2020[ [update]], the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio owns the entire building and holds the land under it. A portion of the land owned by STRS Ohio is leased to The Trump Organization.
Form.
The building was designed as a pentagonal wedge, with a large chamfer that cuts into the rectangular massing at the site's southwest corner. According to Barnes, this shape was chosen to highlight the presence of the public atrium, which otherwise would have been overlooked due to its relatively nondescript location in the middle of the block. Barnes believed in the observance of an older New York City zoning law, with the low-rise section of a skyscraper on a narrow street and the high-rise section on a wider street. As Madison Avenue and 57th Street are both wider than 56th Street, the bulk of the building is angled toward the former two streets at the northeast corner of the site. The tower runs along the lot line on 57th Street but is set back from Madison Avenue. The sidewalk, between the curb and the building's exterior wall, is made of green-granite squares measuring . The presence of the atrium at the southwest corner of the lot, and the fact that the tower only occupies 40 percent of the site, allowed the rest of the building to rise without setbacks.
Structurally, 590 Madison Avenue is a pentagon, with columns closely clustered on three sides (the southern and western facades are relatively short). At the time of the IBM Building's completion, many of its contemporaries were International Style designs that used rectangular shapes. Originally, the building was conceived with widely spaced groups of columns, but wind-tunnel tests found that the arrangement lacked rigidity and would cause the building to sway. The building was thus stiffened, with columns being spaced every and with strengthened spandrel beams.
The first three floors at the northeast corner of the building are also chamfered. This allows the tower to cantilever over the main entrance at Madison Avenue and 57th Street. The truss above the entrance only supports the weight of about ten stories above it. Most of the stories above the cantilever are instead supported by the other columns around the perimeter, which are strengthened at the base. The cantilever reportedly added $10 million to the construction costs (equivalent to $ million in 2023). The inclusion of the cantilever was in keeping with Barnes's tendency for "symbolic rather than purely structural expression", as author Eric Nash described it.
Atrium.
590 Madison Avenue contains a public atrium, originally known as the Garden Plaza. The atrium is alternatively cited as covering , , , or . It was built under the terms of the 1961 Zoning Resolution, which allowed New York City developers a zoning "bonus" for including open space in front of their buildings, and its presence enabled the addition of , the equivalent of five stories. The atrium is within the chamfer created by cutting off the building's southwest corner. This atrium directly connects to Trump Tower's atrium, connecting west to Fifth Avenue. Combined with the atrium at 550 Madison Avenue, the atrium also creates a continuous corridor between 55th and 57th Streets. Originally, the atrium was meant to provide access to the adjacent Bonwit Teller department store building to the west. In a 2000 study of over five hundred privately owned public spaces across New York City, Jerold Kayden classified the building's atrium as one of fifteen that were "of such high quality that they draw visitors from around the city".
Most of the atrium is enclosed by a sawtooth-shaped glass canopy rising . The canopy itself is tall and consists of six ridges. There is an illuminated ceiling above the western part of the atrium, connecting the entrances on 56th and 57th Streets. The atrium was designed to be temperature-controlled, with an air conditioning system cooling or heating the space if the temperature outdoors fell below or above . This keeps the atrium at a similar temperature to climates in Virginia or North Carolina, between . To conserve energy, the windows were double-glazed and tinted. The atrium was originally conceived as a space that was open to the outdoors, but wind tunnel testing showed that doors needed to be added at each end.
Zion and Breen were hired to landscape the atrium. Some 300 North Carolina-sourced bamboo trees were arranged in eleven groves, illuminated by lighting from 2 to 7 a.m. each day. The New York Botanical Garden was tasked with maintaining the atrium and operated a shop there. After a renovation in 1995, eight sculptures were installed in the atrium, which was rebranded "The Sculpture Garden at 590 Madison". Eight of the eleven bamboo groves were retained. The atrium contains food and drink kiosks, tables, chairs, and receptacles, and it is also used to display artwork. Below ground level, the atrium was designed with an exhibition space called the Gallery of Science and Art, covering , though this space closed in 1993.
Sculptures.
At the southeast corner of the site, on the corner of Madison Avenue and 56th Street, is a steel-and-granite fountain entitled "Levitated Mass". The fountain was created by Michael Heizer and dedicated in 1982. It contains an boulder within a frame measuring , surrounded by a ledge with pedestrian seating. The boulder appears to float over running water. To create the fountain, Heizer sheared off the top of a large rock and cut grooves into the surface before setting it on supports hidden within a stainless steel structure. Heizer said of the fountain's name: "I don't use Greek names as titles, or dedicate artworks to my friends. I simply describe what it is."
At the northeast corner of the site, underneath the cantilevered main entrance on the corner of Madison Avenue and 57th Street, is a bright red sculpture by Alexander Calder, entitled "Saurien." Standing tall, it was completed in 1975. The sculpture's name refers to the French spelling of the word "saurian", which in turn refers to a reptilian clade. The sculpture was installed under the main entrance during a 1995 renovation.
Facade.
The building's facade consists of horizontal strips of gray-green glass between spandrel panels of polished granite. The gray-green facade was intended to blend in with the Corning Glass Building as well as 590 Madison Avenue's atrium. About 15,000 slabs of Canadian granite are used on the facade. American sculptor James Rappa was hired to select the granite from the LaCroix quarry in Saint-Sébastien, Estrie, Quebec, and classify it with three grades of quality. Rappa discarded the lowest-quality granite and used the highest-quality material on the lower stories. Barnes had specified the granite be polished because it would help make the building look like a prism. In total, the granite slabs cover around .
Each slab has surface dimensions of and is about thick. Eight slabs are mounted to a single truss to create a continuous panel generally measuring . At the building's chamfer and each corner, the panels are half as wide. The panels measure thick in total. The 3-inch-thick granite slabs, at the front of each panel, are mounted to the truss using stainless-steel angles. In case rust developed on the trusses, the rust would not stain the granite. The outside face of each truss, directly behind the granite slabs, contains ducts. The backs of the panels consist of of mineral insulation. Each panel is attached to the building's superstructure at six locations.
The windows comprise 35 percent of the facade. Each window is double-glazed and consists of a blue-green outer pane and a clear inner pane, separated by a gap of . The double-glazing allows 65 percent of light into the building. Moisture protection for the window frames and granite spandrels was developed concurrently. In case the insulation sealant failed, rainwater could collect at the bottom of each spandrel, where it could flow down the facade's vertical mullions to the bottom of the window. The rainwater could then drain to ground level through a notch used by the building's window cleaning equipment, preventing ice buildup and granite staining.
Interior.
The building was designed with 38 floors of offices, an employee cafeteria story, two retail stories, and two mechanical stories. There is also a 78-spot parking garage. 590 Madison Avenue has of floor area and 24 elevators, according to its official specifications. Eighteen of the elevators are for passengers while six are for freight. The elevators are oriented on a diagonal axis in the lobby, being positioned within banks that run from southwest to northeast. The lobby itself is a triple-height space, designed with a direct view of the atrium behind it. Barnes had intended for the lobby to be a continuation of the exterior and, as such, the lobby's floor contains granite pavement. Artworks are also