Seagram Building ......
Seagram Building ......
Seagram Building ......
40.75846°N
Coordinates 73.97219°WCoordinates:
40.75846°N 73.97219°W
Completed 1958
Height
Technical details
One of the style's characteristic traits was to express or articulate the structure of
buildings externally.
Mies would have preferred the steel frame to be visible to all; however, American
building codes required that all structural steel be covered in a fireproof material,
usually concrete, because improperly protected steel columns or beams may soften
and fail in confined fires.
Concrete hid the structure of the building
— something Mies wanted to avoid at all
costs — so Mies used non-structural
bronze-toned I-beams to suggest structure
instead.
It appears as a simple bronze box, set back from Park Avenue by a large,
open granite plaza.
The Seagram Building's plaza was also the site of a landmark planning
study by William H. Whyte, the American sociologist.
Interior
The interior was designed
to assure cohesion with the
external feature,