American Standard Building
| American Standard Building | |
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| Basic data | |
| Place: | New York City , USA |
| Construction time : | 1923-1924 |
| Status : | Built |
| Architectural style : | Art deco |
| Architect : | Raymond Hood and André Fouilhoux |
| Use / legal | |
| Usage : | hotel |
| Technical specifications | |
| Height : | 103 m |
| Height to the roof: | 103 m |
| Floors : | 23 |
| Elevators : | 3 |
| Building material : | Steel, hard-burned bricks |
The American Standard Building (also American Radiator Building ) is a skyscraper in the New York borough of Manhattan .
architecture
The building has 23 stories and was built by architects Raymond Hood and John Howells in 1924 for the American Radiator and Standard Sanitary Company. Hood himself and his architectural office moved into the 14th floor after completion. The American Radiator Building is a further development of Hood's Tribune Tower , the design of which won first prize in the highly regarded Chicago architectural competition in 1922.
The construction of the Radiator Building marked the beginning of a wave of high-rise buildings in the Art Deco style that was to become typical of the 1920s. With the possibilities of Art Déco, the tops of the skyscrapers in particular could be designed in completely new shapes and one of the first variations is this building. Originally it belonged to a company that manufactured heating devices and was called American Radiator, 'Radiator' means radiant heater and accordingly the whole shape of this building was symbolically represented as a charred shaft with gold-glowing sparks at the top. The image of a cozy, flickering fireplace should be translated into the scheme of a skyscraper.
The black bricks of the outer skin were used here for the first time. This significantly reduced the contrast between the window surfaces, which always look dark from the outside during the day, and the previously customary light stone skin, and the impression of a homogeneously colored body was achieved, on which the golden speckles at the top made of terracotta are particularly noticeable, preferably in the evening Lighting. The New York architecture of the time liked to work with symbolic references. The crown-like finish was designed to create a striking long-distance effect in the New York skyline . The gilded terracotta details, which are illuminated at night, are particularly striking.
Todays use
The striking building, which originally housed offices, is located in the Garment District , Midtown Manhattan, at 38 West 40th Street. It was sold, restored, remodeled in 1989 and reopened as a luxury design hotel (Bryant Park Hotel). The main entrance is directly across from Bryant Park . The structure is a National Monument and is on the National Register of Historic Places .
literature
- Andres Lepik: Skyscraper . Prestel Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7913-3454-9 .
- DuMont visual New York. Cologne [1994] 4th edition. 1999, p. 99.
- Reinhart Wolf: New York. Hamburg 1980, fig. 16
- Lester Brooks, Patricia Brooks, Susan Farewell: New York. Munich 1997, p. 143.
- Hasan-Uddin Khan: International Style. Modern architecture from 1925 to 1965. Cologne 1998, p. 115.
- Yann Arthus-Bertrand (photos): New York - a portrait in aerial photographs. 1999 (= New York from the air. Photographs by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Text by John Tauranac. New York 1998), p. 55.
- Paul Goldberger: Skyscraper. The skyscraper in the past and present. Stuttgart 1984, p. 74.
- Dirk Stichweh: New York Skyscrapers. Prestel Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-7913-4054-8 .
Web links
Coordinates: 40 ° 45 ′ 10.1 ″ N , 73 ° 59 ′ 1.7 ″ W.