Rockefeller Center
| Rockefeller Center, NYC | |
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| Basic data | |
| Place: | New York City |
| Building type: | Building complex |
| Construction time: | 1931 to 1940 |
| Opening: | 1939 |
| Architect : | Raymond Hood |
| Architectural style : | Art deco |
| Technical specifications | |
| Comcast Building | |
| Height: | 259 m |
| Floors: | 70 |
The Rockefeller Center is a centrally located building complex in the district of Manhattan in New York City . It consists of a total of 20 buildings, including 19 high-rise buildings , and extends over three blocks in the square between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue), West 47th Street and West 52nd Street. With a height of 259 meters and a total of 70 floors , the Comcast Building (formerly GE Building and RCA Building ) is the tallest building in the Rockefeller Center and one of the tallest in New York .
history
The ambitious project began in 1926 with the desire to build a new house for the city's opera, the Metropolitan Opera . The concept of a uniform development with a square in the middle goes back to the design of the opera architect, Benjamin Wistar Morris . John D. Rockefeller II was so convinced of this idea that he eventually took a leading role in carrying out the project.
After the stock market crash in 1929 , the opera dropped out of the project. She built her new home 40 years later west of Central Park in Lincoln Center . Rockefeller, on the other hand, was now faced with several expensive individual properties. The nature of the project now changed drastically and became strictly commercial - and it was also a success, unlike the Empire State Building (where many offices were long empty). In 1929 Rockefeller signed a 24-year lease with the owner of the property - Columbia University .
The construction of the buildings in Art Deco style began in 1931. The result was a unique ensemble of different, but stylistically uniform and related buildings, all of which are aligned in the same way. These structures were planned by a group of architects headed by Raymond Hood . The Mexican painter Diego Rivera and the American sculptors Lee Lawrie and Paul Manship were responsible for the artistic design of the buildings and facilities . The Comcast Building was built as the RCA Victor Building in 1933 and renamed the GE Building in 1988 , two years after General Electric acquired RCA . It has had its current name since 2015.
Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, four International-style buildings were constructed on the opposite side of the street from the older parts of the complex on Avenue of the Americas . They are now also part of the Rockefeller Center.
On December 23, 1987, the then General Electric Building , now the Rockefeller Center, was given the status of a National Historic Landmark . The entry in the National Register of Historic Places followed on the same day .
The entire Rockefeller Center complex was purchased by Mitsubishi Estate in 1989 . Ten years later, Tishman Speyer Properties bought Mitsubishi's original Art Deco buildings.
On November 1, 2005, after almost 20 years, the viewing platform on the 70th floor of what was then the GE Building was reopened under the name Top of the Rock . It originally opened in 1933, then designed like the deck of a luxury liner, and closed again in 1986 after the Rainbow Room Bar on the 65th floor expanded. The two works of art “Joie”, a 10 meter high chandelier in the foyer, and “Radiance”, a surrounding crystal wall with a total of 160 m² on the 67th floor, were created by the German artist and designer Michael Hammers .
The complex
architecture
The Rockefeller Center was a completely new step in the history of modern urban architecture. A wealthy businessman (John D. Rockefeller) has implemented a complex urban planning concept here. What was new was that not only a skyscraper was built, but a group of buildings as an architectural unit in the center of a metropolis .
Between 1930 and 1939 15 high-rise buildings in the Art Deco style were built , one of which was demolished in 1954, so that 14 are still preserved. From 1947 five more buildings were added. Then there is the oldest of the buildings in Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall . It had been under construction since the late 1920s when the Rockefeller Center was chosen and was completed in 1932.
The tall buildings of the Rockefeller Center are not designed as a square, but rather elongated as a rectangle like panes in order to make maximum use of the sunlight and to allow as many rooms as possible to be exposed to the sun as long as possible. No point inside could be more than nine meters from a window. The entire Rockefeller Center is clad in white limestone that came from an Indiana quarry . It contains numerous fossils of animals that populated the sea 300 million years ago.
Buildings and grounds
The Comcast Building is both the tallest and most famous buildings in the Rockefeller Center. At 259 meters high and 70 floors, it is the eighteenth-tallest skyscraper in New York City (as of 2018). This is where the headquarters of NBC and MSNBC are located . In addition to their offices, there are also studios of the television company here, where the NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt , Today , the Tonight Show , Late Night with Seth Meyers , Saturday Night Live and other NBC productions are recorded or shot. The NBC sitcom 30 Rock is named after the address of the building . In addition to NBC, General Electric also has offices here. The Comcast Building is also one of the major tourist attractions in New York City .
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Among other things, the Prometheus statue in the foreground of the building is known. This is located on the Lower Plaza, which was originally intended to be the entrance to the shops in the basement, but luxury boutiques fared badly during the economic crisis. In 1936, a new advertising strategy was adopted, namely to convert the plaza depending on the season and - and that was the boldest idea - to turn it into an ice rink in winter. This measure was extremely successful and transformed this place in the middle of the Rockefeller Center into a social meeting place between rich and poor. In summer the area is used as a concert space in the heart of New York. At Christmas time, the Lower Plaza is known for the huge Christmas tree ; The Norwegian spruce is the largest in the USA, usually 23–27 m high and at least 10 m wide. At the top is an almost 3 m tall Swarovski star studded with 25,000 crystals . The 30,000 or so lights on the tree are lit every year by the incumbent New York City Mayor ( Tree Lighting Ceremony ).
Furthermore, each nation should get its own building on the premises of the Rockefeller Center. There is a Maison Francaise , the British Empire Building , a Palazzo d'Italia and the International Building . All of the buildings in the complex are connected to one another by underground shopping streets with shops, cafés and restaurants . There are also the shafts of the New York subway . The foundation of the complex is built up to 26 meters deep.
The Radio City Music Hall is also located on the grounds of the Rockefeller Center. It was completed in December 1932 and was then known as the largest theater in the world.
In 1969, the Rockefeller Center was the first building to receive the Twenty-five Year Award from the American Institute of Architects , which honors the exemplary fulfillment of user needs and the creativity of the architect with a gap of 25 years to completion.
panorama
Probably the most famous image that was created in connection with the Rockefeller Center is the photograph Lunch atop a Skyscraper . Charles Clyde Ebbets recorded it on September 29, 1932 on the 69th floor of the Rockefeller Center, shortly before its completion. It shows construction workers at the neighboring RCA Building (now the Comcast Building) under construction.
address
45 Rockefeller Plaza, Manhattan, NY 10111
See also
- List of tallest buildings in New York
- List of tallest buildings in the United States
- List of Manhattan neighborhoods
literature
- Daniel Okrent: Great fortune . The epic of Rockefeller Center. Viking, New York 2003, ISBN 0-670-03169-0 .
- Hasan-Uddin Khan: International style . Modern architecture from 1925 to 1965. Taschen, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-8228-8200-3 , p. 120 .
- Dirk Stichweh: New York skyscrapers . Prestel, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-7913-4054-8 .
Web links
- Official website (English)
- Official Website of Top of the Rock (English)
Individual evidence
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↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: New York. National Park Service , accessed January 31, 2020.
Rockefeller Center on the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed January 31, 2020. - ^ Winner list , American Institute of Architects
- ↑ The original: "Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper". Hamburger Abendblatt , February 27, 2007, accessed on July 11, 2011 .
Coordinates: 40 ° 45 ′ 32 " N , 73 ° 58 ′ 45" W.