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  #21  
Old Posted Sep 8, 2010, 1:00 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pico44 View Post
If I had to rank the greatest works of brutalism ever created:

8. Dallas City Hall
7. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado
6. Boston City Hall
5. Whitney Museum of American Art
4. Yale Library of Art
3. PanAm Building
2. Salk Institute
1. Empire State Plaza
I don't think the MetLife/PanAm Bldg is brutalist. I'd really throw it more into the International style. Nice list, that said.

I really like the MetLife Building. As others have said over and again, this is really an iconic building. You see it and can say, "Oh, I know right where I am, and I know just what that is".
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  #22  
Old Posted Sep 8, 2010, 1:18 AM
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Originally Posted by Lyly View Post
I don't think the MetLife/PanAm Bldg is brutalist. I'd really throw it more into the International style. Nice list, that said.

I really like the MetLife Building. As others have said over and again, this is really an iconic building. You see it and can say, "Oh, I know right where I am, and I know just what that is".
ya Walter Gropius did was commissioned to design it in the international style.
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  #23  
Old Posted Sep 8, 2010, 3:23 AM
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MetLife has always driven me nuts. It's so massively dull and stays that way no matter how many times I see it or walk by it. I think it may be due to its location - I'm personally fond of One Chase Manhattan downtown, which stylistically is very similar. I don't like the way it looms over GCT completely clashing with that beauty of a building. If it weren't in the middle of Park Avenue (or if GCT weren't) it probably wouldn't bother me as much. It looks to me like a humongous version of those dull highrises that comprise the Sao Paolo skyline.

A rare miss.
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  #24  
Old Posted Sep 8, 2010, 4:47 AM
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Originally Posted by SkyscrapersOfNewYork View Post
ya Walter Gropius were commissioned to design it in the international style.

I once read an article or book excerpt that said the tower was originally supposed to be rotated 90 degrees from where it is now (the thin facade on Park), and Gropius came in, rotated the model and deemed it much better.
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Last edited by SkyscrapersOfNewYork; Sep 15, 2011 at 12:38 AM.
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  #25  
Old Posted Sep 8, 2010, 4:50 AM
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Emory Roth & Sons didn't design the building, Walter Gropius did. ER&S were merely architect of record (which is a totally different thing).

I once read an article or book excerpt that said the tower was originally supposed to be rotated 90 degrees from where it is now (the thin facade on Park), and Gropius came in, rotated the model and deemed it much better.
blame public record for any misinformation
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  #26  
Old Posted Sep 8, 2010, 3:29 PM
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I like it's size, but something a little classier could have been placed there. Every time I look down Park Ave and see this, I feel like I'm looking at a missed opportunity for a real decorative piece that could have been displayed there. It's much to big to get torn down any time soon, so we'll live with it.
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  #27  
Old Posted Sep 17, 2010, 3:49 PM
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  #28  
Old Posted Sep 27, 2010, 2:39 PM
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  #29  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 2:32 PM
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  #30  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2010, 2:26 AM
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Now that I've seen this massive beauty in person, I like it even more!
When I got home from my NYC visit, I had a little something in the mail waiting for me:

"The Pan Am Building and the shattering of the modernist dream".
I've only started reading it.

But in regards to Emery Roth and sons, they had a hand in many of NYC's skyscrapers. 55 Water is also one of theirs, and they served as consultants on Citicorp, the WTC, and several others, as well as designing a great many lesser-known skyscrapers. Park Avenue is absolutely full of them, a fact that disgusted Frank Lloyd Wright. Oh well, Wright can bite me. I'm a Roth fan.
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  #31  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2010, 3:39 AM
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Originally Posted by Amanita View Post
Now that I've seen this massive beauty in person, I like it even more!
When I got home from my NYC visit, I had a little something in the mail waiting for me:

"The Pan Am Building and the shattering of the modernist dream".
I've only started reading it.

But in regards to Emery Roth and sons, they had a hand in many of NYC's skyscrapers. 55 Water is also one of theirs, and they served as consultants on Citicorp, the WTC, and several others, as well as designing a great many lesser-known skyscrapers. Park Avenue is absolutely full of them, a fact that disgusted Frank Lloyd Wright. Oh well, Wright can bite me. I'm a Roth fan.
LOL, sounds like good reading. I'm a fan of this building also. I'm not crazy at all about 55 Water St though.
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  #32  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2010, 9:50 PM
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^Heh, go figure. I like 55 Water On my first day in NYC, I actually hung out on the elevated acre for a while, just laying on the faux-grass. I must have been quite a sight, wearing an ankle length chinese-inspired robe (black and red), with a voluminous bright red skirt underneath, just laying comfortably stretched out on the astroturf, trying to find relief from the wicked tension headache I got from spending two hours stuffed into a small airplane.

There's just something about 55 water that I like- simple and honest, with clean lines. It's also beefy as hell, muscular and stocky. But it plays nicely with One and Two New York Plaza, which I also like.

I also like Pan Am- broad shouldered, makes no apology for what it is (and why should it?), and very distinctive in form and appearance.
I'll have to upload my Pan Am fan art, I suppose. Sadly due to limited time and daylight, I didn't get many photos of this broad-shouldered beauty.
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  #33  
Old Posted Dec 4, 2010, 12:41 PM
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  #34  
Old Posted Dec 11, 2010, 1:20 PM
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  #35  
Old Posted Dec 13, 2010, 6:16 PM
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The sheer size of this building always gives the impression you're approaching a dead end street.
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  #36  
Old Posted Feb 14, 2011, 7:39 PM
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  #37  
Old Posted Feb 14, 2011, 7:58 PM
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I kinda like it, but I can see why others (especially those far more versed in architecture and engineering) hate it.
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  #38  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2011, 6:15 AM
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I kinda like it, but I can see why others (especially those far more versed in architecture and engineering) hate it.
I think the more versed you are in architecture the more likely you are to appreciate it.
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  #39  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2011, 2:22 PM
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  #40  
Old Posted Sep 7, 2011, 12:38 PM
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A brute of epic proportions, but there is something just so iconic about this viewpoint (with the Helmsley bldg). I remember my first trip to NYC (1986) and walking out into the middle of Park Avenue to take a photograph. Ultra-NYC.
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