Archinect - News

The MetLife Building’s letters are getting a makeover

2017-06-07T12:54:00-04:00

While the Brutalist architecture of the MetLife Building, formerly the Pan Am Building, makes this 59-story skyscraper stand out among Midtown’s many tall towers, its large sign touting its namesake makes it easy for all to identify. Beginning this week, the insurance company will replace the massive letters with a brand new typeface, as Crain’s reported.

The installation of the new, more modern logo will be the first time the building’s sign has changed since 1993 when 15- and 18-foot-long letters spelling out MetLife replaced Pan Am’s sign.

Finalists of "Reimagine a NYC Icon" contest announced

2016-03-03T17:51:00-05:00

Back in September, we told you about a competition to conceive a redesign of the MetLife Building. Earlier this week, the six finalists of the “Reimagine a New York City Icon” competition were announced. The competition, sponsored by Metals in Construction magazine and the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York, isn’t part of any actual process in the works to modify the Midtown office tower, but are fascinating ideas of what could be. Perhaps these ideas will be put into use at other buildings.

SHoP Architects, AECOM, and Volley Studio are among the six finalists for the competition, which encouraged entrants to reimagine the MetLife Building “with a resource‐conserving, eco‐friendly enclosure – one that creates a highly efficient envelope with the lightness and transparency sought by today’s office workforce – while preserving and enhancing the aesthetic of the building’s heritage.”

Here is FXFOWLE, Thornton Tomasetti, and Dagher Engineering's entry, described as "Harnessing Urban Energies":

Here is AECOM and Volley Studio's "Vertimeme":

And here's a look back at Archinect's coverage of the Pan Am/Met Life building:

Building High Anxiety

2013-04-01T00:13:00-04:00

“A $100 million building cannot really be called cheap,” Ada Louise Huxtable, the celebrated architecture critic for The New York Times, wrote in 1963. “But Pan Am is a colossal collection of minimums.”

Ginia Bellafante recently wrote an article marking this month's 50th anniversary of the completion of Park Avenue’s Pan Am Building, since renamed the MetLife Building. Although, initially the public/critical reception was primarily negative, today the building is one of the most recognizable skyscrapers in the City.