The Chrysler buildings is one of the best loved skyscrapers in the world. I don't get it. It's just so ugly. And it kills me that it got on a postal stamp of modernist architectural masterworks. It's so completely undeserving.
My bias is that I'm pretty dismissive of anything art deco. But this building is ridiculous. The thing has gargoyles. Worse than gargoyles are gargoyles replicated from the car's hood ornament. The material is mismatched. A silver crown on a pink/brown building. The crown reminds me of one of those dental amalgams that are capped onto your teeth. And ultimately horrible, the crown is overlapping car radiator grilles.
And then you have a little car motif that circles the edges of the building.
As a side note, the architect secretly built the spire from inside of the building to trick another project which was vying for tallest building in NYC. Then, they just popped up their surprise spire right through the top to claim the title in a Trojan horse tactic. That's story is so appropriate for this building.
So what is your opinion?
"Course I'm respectable. I'm old. Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough." --Chinatown
I like it... its sort of retro like an art deco automobile, there is some craft to it...
its the difference between an old radio built out of wood and finely ornamented when they thought radios were high tech and gonna last forever as a permanent piece of furnature in your living room vs. other cool new buildings which are like ipods that are still cool, but haven't had the time to become vintage yet... this new ipod still looks new, only that next year they don't look new anymore, but then 30 years from now, its like the coolest classic thing you can own.
guess it one of things, you either like it or hate it.
i like it, the spire story i think is pretty funny - nice tactic!
but i must admit, my attitude this days is so much more casual than
a few years ago. i generally just go "yeah, like it" or say nothing.
i get pretty annoyed at constant slagging off of architecture that is
clearly impressive in many ways.
i think young architects, and esp students need to relax, chill out, and just say "cool, i like it".
When someone says they either love or hate a building, it's always useful to find out also what their favourite or most hated building is as a comparison. What about it savvy?
if you look at the go-go boomtime period in ny when it was built, it makes perfect sense. refinement wasn't the issue so much as the display of wealth, power, and technical prowess. as a representation of a time and a place, i love it. as a form, standing out from the straight body form of so many other tall buildings, i love it. and it's shiny! come on, savvy!
appreciation of architecture of any era sometimes requires a sense of humor, a sense of irony, and a sense of what was going on when it was built. imagine looking at libeskind's RAM in 80 yrs: what the hell?!
ever since i saw Cremaster 3 or 5 - i forget - i actually enjoy the building, more than the Empire State Building, perhaps it's about reaching for the heights and coming up short....
To me, it's one of the clearest designs in skyscrpapers. The finely detailed top, with a spire that looks like part of the design, not tacked on (I can't, at this moment, think of another skyscraper in the world that has an elegant conclusion like that). It makes the NY skyline, imho (even before 911).
Most of all, it's all shiny pretty and proud to be so!
"My bias is that I'm pretty dismissive of anything art deco."
i mean, what do you want us to say???
i've always liked it. i appreciate your point about the seeming disjuncture between the buildings top and bottom, but this is common in a city with tons of tall buildings packed closely together; a lot of buildings in new york have their cityscape look and their sidewalk look. the chrysler building was successful in its time because it had an element that was stunning and distinct. the rest of the building is a bit bland in comparison, but this is ok (both in a commercial sense, and probably to the aesthetic sensibilities of most people). it might not hold up to someone who better understands and spends a lot of time thinking about architecture, savvy. i have some of the same reservations you laid out, but i still like it. i'm a bit biased, my dad's office was in the chrysler building for number of years when i was a kid; during that period it was claerly the coolest building in the world. he was on a floor just above a step-back, so you could climb out his window and walk check out the giant silver pinapples. also, the inlaid wood patterns in the elevators are amazing. if i had to be confined in an elevator for an extended period of time (like that chinese delivery guy a few months ago), i would choose one of them. the actuall office spaces in the building, with the exception of a few really neat ones in the spire, are bland and are becoming obsolete. my father's company moved a while ago because of the anemic ari conditioning, poor floor layouts, etc.
My information is second hand so I can not give you specifics. I am told the Chrysler Building does not and will not comply with the International Building Code and is hopelessly inefficient in plan and mechanics. We at the Department of Standadization are pleased to inform this our community of the latest most efficient, code complying buildings available. We will soon be starting an internet site ranking buildings by efficiency (BOMA) for as we all know by our finely honed intellect that efficiency is the primary and proper road to our standardized quest of creating the perfect architectural product. This is only one of many projects your association is providing to you our architects of priveledge, right, and advantage. Let us bind our power to reveal our superior intellect as procurers of world standardization. So stand we!!!!
do you live in new york?
have you ever been to the chrysler?
that's not trying to be dismissive...
i go through it all the time when going up to grand central..
and the details at the base are just nice. all black stone
and a relic from a different time. i don't think i'd put the
building in my top ten or anything, but it is one of the most
beautiful high rises on the skyline of new york..i think we'd
all be better off if as much care and detailing went into
skyscrapers today...(although the new world trade center 7 is
pretty nice in terms of modern sensibilities/minimalism)
I don't live in NYC, but have been in the Chrysler. My favorite famous building is the Kings Rd. House. Most hated famous building is the new design of the Freedom Tower. And I don't hate many buildings. but the chyrsler..arghh..it get's on my nerves. If the building was a man, I'd like to punch him in the face. It's an irrational hatred I save for both the Chrysler, and for the movie, Crash.
Wow!!! That was random. I have to admit, I don't care for the building, but I respect it. It's the second best skycrapper in New York, the first being the Flatiron, of course. And the details are quite impressive.
I like it... It's such a great period piece. And compared to the other neo-historical high rises going up at the time the creative energy it introduced at the time must have been something.
I like the kings road house too, that's the schindler house right? Not sure if its the one I'm thinking of...
The funny thing about it though is that when I went there it was occupied by a bunch of wierd plastic furniture with imacs and there were some cheesy looking architecture presentation boards there... and it looked kind of run down as if its a shack... Some buildings look alot better in a photograph than they do after years of use...
The Chrysler seems to me a building that gets better with age.
Those are also really different types of buildings. What's a skyscraper that you think works, or is it just an aversion to skyscrapers in general? I could see not liking towers.
For contemporary skyscrapers, I think one that works is Norman Foster's Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Building in HK...
norman foster's HSBC bank is one of the best examples of office towers for both its structural logic and the beautiful urban space it creates under its 'belly'.
I'm so greatful that architects' minimalist tastes aren't repeated endlessly thoughout new york city. But to attack this particular building with the same hackneyed academic complaints ('tacked on this and ornament that) shows stunning ignorance of what this building was about.
If you remember from your history class or from the hundreds of other books, there's a famous picture of the architect in a crysler building costume standing beside peers dressed as their own bland (for that time) structures. This building was totally unique in its day for its use and synthesis of materials, shape, and ornament. It was a product of 1920s era hubris which was finished shortly after the stock market crash of 1929.
But attacking this building as the starter of the thread does shows their understanding of design and architecture to consist of little more than flimsy plattitudes about modern-minimal style, aesthetics, and taste. Its a completely inappropriate critique of an obviously well designed building.
The failure to understand and appreciate notable historical structures is a mental deficiency, not a serious commentary.
No doubt this poster would ignorantly raise the same idiotic objections about Gaudi's projects.
"But to attack this particular building with the same hackneyed academic complaints ('tacked on this and ornament that) shows stunning ignorance of what this building was about"
I'd substitute "adolescent" or "juvenile" for "academic" in this case.
Just juxtapose 6th Avenue with the Chrysler Building and understand that the Chrysler Bldg is both temporally and geographically closer to Coney Island (Delirious NY) than any standardized, purely economically driven solution could ever come.
Anyway, the point is that yes, it would be a really silly building built if today in any other place. It was a silly building then too. In a similar but lesser version: do you recall the Coca Cola bottling factory in California from around the same time ? Or how about tea-pot house , or the duck house -- Chrysler Bldg wants to be read as a building that is responsible for the modernization of America, and society as a whole. Chrysler is the Future ! ( see he movie Metropolis -- stop watching Crash)
It is the context ( architectural, social, temporal, political, etc) that needs to really be understood to understand this overtly legible building.
One could cross reference St.Elia with this building's legibility.
On a somewhat related sidenote -- cars to this very day are reft with pastiche -- plastc bumpers, interiors that are meant to look like jet-fighter cockpits, hummers that are meant to look like giant Tonkas/Tank/personell carriers -- and so on. In fact, with the continued sub-urbanization, the subsequent RELIANCE on the car, and the continued individualization in design that becomes necesary as car ownership extends futher to he individual, it is no suprise that pastiche and planned obsolescence go into making both cars a personal fashion statement, as well as overhyped mode of transportation.
brink, I don't know if Schindler house is falling apart, but imagine what it must have looked like when it was just built. As far as aging houses, I notice that buildings made with a lot of wood get better with age. Aesthetically, there is something about wood that ages well. I think it's the little knicks and dents that gives it character. You can see the life that it lived. There is this house in Pasedena called called the gamble house, arts/crafts style, that I think aged pretty well.
thenwold, I have no doubt that Chrysler B. was totally unique in its day. but it was also considered spectacle when it was finished rather than any revelatory experience. Uniqueness, itself, isn't a barometer for excellence. If that were the case, Frank Gehry would be much more well-received on this forum.
Chrysler B. is appreciated now because of the euphoria of history and it's perceived optimism, and what it represents. and in the eyes of many people, they are struck by it purely emotionally yet positively, which is completely valid. It's a building, like I find much of Gehry's work, that seeks a response on a purely emotional level. ( i like bilbao by the way). That's how I respond to it as well and that's why I kept the criticism at the asesthetic level. Despite it's iconic status, my opinion is simply that I don't like it. I think that one should be allowed not to like it aestheticallys and emotionally without being accused of ignorance, mental deficiency or idiocy.
well, i think with the schindler house, it was a matter of disrepair, maybe partly due to prior occupants? also, it wasn't a house that is really crafted to last a long time dont think, i'm not sure,but did he build it himself? there are some interetsing details, but it is kind of rough around the edges, not intended to be enduring, a bit raw which is nice, except that i dont think the current occupants use the space in the way it was designed... so its pretty much in "retirement"... and some things like the bunk area that was supposed to be on the roof were pretty much gone... i think a previous owner had dismantled it and it was later roughly rebuilt but not quite there... no money to do it right...
but its an old house, there are some nice qualities about it, the idea of it... a house thats basically like camping... its relationship between interior and exterior... response to local climate, interaction with that site, although i think things have changed alot... maybe worth visiting, but dont expect the nice photographs you've seen...
i got some pretty nice shots at kings road. and, considering the house is almost 90 yrs old, i thought it was in decent shape. true, the foundation running it isn't wealthy and could use some $$$ help, but i wasn't disappointed. wasn't expecting it to be shiny and white like the lovell health house or anything.
speaking of which, marmol radziner has done some amazing restorations of early modern houses in/around l.a. so painstaking.
Jun 9, 06 7:19 am ·
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Chrysler building -wonderful or completely meritless?
The Chrysler buildings is one of the best loved skyscrapers in the world. I don't get it. It's just so ugly. And it kills me that it got on a postal stamp of modernist architectural masterworks. It's so completely undeserving.
My bias is that I'm pretty dismissive of anything art deco. But this building is ridiculous. The thing has gargoyles. Worse than gargoyles are gargoyles replicated from the car's hood ornament. The material is mismatched. A silver crown on a pink/brown building. The crown reminds me of one of those dental amalgams that are capped onto your teeth. And ultimately horrible, the crown is overlapping car radiator grilles.
And then you have a little car motif that circles the edges of the building.
As a side note, the architect secretly built the spire from inside of the building to trick another project which was vying for tallest building in NYC. Then, they just popped up their surprise spire right through the top to claim the title in a Trojan horse tactic. That's story is so appropriate for this building.
So what is your opinion?
"Course I'm respectable. I'm old. Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough." --Chinatown
I like it... its sort of retro like an art deco automobile, there is some craft to it...
its the difference between an old radio built out of wood and finely ornamented when they thought radios were high tech and gonna last forever as a permanent piece of furnature in your living room vs. other cool new buildings which are like ipods that are still cool, but haven't had the time to become vintage yet... this new ipod still looks new, only that next year they don't look new anymore, but then 30 years from now, its like the coolest classic thing you can own.
guess it one of things, you either like it or hate it.
i like it, the spire story i think is pretty funny - nice tactic!
but i must admit, my attitude this days is so much more casual than
a few years ago. i generally just go "yeah, like it" or say nothing.
i get pretty annoyed at constant slagging off of architecture that is
clearly impressive in many ways.
i think young architects, and esp students need to relax, chill out, and just say "cool, i like it".
When someone says they either love or hate a building, it's always useful to find out also what their favourite or most hated building is as a comparison. What about it savvy?
I love it.
if you look at the go-go boomtime period in ny when it was built, it makes perfect sense. refinement wasn't the issue so much as the display of wealth, power, and technical prowess. as a representation of a time and a place, i love it. as a form, standing out from the straight body form of so many other tall buildings, i love it. and it's shiny! come on, savvy!
appreciation of architecture of any era sometimes requires a sense of humor, a sense of irony, and a sense of what was going on when it was built. imagine looking at libeskind's RAM in 80 yrs: what the hell?!
ever since i saw Cremaster 3 or 5 - i forget - i actually enjoy the building, more than the Empire State Building, perhaps it's about reaching for the heights and coming up short....
oh, and i think you'll find that "other" building was ESB...FYI
"And then you have a little car motif that circles the edges of the building"
....... I think the clue is in the name.
love it
To me, it's one of the clearest designs in skyscrpapers. The finely detailed top, with a spire that looks like part of the design, not tacked on (I can't, at this moment, think of another skyscraper in the world that has an elegant conclusion like that). It makes the NY skyline, imho (even before 911).
Most of all, it's all shiny pretty and proud to be so!
I love the spire story, too.
"My bias is that I'm pretty dismissive of anything art deco."
i mean, what do you want us to say???
i've always liked it. i appreciate your point about the seeming disjuncture between the buildings top and bottom, but this is common in a city with tons of tall buildings packed closely together; a lot of buildings in new york have their cityscape look and their sidewalk look. the chrysler building was successful in its time because it had an element that was stunning and distinct. the rest of the building is a bit bland in comparison, but this is ok (both in a commercial sense, and probably to the aesthetic sensibilities of most people). it might not hold up to someone who better understands and spends a lot of time thinking about architecture, savvy. i have some of the same reservations you laid out, but i still like it. i'm a bit biased, my dad's office was in the chrysler building for number of years when i was a kid; during that period it was claerly the coolest building in the world. he was on a floor just above a step-back, so you could climb out his window and walk check out the giant silver pinapples. also, the inlaid wood patterns in the elevators are amazing. if i had to be confined in an elevator for an extended period of time (like that chinese delivery guy a few months ago), i would choose one of them. the actuall office spaces in the building, with the exception of a few really neat ones in the spire, are bland and are becoming obsolete. my father's company moved a while ago because of the anemic ari conditioning, poor floor layouts, etc.
My information is second hand so I can not give you specifics. I am told the Chrysler Building does not and will not comply with the International Building Code and is hopelessly inefficient in plan and mechanics. We at the Department of Standadization are pleased to inform this our community of the latest most efficient, code complying buildings available. We will soon be starting an internet site ranking buildings by efficiency (BOMA) for as we all know by our finely honed intellect that efficiency is the primary and proper road to our standardized quest of creating the perfect architectural product. This is only one of many projects your association is providing to you our architects of priveledge, right, and advantage. Let us bind our power to reveal our superior intellect as procurers of world standardization. So stand we!!!!
savvy
my question would be twofold..
do you live in new york?
have you ever been to the chrysler?
that's not trying to be dismissive...
i go through it all the time when going up to grand central..
and the details at the base are just nice. all black stone
and a relic from a different time. i don't think i'd put the
building in my top ten or anything, but it is one of the most
beautiful high rises on the skyline of new york..i think we'd
all be better off if as much care and detailing went into
skyscrapers today...(although the new world trade center 7 is
pretty nice in terms of modern sensibilities/minimalism)
I don't live in NYC, but have been in the Chrysler. My favorite famous building is the Kings Rd. House. Most hated famous building is the new design of the Freedom Tower. And I don't hate many buildings. but the chyrsler..arghh..it get's on my nerves. If the building was a man, I'd like to punch him in the face. It's an irrational hatred I save for both the Chrysler, and for the movie, Crash.
it is what it is.
Wow!!! That was random. I have to admit, I don't care for the building, but I respect it. It's the second best skycrapper in New York, the first being the Flatiron, of course. And the details are quite impressive.
To each their own I guess. Just wondering what you think of all the newer generation skyscrapers that litter NYC.
Savvy, more importantly, which "Crash" do you so despise so violently?
The James Spader auto-erotica or the Matt Dillon race-relations flick?
James Spader:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0115964/
Matt Dillon:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0375679/
wonderful and completely meritless...
I like it... It's such a great period piece. And compared to the other neo-historical high rises going up at the time the creative energy it introduced at the time must have been something.
i like both crashes.
i thought the Matt Dillion one sucked
hmmm
The one with the cheap character reversals and the dialogue "No Mexicans no know how to drive!"
Newer generation? I'd have to have examples.
I like the kings road house too, that's the schindler house right? Not sure if its the one I'm thinking of...
The funny thing about it though is that when I went there it was occupied by a bunch of wierd plastic furniture with imacs and there were some cheesy looking architecture presentation boards there... and it looked kind of run down as if its a shack... Some buildings look alot better in a photograph than they do after years of use...
The Chrysler seems to me a building that gets better with age.
Those are also really different types of buildings. What's a skyscraper that you think works, or is it just an aversion to skyscrapers in general? I could see not liking towers.
For contemporary skyscrapers, I think one that works is Norman Foster's Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Building in HK...
norman foster's HSBC bank is one of the best examples of office towers for both its structural logic and the beautiful urban space it creates under its 'belly'.
you wouldnt understand. its a gargoyle thing.
I'm so greatful that architects' minimalist tastes aren't repeated endlessly thoughout new york city. But to attack this particular building with the same hackneyed academic complaints ('tacked on this and ornament that) shows stunning ignorance of what this building was about.
If you remember from your history class or from the hundreds of other books, there's a famous picture of the architect in a crysler building costume standing beside peers dressed as their own bland (for that time) structures. This building was totally unique in its day for its use and synthesis of materials, shape, and ornament. It was a product of 1920s era hubris which was finished shortly after the stock market crash of 1929.
But attacking this building as the starter of the thread does shows their understanding of design and architecture to consist of little more than flimsy plattitudes about modern-minimal style, aesthetics, and taste. Its a completely inappropriate critique of an obviously well designed building.
The failure to understand and appreciate notable historical structures is a mental deficiency, not a serious commentary.
No doubt this poster would ignorantly raise the same idiotic objections about Gaudi's projects.
"But to attack this particular building with the same hackneyed academic complaints ('tacked on this and ornament that) shows stunning ignorance of what this building was about"
I'd substitute "adolescent" or "juvenile" for "academic" in this case.
"Lookit me! I'm a grown-up architecture critic!"
Just juxtapose 6th Avenue with the Chrysler Building and understand that the Chrysler Bldg is both temporally and geographically closer to Coney Island (Delirious NY) than any standardized, purely economically driven solution could ever come.
Anyway, the point is that yes, it would be a really silly building built if today in any other place. It was a silly building then too. In a similar but lesser version: do you recall the Coca Cola bottling factory in California from around the same time ? Or how about tea-pot house , or the duck house -- Chrysler Bldg wants to be read as a building that is responsible for the modernization of America, and society as a whole. Chrysler is the Future ! ( see he movie Metropolis -- stop watching Crash)
It is the context ( architectural, social, temporal, political, etc) that needs to really be understood to understand this overtly legible building.
One could cross reference St.Elia with this building's legibility.
On a somewhat related sidenote -- cars to this very day are reft with pastiche -- plastc bumpers, interiors that are meant to look like jet-fighter cockpits, hummers that are meant to look like giant Tonkas/Tank/personell carriers -- and so on. In fact, with the continued sub-urbanization, the subsequent RELIANCE on the car, and the continued individualization in design that becomes necesary as car ownership extends futher to he individual, it is no suprise that pastiche and planned obsolescence go into making both cars a personal fashion statement, as well as overhyped mode of transportation.
brink, I don't know if Schindler house is falling apart, but imagine what it must have looked like when it was just built. As far as aging houses, I notice that buildings made with a lot of wood get better with age. Aesthetically, there is something about wood that ages well. I think it's the little knicks and dents that gives it character. You can see the life that it lived. There is this house in Pasedena called called the gamble house, arts/crafts style, that I think aged pretty well.
thenwold, I have no doubt that Chrysler B. was totally unique in its day. but it was also considered spectacle when it was finished rather than any revelatory experience. Uniqueness, itself, isn't a barometer for excellence. If that were the case, Frank Gehry would be much more well-received on this forum.
Chrysler B. is appreciated now because of the euphoria of history and it's perceived optimism, and what it represents. and in the eyes of many people, they are struck by it purely emotionally yet positively, which is completely valid. It's a building, like I find much of Gehry's work, that seeks a response on a purely emotional level. ( i like bilbao by the way). That's how I respond to it as well and that's why I kept the criticism at the asesthetic level. Despite it's iconic status, my opinion is simply that I don't like it. I think that one should be allowed not to like it aestheticallys and emotionally without being accused of ignorance, mental deficiency or idiocy.
well, i think with the schindler house, it was a matter of disrepair, maybe partly due to prior occupants? also, it wasn't a house that is really crafted to last a long time dont think, i'm not sure,but did he build it himself? there are some interetsing details, but it is kind of rough around the edges, not intended to be enduring, a bit raw which is nice, except that i dont think the current occupants use the space in the way it was designed... so its pretty much in "retirement"... and some things like the bunk area that was supposed to be on the roof were pretty much gone... i think a previous owner had dismantled it and it was later roughly rebuilt but not quite there... no money to do it right...
but its an old house, there are some nice qualities about it, the idea of it... a house thats basically like camping... its relationship between interior and exterior... response to local climate, interaction with that site, although i think things have changed alot... maybe worth visiting, but dont expect the nice photographs you've seen...
i got some pretty nice shots at kings road. and, considering the house is almost 90 yrs old, i thought it was in decent shape. true, the foundation running it isn't wealthy and could use some $$$ help, but i wasn't disappointed. wasn't expecting it to be shiny and white like the lovell health house or anything.
speaking of which, marmol radziner has done some amazing restorations of early modern houses in/around l.a. so painstaking.
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