Over the years, architects have not been the only ones to inscribe New York’s skyline — the signature image of the last American century — across the urban ether.
Among others, structural engineers, practical poets of often towering imagination and import, have also figured out how to scale those heights. Skyscrapers are team efforts, after all.
— The New York Times
For his latest feature in a series of virtual strolls exploring iconic Manhattan skyscrapers with noteworthy building experts, NYT architecture critic Michael Kimmelman invited engineer Guy Nordenson to join him for a closer look at the midcentury, Eero Saarinen-designed Black Rock/CBS Building, the Postmodernist classic 550 Madison Avenue, formerly known as AT&T Building, and 432 Park Avenue by Rafael Viñoly.
If you missed last week's virtual walk around town, catch up with Kimmelman and architect Annabelle Selldorf inspecting Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson's Seagram Building, the MetLife Building (formerly Pan Am Building), 270 Park Avenue (originally known as Union Carbide building and currently being demolished by JPMorgan Chase), the Lever House, and 601 Lexington Avenue (once known as Citicorp Center) designed by Hugh Stubbins.
Looking for a curated selection of the best virtual event offerings, tours, lectures, presentations, and interviews? Visit Archinect's new Virtual Event Guide.
1 Comment
Let’s hope this is Kimmelman’s last as arch critic of NYT.
All of the greatest hits here: lecturing, humorless, elitist. Asides to conversations with elite designers of buildings he never covered. Feigned interested in issues he neglected (270 Park, mentioned by Selldorf) while he was trying to cash in on the urbanism lecture circuit. Past his prime, if only he had one. What Yale alum will take over next? I’m sure there won’t even be one after 10 years of neglect. And yet what’s is more necessary that popular coverage of design realities?
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