The Snøhetta-designed public garden at 550 Madison Avenue in Manhattan has opened, completing one step of the extensive remodelling of the former AT&T Building at the same address. Developed with Olayan Group, the half-acre garden is described by the team as “the first new green space in Midtown in decades."

Known simply as the ‘Garden,’ the 21,300-square-foot green space is located adjacent to the former AT&T office tower, in the location of a formerly enclosed mid-block passageway. The area, open to the public, holds 48 trees, 200 shrubs, 6,300 bulb plants, and 10,000 herbaceous understory plants, as well as public restrooms and three kiosks with food and beverage outlets.

The Garden is centered around a “tranquil” water feature, and comprises five sections which are themselves anchored by different structures. Distinct “upland,” “lowland,” and “sheltered” garden sections contain a mixture of trees and shrubs, while the garden’s bloom calendar is timed to maintain hues of pinks, purples, blues, and yellows from February to October each year.

“550 Madison builds on a series of projects in Midtown, including our work in Times Square and the observatory we designed at One Vanderbilt, that infuse the public realm with a sense of openness, wonder, and freedom,” said Snøhetta Founding Partner Craig Dykers on the project. “Like many New Yorkers, we yearn to connect with the outdoors, and this collaboration with Olayan offered our team an opportunity to reposition the heroic 550 Madison tower for a new age while reestablishing how the tower meets the city.”

The Garden forms part of a broader reworking of the 550 Madison site, which includes the Philip Johnson-designed postmodernist office tower that formerly housed the headquarters of AT&T. Under Olayan’s plans for the high-rise, where Snøhetta has served as design architect, the tower will contain more than 30,000 square feet of luxury amenities under proposed plans.

You can explore the full history behind the project by reviewing our previous coverage here, which began in 2017.