"The inescapable drama of the Seagram Building in a city already dramatic with crowded skyscrapers lies in its unbroken height of bronze and dark glass juxtaposed to a granite-paved plaza below. The siting of the building on Park Avenue, an indulgence in open space unprecedented in midtown Manhattan real estate, has given that building an aura of special domain. The commercial office building in this instance has been endowed with a monumentality without equal in the civic and religious architecture of our time....The use of extruded bronze mullions and bronze spandrels together with a dark amber-tinted glass has unified the surface with color....The positioning of the Seagram Building on the site and its additive forms at the rear, which visually tie the building to adjacent structures, make for a frontal-oriented composition. The tower is no longer an isolated form. It addresses itself to the context of the city."

—A. James Speyer. Mies van der Rohe. p30.

The Creator's Words

"Skyscrapers reveal their bold structural pattern during construction. Only then does the gigantic steel web seem impressive. When the outer walls are put in place, the structural system, which is the basis of all artistic design, is hidden by a chaos of meaningless and trivial forms...Instead of trying to solve old problems with these old forms we should develop new forms from the very nature of the new problems. We can see the new structural principles most clearly when we use glass in place of the outer walls, which is feasible today since in a skeleton building these outer walls do not carry weight. The use of glass imposes new solutions."

—Mies van der Rohe. from Martin Pawley, introduction and notes. Library of Contemporary Architects: Mies van der Rohe. p12.

Details

Address: 375 Park Avenue
New York, New York

American Institute of Architects 25 Year Award, 1980