Mid-Town Modernism: Corporate and Institutional Modern Architecture

Post-war architecture represents step forward in new architectural evolution where these new buildings are linked to the American corporate culture. These new towers are reimagined into office buildings through massing, proportion, use of outdoor materials and their relationship toward the ground plane around them. Examples of modernism can be seen in exterior skin and massing strategies at Lever House, Seagram Building, and Lipstick building.

All these buildings represent the image of the corporation and show the boom of the economy and development. Lever house uses a spandrel beam as a base for the building. It has a one-way concrete slap system visible only at the lower levels. For the articulation of the façade of the building are used materials like white marble, black granite, stainless steel and aluminum façade sticks with window walls which are in the same line with the outer walls. Corners of the courtyard walls are finished with the small stainless-steel sticks and left with the unoccupied recesses like they are taken out as a part of the outside column. Lower lever is transparent, without tenants or offices, and with that, it looks like it is part of the outer garden that surrounds the building. Lever House has a cantilever element that relief the building from the ground floor and makes it looks like it is independently built construction. Columns are off-centered which makes ordinary people think about the purpose of it.

On the other hand, the Seagram building is very proportional building with center beams, and transparent facade. Ludwig Mies moto was less is more, and he defined the modern architecture with this way of construction. Proportion is very important in this building where everything lines up, with centered outer black beams, made from bronze, which represents the model in modern ornamentation. He made relief at the bottom of this building and all the articulation is at the top.  We can see that he uses a rectilinear concept at constructing this building. Also, on the ground floor, which is completely transparent, he uses the travertine stone for the elevator shaft in a proportional and centric way.

Lipstick building represents a post-modern architectural style. They use stainless steel frames and imperial granite for the façade. They build in a modern way but use elements from Greek architecture as a model for parts of this building, like columns that look like Doric style ones with equinox top and with the round shape. This building is not concentric, but rather oval, mostly because of the shape of the lot. With an oval shape, they manage to make a relief at the ground floor. Articulation on this building is managed with the two seatbacks which gave this building a unique shape of lipstick stick.

     Modern architectural style brings the use of new technologies and materials like glass, steel, and concrete. It also defines the rejection of old traditional styles like neo-classical and Beaux-Arts. But inside of modern style, it is visible change from domination by rectangular building forms with an emphasis placed on bold, straight lines like Seagram building, toward more free-flowing and organic designs like Lipstick building.