Structure in New York

Known for the Skyscraper of Manhattan, the town of New York conceals many other architectural treasures which constitute a summary of the history of the American architecture and Contemporary architecture.

History of New Yorkean architecture

Colonial architecture

Belonging to the 13 British colonies of the Eastern coast of North America, the town of New York accepted initially the British architectural influences. The church St Paul' S Chapel off Trinity (1766) is an example of English style with a single arrow which rises today in the middle of the skyscrapers.

After the war of independence, the Style géorgien continuous to be used (church Saint-Mark-in-tea-Bowery , 1799, in the East village) but is soon relayed by the style Greek Revival in north of Washington Square Park and in the Federal Hall.

Neogothic architecture (XIXe century)

The style neogothic appears and will be used until the XXe century, including for the skyscrapers. Richard Upjohn (1802 - 1878) specializes in the rural churches of the North-East but its major work remains Trinity Church in New York. Its red sandstone architecture refers to the 14th European century.

Always in New York, it is in James Renwick Jr that one owes the cathedral Saint-Patrick, elegant synthesis of the cathedrals of Rheims and Cologne. The project was entrusted to him in 1858 but completely completed by the rise in the two arrows in frontage in 1888. The use of materials lighter than the stone makes it possible to do without Arc-boutant and Contrefort S outsides.

The Woolworth Building, work of the architect Case Gilbert (1913), with his 60 stages, exceeded then the Metropolitan Life Tower. The first three levels are avoided of a beautiful limestone replaced at the following levels by ground-cooked. The neogothic tendency pushed the architect to add false buttresses and Gargouille S. Taking into account the gigantism of the building, the decorative elements were oversize in order to be seen since the street. In 1924, Raymond Hood deals with the American radiator building of New York which it equips with colors and which it caps with a gilded terra cotta decoration, lit the night. Architecture then starts to be used as advertizing medium. In second half of the XIXe century, New York knows deep upheavals: its population strongly increases, it becomes the door and the window of the United States. The industrial revolution brings denouveaux materials and of novel methods, the middle-class of businesses develops.

The Cast-iron Buildings

In the middle of the 19th century, new methods of direct manufacture of steel appear (proceeded Thomas-Gilchrist, Bessemer furnaces and Siemens-Martin. These discoveries, allow the mass production of a steel of “quality”. Manufacturing cast iron puts forward qualities of metal in architecture: the standardized parts reduce the cost of construction. The fire hazards are decreased thanks to the process of fireproofing of the framework. James Bogardus (1800 - 1874) one of these contractors who makes the publicity of this method of construction related to the Industrial revolution and is called cast-iron building . Several factories and stores use this technique in New York, like the Haper building, built in 1854 and which imitates the frontage of a palate of the Renaissance. Daniel Badger (1806 - 1884) manufactures the metal elements which decorate the frontage with the Haughwout building, whose plans are due to John P. Gaynor. It is equipped with the first elevator with vapor Otis which serves the five stages. The windows are framed by Corinthian columns and the unit is overcome by a cornice thoroughly decorated.

Skyscrapers

The beginnings (1873)

The construction and the use of the skyscrapers were made possible thanks to the invention of the Ascenseur and with the progress of the Sidérurgie. The checkerboard plan and the land speculation in the center of New York are not foreign with the success of this method of construction. Lastly, the regrouping of the companies and the capitalist competition encourage with the vertical rise in the buildings. It is difficult to say which is the first skyscraper of the History. The New Yorkeans affirm that it is about the New York Tribune Building , drawn by Richard Morris Hunt and finished in 1873 (78 meters). Others consider that it is the Home Insurance Building (1884 - 1885) with Chicago built by the founders of the school of Chicago. In New York, one chooses to equip the buildings with a base in rectangular plan, surmounted by a tower.

Reflections on the skyscrapers

Quickly, several American architects (Louis Sullivan…) criticize this new vertical architecture. The vertiginous rise in the buildings prevent the light from reaching the ground. The orthogonal plan involves a clogging of circulation. Lastly, of the new problems of safety emergent, in particular as regards fire. As of 1916, to answer these difficulties is adopted in New York a law on zoning ( Zoning Law ). The payment obliges the architects to adapt the height of the buildings to the width of the streets. There remains in force until 1961. That gives place to the construction of pyramidal buildings such as the Seagram Building (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, 1958) which spares a withdrawal of 28 meters compared to Park Avenue. .

Freedom Tower

Architecture by district

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