21 Facts About Seagram Building

Lambert said the Seagram Building was supposed to "be the crowning glory of everyone's work, his own, the contractor's, and Mies's".

Seagram Building occupies half the site and is recessed 90 feet behind Park Avenue.

The Seagram Building's mullions are only for aesthetics and are thus susceptible to thermal expansion and contraction.

Seagram Building was home to the Four Seasons and Brasserie restaurants, originally designed by Philip Johnson.

Unlike designs in Beaux-Arts office buildings, the Seagram Building's lobby lacks a central space, instead leading visitors directly from the plaza to the elevators or restaurants.

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Seagram Building wanted the building to be completed by 1957, coinciding with the company's centenary.

Seagram Building created several scale models for the proposed structure.

Kahn had sketched an alternative design for the Seagram Building, which called for a significantly different massing than the one Mies had proposed.

Seagram Building took the AIA rejection as an affront and moved back to Chicago, placing Johnson in full control of the building's design.

Ultimately, the Seagram Building's luxuriously designed spaces had 115 tenants, which were drawn partly because of Mies's international stature.

The recalculated tax assessment of $21 million was based on the potential value if the building were to be demolished, whereas Seagram fought to keep the assessment at $17 million, based on the rental income it earned.

However, Seagram had decided to retain ownership of the building by 1976, as it brought publicity to the company.

TIAA, like the Seagram Company, supported landmark status for the building.

In early 1988, just over thirty years after the Seagram Building had been completed, the TIAA filed documentation with the LPC requesting that the Seagram Building's exterior, lobby, and plaza be considered for landmark status.

The following year, the Seagram Company moved its headquarters out of the building.

Ricardo Scofidio of Diller Scofidio + Renfro said the construction of the Seagram Building "was the first time you really realized that architecture brought something to the city that didn't exist".

Italian architecture writers Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co, in their 1976 book Modern Architecture, wrote that the Seagram Building stood "aloof from the city" and saw the juxtaposition as a symbol of absence.

Seagram Building's plaza was popular immediately when the building opened, being frequented by both office workers and tourists.

Paul Goldberger wrote in The New York Times in 1976 that the Seagram Building was one of "New York's most copied buildings", its design having been copied in several structures internationally.

Mies reused the building's design for towers in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Toronto, and a replica of the Seagram Building was constructed at the New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Paradise, Nevada.

The Seagram Building came in second place behind the Chrysler Building, with 76 respondents placing it on their ballots.