[PDF] WILLIAM VAN ALEN [1883–1954]

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WILLIAM VAN ALEN

[18831954]

The Chrysler Building, 19261930

William Van Alen

The Chrysler Building could only have

been constructed in the competitive climate of Manhattan in the 1920s.

The American economy was

flourishing, andthere was not enough office space to go around; urban builders were encouraged to aim high.

In 1926, Walter P. Chrysler, one of the

wealthiest men in the automotive industry, entered his bid in the unofficial competition to build the tallest structure in New York City.

He wanted an office building exalted

enough to symbolize his own astounding ascent in the business world.

Walter P. Chrysler

Walter P. Chrysler

Times' Man of the Year 1928

Brooklyn-born architect William Van Alen,

who had a reputation for progressive, challenge with a seventy-seven-story building, the first in the world to exceed a height of one thousand feet.

The pyramidal form of the Chrysler

Building was dictated by a 1916 zoning

ordinance requiring buildings to be stepped back as they rose to allow sunlight and more air to reach the streets below.

This restriction allowed architects to take a

more sculptural approach to urban design.

Instead of the tall, bland, rectangular

boxes that had begun to colonize the city, inventive and dynamic forms began to lend interest and variety to the Manhattan skyline.

The ordinance also focused attention on

the summit of a building.

The Chrysler Building (1930) surpassed

the Eiffel Tower to become the world's tallest structure.

Almost as important, the Chrysler Building,

with its jazzy, Art Deco lines and curves, announced to the world that Midtown

Manhattan had arrived.

Today it represents the finest of the Art

Decostyle and indeed is probably the

most beautiful Art Deco building in the world.

Art Deco Defined

or deco, is an eclecticartistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s and into the World War II era.

At its best, art deco represented elegance, glamour, functionality and modernity. Art deco's linear symmetry was a distinct departure from the flowing asymmetrical organic curves of its predecessor style art nouveau; it embraced influences from many different styles of the early twentieth century, including neoclassical, constructivism, cubism, modernismand futurismand drew inspiration from ancient Egyptian and Aztec forms. Although many design movements have political or philosophical beginnings or intentions, art deco was purely decorative.

The skyscraper no longer imitated gothic

architecture (more common in Downtown

Manhattan), but incorporated a current

architecture style appropriate for its time of design and construction.

As if mocking the ancient gothic style of

other skyscrapers, the Chrysler Building incorporates gargoyles and decorative top that ends in a spire reaching towards the sky.

The building is 77 storiesand the height

to the top of its spire is 1048 feet.

The tower culminates in a beautiful,

tapered stainless steel crown that supports the famous spire at its peak.

Thebuilding has a lot of ornamentation

that is based on features that were being used on Chrysler cars of the day.

Atop the Chrysler, seven overlapping

arches diminish toward the top to create the illusion of a building even taller than it is.

The distinctive decoration, a pattern of

narrow triangles set in semicircles, has been likened to a sunburst, but it might equally recall the spokes of a wheel. architecture was to apply to modern skyscrapers the visual vocabulary of Art

Deco, an international decorative style that

emphasized streamlined motifs and often employed nontraditional materials.

To make the Chrysler Building distinct from

others of its kind, Van Alen chose motifs appropriate to the machine age, particularly the automobile.

Notice, the gargoyles are actually Chrysler

hood ornaments, and the decorative top is basically a series of hubcap-like curves. cladding calls to mind the polished chrome of a brand new car.

Stylized American eagle heads protrude

from some corners of the building in playful reference to the gargoyles on

Gothic cathedrals.

Other corners are embellished with the

winged forms of a Chrysler radiator cap.

One ornamental frieze incorporates a

band of hubcaps.

The corners of the sixty firstfloor are

graced with eagles, replicas of the 1929

Chrysler hood ornaments.

The building might as well be a car,

definitely an object worthy of a cathedral like building in modern day America.

On the thirty first floor, the corner

ornamentations are replicas of 1929

Chrysler radiator caps.

The building is steel frame,masonry

construction,and metal cladding.

There are3,862 windows on its facade

and 4 banks of 8 elevators designed by

Otis Elevator Corporation.

As of this writing, it is still the 3rd tallest

building in New York City.

If the exterior ornament enhances the

modernity of the skyscraper, the interior was designed to recall the distant past, and positions the Chrysler Building among the wonders of the world.

Chrysler Building, Entry Way Details

The most spectacular features of the

grand lobby are the elevator doors, adorned in brass and marquetry (decorative inlays on a wood base) with the lotus flower motif.

Elevator Doors

Inside a Chrysler Building elevator, looking up

The discovery in 1922 of King

enthusiasm for archaic and exotic cultures, and the Chrysler Building was designed at the height of this mania for all things

Egyptian.

In addition to the lotus decoration, the

public rooms display a range of ancient

Egyptian motifs intended to suggest the

pyramids of the pharaohs.

Art Deco Painted Ceilings

The paintings on the lobby ceiling record

construction, as if the monument to

Chrysler had already assumed a place in

history equal to that of the Great

Pyramids.

Both Chrysler and Van Alen were intent

upon making this building the tallest in the city, but toward the end of construction there was uncertainty over whether it could indeed hold that distinction.

A rapidly rising office tower in Lower

Manhattan had already reached 840 feet,

business partner, who acknowledged competition from the Chrysler, pushed his building even higher by adding a sixty-foot steel cap.

Not to be outdone, Van Alen had his

workers secretly assemble a twenty- seven-ton steel tip, or vertex, which was hoisted at the last minute to the top of the building as a magnificent surprise to the city.

With that, the Chrysler not only exceeded

the height of its Wall Street competition, but surpassed even the Eiffel Tower in

Paris.

The Chrysler Building held the title of

world's tallest building until 1931 when the

Empire State Building (also in Midtown

Manhattan) took the title.

As it happened, that hard-won prize would

be lost within the year to the Empire State

Building, which is 202 feet higher.

Downtown Manhattan was not able to

regain the title until the completion of the

World Trade Center towers in 1972 (which

were dethroned by the Sears Tower in

Chicago in 1976).

after the completion of his most famous building.

Accused by Chrysler of taking bribes from

contractors, the architect never received full payment for his work.

The effects of the Depression on the

building industry further added to his woes.

Today, Van Alen, with no major studies

dedicated to his work, is little known in the history of architecture.

On his death in 1954, the New York Times

failed to even publish an obituary.

Essay Question 1

How is this building like an automobile?

What artistic style is the Chrysler Building

attributed?

Essay Question 2

Why did corporations and architects race

to build tall skyscrapers in the 1920s?

Why was the spire was added to the top?

Essay Question 3

What happened in 1929 to halt this

building spree?

Essay Question 4

New York City building codes required that

tall buildings such as this step back their upper stories.

What were the benefits of making tall

buildings smaller near the top?quotesdbs_dbs29.pdfusesText_35

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