The Empire State Building Essay, Research Paper

The Empire State Building

The granddaddy of all skyscrapers and now a National Historic Landmark, the Empire State Building (ESB), with its central Manhattan location, offers the best views of New York City. It is still one of the world’s tallest buildings. This New York icon was completed in 1931. Its famous Art Deco spire, visible throughout much of New York, is immortalized in countless movies, including King Kong and Sleepless in Seattle. The Empire State Building is located in Manhattan at 350 Fifth Avenue, between Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth Street. The building’s splendor and lift, its very being remain a magical presence, a cynosure for the city’s residents, a Mecca for visitor.

The idea for the empire State Building emerged from the culture and politics of New York in the early twentieth century, as Democratic presidential candidate Al smith spearheaded plans to erect the world’s tallest skyscraper in a competition with founder of the Chrysler Corp. The construction of the Empire State Building began in March of 1930. It was completed 14 months later in May 1931. It was designed by the architectural firm of Shreve, Lamb, & Harmon Associate. The Empire State Building, at 102 stories, was the tallest building in the world until the completion of the first tower of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan in 1972. Its cost is $40,948,900. (Include land) building alone is $24,718,000. The building is 102 stories high. It is 1,472 feet to top of antennae; it is 1,250 feet to 102nd floor observatory; area of site is 79,288 square feet. Its structure materials include steel, concrete and brick. Its exterior materials include Indiana limestone and granite, trimmed with aluminum and chrome-nickel steel from the 6th floor to the top. Its interior lobby materials are ceiling high marble, imported from France, Italy, Belgium, and Germany.

The foundation of the ESB is special that is strong enough to help holding this building up. When foundation was dug, and then a cast-iron sill was set into a base. A hollow, cylindrical column, were box columns with a core selection the heaviest rolled columns, was bolted perpendicular to the sill, When a pair of adjoining post was in place, a lintel was bolted to line them. The process continued horizontally and vertically, floors were laid, and a new style of building resulted. Interior spaces were a series of self-contained boxes, each an island, entire of itself. Since the units were self-supporting, there was no need for thick walls to support the load of the building, as a result, large expanses of windows punctuated by delicate cast-iron columns created a rhythmic balance outside and well-lit spaces inside. (Banister, 1975)

No only because its majesty that made it a miracle, but because of the harmony of design, with all the elements balanced in true classical form, is sheer elegance. Its style is Art Deco. Art Deco Architect in America took the squares, circles, and triangles of plant geometry and merged them with the cone, cube, and sphere of solid geometry to create their own sacred geometry. All of those can be see from the Empire State building. . The shape of the Empire State Building is modeled from a pencil held skyward. Polygons are seen throughout the entire building, inside and out. The most noticeable being about the windows, they are rectangular in shape. Average window size is 4’2” time 6’8-1/2” tall. The building top was outfitted with elaborate lighting to call attention to itself while enhancing the nighttime skyline with the play of light. Stainless steel, which uses in the ESB for the mullions that race up the sides, is one of the great secrets of the building subtlety and aesthetic satisfaction. On

The Empire State Building

the base and up to the second setback is stone that has been cut into sets of vertical, convex bands, rather like a three-dimensional scallop motif. These bands make the lower part of the building appear stouter, and although they are the same limestone as the rest of the building, they nevertheless add coloration by virtue of the shadows they cast. The midsection seems firmer, more solid. From it, the upper tower rises unencumbered. The top five floors were chamfered, their corners cut away and softened so that the building reached a logical denouement. Chrome-nickel steels the color and texture of silver was used for the mullions that would run from the sixth to the eight-fifth stories. The marble walls inside the ESB lobby were devoid of ornamentation and carving except a subtle repetition of the convex grooving from the fa?ade. The designers theorized that by diminishing the decoration and by having great expanses of glass for the arcade’s virtues, the beauty of the marble’s natural color and veining would stand out. The fifth Avenue lobby received light from the window-overlooking Fifth Avenue, but artificial illumination was provided by 150-wall light bulbs set into a shelf like cornice. The light was aimed upward and outward upon the ceiling, from which it bounced downward into the room, but not before highlighting the ceiling, which was decorated with gold, platinum, and aluminum leaf in a design of circles and stars. It would have a vertical strip of illumination, “pencils of light,” that would shine from within each of the four faceted faces to light up the night sky, while directional beacon lights would plays, giving the building an unmistakable character and adding to the drama of the nighttime skyline. In the tall thin part, the mast, there are 5 panels of fluorescent tubes (red, blue, green, yellow & white) and those are turned automatically to the desired color. When u stand in the 102nd floor on clear days, we can see the surrounding countryside for distances up to 80 miles, looking into the neighboring states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, as well as New York. The Empire State Building has developed an annual lighting schedule, which honors national holidays and seasons. In 1955 the American society of Civil Engineers named the ESB one of the “Seven Modern Wonders of the Western Hemispheres.” The building was also named the eighth wonder of the modern world- the only one built in the 20th century. Perhaps to the call attention to its wonder of the world status, the ESB unveiled a series of glass paintings depicting the seven wonders of the ancient world, plus itself. (Banister, 1975)

The Empire State building is important for any reasons ranging from an architectural marvel to a revenue generator for the City of New York. Most important of all, it is a historic landmark. It is a symbol that every American knows and is proud of. Its functions are many: landmark, office building, tourist attraction, shopping mall, telecommunication/ broadcasting center, symbol of New York (and the U.S. to many foreigners). There are round up to 15,000 rooms for office space. There are many doctors, lawyer, insurance agencies as well as a lot of business involved in the fashion industry. It attracts more than 2 million visitors a years. I think it is the city’s and the world’s greatest skyscraper.

Bibliography

Tauranac, John The Empire State Building Scribner, NY 1995

Banister, Sir A history of Architecture 18th Ed, Charles Scribner’s sons, NY 1975