Emerging from the subway station at the corner of 42nd Street and 6th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan there is a sight that can’t be missed, the imposing presence of the Grace Building. Fifty-stories high and located at the northeast intersection of both streets, this office building has a side entrance facing 6th Avenue and a main entrance opposite Bryant Park on 42nd Street. It towers over this park with a monolithic stance, distinctly visible in the Manhattan Skyline when it is observed from the southern tip of the island. Grace Building can be seen in the same frame as both the Pan Am and Chrysler Buildings, which stand to its east side, and also the Empire State Building, which sits to the south of it. Located in the heart of Midtown, it …show more content…
This pattern has dark tinted windows arranged in groupings of seven with no marble divisions between them; the five windows in the center of the grouping are slightly wider than the two on the outer sides, again leading our eyes up to emphasize the height of the building. They again sit flat on the skin and these giant rectangular window groupings are arranged in three vertical rows. Above the side door we have the word “Grace”, written in black cutout letters, placed on the marble covering. To the side of this door, closer to 43rd Street, we have another door leading into the restaurant on the back ground floor, which is called “Six”.
The top floor, like the first floor, deviates once more from the standard window height pattern. Its windows are smaller in height than all the ones in the middle part of the building. This is imperceptible looking at it from the ground, where the only effect of this difference is the created illusion that the building is still going up into the sky and is much taller that it actually
of “the dizzying hustle of Eighth Avenue” or the Empire State Building (4). We can
While reading Amazing Grace, one is unable to escape the seemingly endless tales of hardship and pain. The setting behind this gripping story is the South Bronx of New York City, with the main focus on the Mott Haven housing project and its surrounding neighborhood. Here black and Hispanic families try to cope with the disparity that surrounds them. Mott Haven is a place where children must place in the hallways of the building, because playing outside is to much of a risk. The building is filled with rats and cockroaches in the summer, and lacks heat and decent water in the winter. This picture of the "ghetto" is not one of hope, but one of fear. Even the hospitals servicing the neighborhoods are dirty and lack the staff that is needed for quality basic care. If clean bed sheets are needed the patients must put them on themselves. This book is filled with stories of real people and their struggles. Each story, though different in content, has the same basic point, survival.
Throughout the semester I have grown accustomed to my surroundings. Well, at least for the most part. There is still one building that intrigues me to this very day. As I’d walk past it on my journey to Baruch College, I’d stare the entire time. The building seems like a simple rectangular building. However, some aspect of the architectural design captivates me. Strangely enough, army trucks are always parked alongside the building. However, upon attempting to research the building, I could not find it. I was too intimidated to venture in and inquire for the name. None of the bystanders I asked knew the name of the building, nor cared to.
Every culture left a mark of its quality on New York’s buildings that change over time: some are old, some are new, some are tall, and some are small. They might have a lot in common, but not one building is like the other. Diversity is what makes New York.
When walking through Boston's renowned Harvard Yard, one may scope out the mixture of architecture throughout its landscape. From the traditional Memorial Hall influenced by Romanesque churches, to the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard Yard is like a salad bowl of architecture. Perhaps because I am a lover of Victorian style structures, or maybe because of its interior's beauty and richness, Memorial Hall intrigued my interest most of all.
Mark Rothko is recognized as one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century and during his lifetime was touted as a leading figure in postwar American painting. He is one of the outstanding figures of Abstract Expressionism and one of the creators of Color Field Painting. As a result of his contribution of great talent and the ability to deliver exceptional works on canvas one of his final projects, the Rothko Chapel offered to him by Houston philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil, would ultimately anchor his name in the art world and in history. Without any one of the three, the man, the work on canvas, or the dream, the Rothko Chapel would never have been able to exist for the conceptualization of the artist, the creations on canvas and the architectural dynamics are what make the Rothko Chapel a product of brilliance.
The story is about a blind man who visits a married couple. He is an old friend of the wife, but the husband does not look forward to see the blind man (called Robert) because he does not know what to expect. He has never known any blind persons and his picture of these is based on a very little foundation. He has a lot of prejudices against Robert, but during his visit he changes his opinion about him. While watching TV together they get each other to know better and the husband finds out that he actually likes his company. They watch a program about cathedrals and while talking about cathedrals, Robert says that he does not even know how a cathedral looks like. The husband tries to explain what a cathedral is and how it is built, but Robert does not understand it. Therefore he suggests that they can draw one together. In that way Robert gets a picture of a cathedral in his mind and even though it is not as good as seeing it with his own eyes, it is good enough to give him an idea of what a cathedral is.
As with many short stories, Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” only has a few pages to develop his main character and create a scenario he or she must learn from or achieve something from or change because of. In such a short amount of space, word choice is integral in constructing a solid impression of the characters and their personalities in the reader’s mind. Carver’s simple use of language and sentence structure combined with his choice for point of view creates an intriguing tone and believable character interaction.
This essay will be comparing and contrasting two skyscrapers based in New York, The Chrysler Building and The Seagram Building. Both buildings are examples of specific architectural styles with unique histories. The Chrysler Building is an example of Art Deco, while the Seagram building is an example International Style Building. The Chrysler building finished construction in the early 1930s and at the time was the tallest building in the world.
With the Pantheon being built over 1700 years ago, it’s amazing that architects are still using features and techniques from this work of architecture in modern creations. The use of this type of classical architecture will continue to be used in works for public space due to its remarkable exterior appearance and it’s long lasting structural durability. When both Jesse hall and the Pantheon are compared it is possible to see their similarities from the types of domes that top each, their external facades, and their interior plan. While they share many similarities, the differences that Bell and Binder used in their creation make this work of architecture unique to many other public spaces.
Amazing Grace is a story that addresses the poverty and poor conditions in the South Bronx, which has been left out in the cold and subjected to poverty and a lack of proper accommodations for its residents. The city became a refuge for the homeless that have been relocated from Manhattan in an effort to give the downtown area a more desirable appearance. With the residents of the Bronx struggling to survive in the environment they were born into, Johnathan Kozol gives us a glimpse into what life in the Bronx is like.
But these contrived differences give rise to esthetic difficulties too. Because inherent differences—those that come from genuinely differing uses—are lacking among the buildings and their settings, the contrivances repre...
In order to create innovative public architecture, considered to be the most civic, costly, time intensive and physical of the arts, the project holds a degree of risk, strife, and negotiation . Overcoming these tasks and creating worthy public architecture is a challenge designers try to accomplish, but are rarely successful. The people involved in a potential public building, can be larger than the building itself. Public architecture tries to please all, even the doubters and critics, but because of the all these factors, a building is closer to failing than succeeding.
The essence of modern architecture lays in a remarkable strives to reconcile the core principles of architectural design with rapid technological advancement and the modernization of society. However, it took “the form of numerous movements, schools of design, and architectural styles, some in tension with one another, and often equally defying such classification, to establish modernism as a distinctive architectural movement” (Robinson and Foell). Although, the narrower concept of modernism in architecture is broadly characterized by simplification of form and subtraction of ornament from the structure and theme of the building, meaning that the result of design should derive directly from its purpose; the visual expression of the structure, particularly the visual importance of the horizontal and vertical lines typical for the International Style modernism, the use of industrially-produced materials and adaptation of the machine aesthetic, as well as the truth to materials concept, meaning that the true nat...
One World Trade Center (WTC) is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere measuring up at 1776 feet tall. The built output sets new standards of design, construction, and prestige. Its beauty in New York City’s magical skyline makes it an icon. It is the most recognised and desirable office address in the world. In this essay I plan to argue that the social, political and economic status of society has affected the built output of this building considerably, for the good. Making the building one of the best skyscrapers in the world.