Building Seagram

In stock
€ 56,00
The Seagram building rises over New York's Park Avenue, seeming to float above the street with perfect lines of bronze and glass. Considered one of the greatest icons of twentieth-century architecture, the building was commissioned by Samuel Bronfman, founder of the Canadian distillery dynasty Seagram. Bronfma's daughter Phyllis Lambert was twenty-seven years old when she took over the search for an architect and chose Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), a pioneering modern master of what he termed skin and bones architecture. Mies, who designed the elegant, deceptively simple thirty-eight-story tower along with Philip Johnson (1906-2005), emphasized the beauty of structure and fine materials, and set the building back from the avenue, creating an urban oasis with the building s plaza. Through her choice, Lambert established her role as a leading architectural patron and singlehandedly changed the face of American urban architecture. Building Seagram is a comprehensive personal and scholarly history of a major building and its architectural, cultural, and urban legacies. Lambert makes use of previously unpublished personal archives, company correspondence, and photographs to tell an insider s view of the debates, resolutions, and unknown dramas of the building s construction, as well as its crucial role in the history of modern art and architectural culture.
Author Phyllis Lambert
Author Barry Bergdoll
Language English
Published 2013
Binding HBK
ISBN 9780300167672
  • We ship daily
  • Payment options