#facadefridays

[nyc-urbanism]

#FacadeFridays – The Met Breuer has officially closed for good, with the collection moving back to the Metropolitan Museum's Fifth Avenue location in anticipation of reopening in August. The building will now house the Frick Collection, while the institution renovates its gilded Fifth Ave mansion. While housing the Met's contemporary art collection in Marcel Breuer's modernist masterpiece, the museum was a money loser and by transitioning the last three years of their lease to the Frick, the Met will save an estimated $45 million. The sublease to the Frick will end in 2023, when the owner of the landmark, the Whitney, will decide its fate. Marcel Breuer's Whitney Museum opened in 1966, giving the contemporary art museum its own modern identity. Wrapped in concrete and faced in 1,500 granite slabs each weighing 500 to 600 pounds, the building stands out from the surrounding limestone, brick and brownstone townhouses, and apartment buildings. Resembling an upside-down ziggurat, the front of the structure is surrounded by a moat looking trench, occupied by a sunken sculpture court, creating a gap between the sidewalk and the entrance, only bridged by a concrete span connecting Madison Avenue to the lobby. It was said that #Breuer didn’t want any windows at all for his bunker-like museum, settling for artificial lighting, which would have provided a better display for the artwork inside. For the interiors, Breuer used a vast array of materials including terrazzo, board-formed and bush-hammered concrete, bluestone for the floors, walnut parquet, and suspended precast #concrete coffers for the ceiling. The museum’s four floors offer 26,7000 square-feet of gallery space, 21,500 square feet of storage, a restaurant, and a 120 person film gallery. In 2016, the Whitney Museum moved into their new Renzo Piano-designed home on Gansevoort Street, leaving the Madison Avenue building to the Metropolitan Museum of Art who renamed it The #MetBreuer after the #brutalist architect. Before the Met moved in, the building underwent a $600 million renovation led by architects Beyer Blinder Belle. For more on the Met Breuer visit #BrutalNYC #linkinbio (at The Met Breuer) https://www.instagram.com/p/CB50BVbnQGj/?igshid=1gaby9fiqmjez

[nyc-urbanism]

#FacadeFridays – Endo Laboratories in Garden City, designed by Paul Rudolph in 1962. We had the pleasure of visiting this brutalist complex – part of our Brutal NYC survey – last week and it is an incredible work of art. Dubbed the “Fortress for Pharmaceuticals,” the castle-like structure featured Rudolph’s iconic corduroy concrete facade. Endo is a highly expressive machine choreographing the most effective use for its client. Rudolph expresses Endo’s functionality, then adds an additional layer that is sculptural – a material expression to create art. Endo merges interlocking volumes and forms to articulate the spatial specificity necessary for the highly precise program needed for manufacturing pharmaceuticals. While some of the interiors appear generic, such as open office or production floors, they represent the specifically calibrated spaces for operation and production. Rudolph’s baroque exuberance comes through most clearly in the curving staircases; one at the guest entrance, and one leading to the pod-like cafeteria that is raised above the roof garden. Turrets, which house the functional systems from seating alcoves and air intake valves are distinctly Rudolphian in the way the building explodes out from its orthodox envelope. Not everyone appreciated Rudolph’s modern design. The complex was clearly visible to motorists on the Meadowbrook Parkway who were not as accepting of Rudolph’s artistic license. The LI Parks Commission responded by planting nine large trees in front of Endo, blocking the view from the Parkway. Visit our Brutal NYC survey at nycurbanism.com to learn more about Endo and see the other brutalist sites in the survey. #brutalism #brutalist_architecture #brutalist #betonbrut #brutalnyc #brutalism #concrete #modernism #modernistarchitecture #paulrudolph #skyline #gardencity #archilovers #architect #architecturalphotography #urbanism (at Garden City, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBECNGgHuYt/?igshid=1ej6x51guz7ju

[nyc-urbanism]

#FacadeFridays – Only 1/5 of the original McKim Mead & White designed Brooklyn Museum was ever constructed – if completed, it would have been the largest museum structure in the world. These photos document the phases of construction between 1895 and 1926. The second photo shows a half-constructed museum, with the sole West Wing, which opened in 1897, and the Central Pavilion, completed in 1905. The East Wing wing (1910) is seen in the third photo; notice the bright white of the new wing's facade. The court on the northeast side was delayed due to World War I and not finished until 1926! The final image shows an early perspective of the original plan, which was never completed. The museum had a monumental staircase leading up to the central pavilion but by the 1930s plans to create a more "direct" entrance were floated. The Municipal Art Commission found their chance in 1934 when Mckim Mead & White principals were out of the country and demolished the staircase, greatly modifying the design of the museum. The auditorium was also demolished to create a new entrance on the ground floor. In 2004 the museum opened a new $63 million glass entrance pavilion and public plaza where the staircase was originally located. The entrance pavilion is supposed to recall the original staircase, but we would have preferred the staircase in the original design. What do you think? Tap the images above to purchase a fine-art print or visit our website for high-resolution views of the construction phases. #brooklynmuseum #danielchesterfrench #beauxarts #brooklynny #brooklynbotanicgardens #easternparkway #prospectpark #prospectparkbk #architecture #brooklynhistory #nyhistory #nychistory #architecturehistory #nyc #flatbush #flatbushave #grandarmyplaza #urbanism #nycurbanism (at Brooklyn Museum) https://www.instagram.com/p/B2XCuEan7QW/?igshid=cceporb64fxt

[nyc-urbanism]

(Part II/II - #FacadeFridays - Metropolitan Correctional Center, part of our #BrutalNYC project) MCC was created to house pre-trial inmates, or occasionally inmates serving short sentences, broken up into self-contained wings. With its close proximity to City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge, the building was designed to mold into its surroundings with no barred windows and minimum barbed wire. The design was heralded for its lack of prison-looking elements including guard towers, barbed wires, chain-linked fences, and large windowless walls, fitting in with the surrounding office buildings. Despite complaints about the heat in the summer, the facility was intended to be air-conditioned so it could use thick unbreakable plastic panels for the windows instead of bars. The exterior is clad in striated precast concrete, with horizontal rows of dark windows, and a caged recreational area on the roof. The $23 million prison sits adjacent to the Municipal Building and One Police Plaza behind Cass Gilbert's 1936 Federal Courthouse in Foley Square, which it is connected to via tunnels. The west wing of the building houses the U.S. Attorney’s Office with the same precast concrete façade, but larger glass windows. The two are connected by a subway electrical sub-station. MCC has housed famous federal inmates over the years including drug lord El Chapo, Jeffrey Epstein, Bernie Madoff, John Gotti, terrorist Omar Abdel-Rahman and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There have also been escape attempts over the years, the most publicized being in 1981 when a stolen helicopter unsuccessfully attempted to lift an inmate off the rooftop recreational center. Another attempt, this one successful, involved two inmates lowering themselves down from the second-story with an electrical cord. The men remain missing to this day. (Part of our #BrutalNYC project, documenting #brutalist #architecture in NYC. Visit nycurbanism.com.brutalnyc for more) (at Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1zaohaHTDE/?igshid=11xkjs9p5aszt

[nyc-urbanism]

#FacadeFridays - (Part II/II) The brutalist Metropolitan Correctional Center, or MCC, which is the maximum-security federal jail in Lower Manhattan that occasionally has famous residents. MCC was the final piece of the monumental Civic Center development that included One Police Plaza, Murray Bergtraum High School, 350 Pearl Street, Chatham Towers and Chatham Green. Part of a federal program that commissioned additional jails in Chicago and San Diego of the same name, Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan replaced the former Federal House of Detention at 427 West Street at West 11th Street. According to The New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger, unlike the West Street jail and the Tombs up the block, MCC was supposed to be “the most progressive” and “incorporate the most advanced theories of prison architecture.. each unit is meant to stress human scale.” Owned and operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, MCC's official mission is to "serve federal courts in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York by providing pretrial detention in conjunction with the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS)." Over the years, MCC has become overcrowded, the 12-story prison was originally designed to house 480 inmates (men and women) but has increased to 795 in recent years. Inside, MCC is organized around units of eight small, single-occupant cells. Prisoners are assigned to one of these self-contained units, the most notorious and secure being MCC’s 10-South wing, which houses the most dangerous inmates including terrorism suspects. Restricted from any human interaction, 10-South inmates are held in solitary confinement where the fluorescent lights remain on all day. The frosted glass windows offer no view of the outside world and the inmates often develop problems with their vision due to the inability to see distances. (Continued in part II - part of our #BrutalNYC project, documenting #brutalist #architecture in NYC) (at Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1zaLXxHXut/?igshid=r0huqofcmalh

[nyc-urbanism]

#FacadeFridays! Alwyn Court facade detail photograph by Berenice Abbott, 1938. Alwyn Court, built in 1907 was designed by Harde & Short in the French Renaissance style and clad in terra cotta ornament. The 12-story building featured luxury apartments, a typical apartment averaging 14 rooms and 5 bathrooms. The building was landmarked in 1966 and restored by Beyer Blinder Belle in 1980. Tap the photo to order one of our beautiful fine-art prints. #architecture #nychistory #nycarchitecture #architecturehistory #midtown #urbanism #lookup #bereniceabbott #hardeandshort #classicarchitecture #manhattan #historicpreservation #facade #ornamentation #architecturephotography #archilovers #nyhistory #historicarchitecture #nycurbanism (at Alwyn Court) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsyRJrbld0k/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1lh5ojm9btjco

[nyc-urbanism]

#FacadeFridays! Gilsey House, the extravagant Second Empire building on the corner of Broadway and 29th Street was built in 1877 as a grand hotel. The eight-story structure housed 300 rooms wrapped in a heavily ornamented cast iron facade with a three-story mansard roof. The hotel's guests included Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, and Diamond Jim Brady. The hotel closed in 1911 due to legal issues and the building was converted to residential in 1980 with a full restoration in 1992. Visit our facebook page to see more photos of Gilsey House. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Like what we share? Curating NYC Urbanism is a lot of work, we spend hours crafting each post with the intention of providing thoughtful content for our followers. Support us by visiting our website (link in profile) and buying a print or donating! 🙏 (nycurbanism.com) (at Gilsey House)

[nyc-urbanism]

Wow!!! The Herman Behr Mansion in #BrooklynHeights is absolutely incredible! The building, design by architect Frank Freeman in the #RichardsonianRomanesque style, was built in 1888 on the corner of Pierrepont and Henry Streets in Brooklyn Heights for industrialist Herman Behr. After Behr moved upstate the building was expanded for the Palm Hotel, which served as a brothel in its declining years before being converted into apartments in 1977. Freeman's mansion has been named the city's finest #Romanesque Revival house, featuring amazingly detailed #ornamentation including dragons, lizards, and lions. Freeman designed two other amazing buildings just blocks from the Behr Mansion, the #Brooklyn Savings Bank building on Pierrepont and Clinton (now demolished, second to last image above) and the old Brooklyn Fire Department Headquarters on Jay Street (still standing, last image). #FacadeFridays (at Herman Behr Mansion)