173-525: Axa Equitable Center (originally the Equitable Tower or Equitable Center West ) is an office skyscraper at 787 Seventh Avenue , between 51st and 52nd Streets , in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City . Completed in 1986 and designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes , the building measures 752 feet (229 m) tall with 54 stories. Equitable Center West was developed by
346-497: A Buttressed core . Trussed tube and X-bracing: Sol LeWitt Solomon " Sol " LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism . LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he preferred to "sculptures") but was prolific in a wide range of media including drawing, printmaking, photography, painting, installation, and artist's books. He has been
519-641: A frontage of 200 feet (61 m) on Seventh Avenue and 400 feet (120 m) along the side streets. Adjacent is 1285 Avenue of the Americas (1285 Sixth Avenue; Equitable Center East), designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and constructed from 1959 to 1961. The Sixth Avenue building occupies the eastern half of the city block. The sidewalk in front of the building is made of pink granite, extending eastward in front of 1285 Sixth Avenue. The sidewalks adjacent to 1285 Sixth Avenue comprise Urban Plaza North and South, designed by Scott Burton . Axa Equitable Center
692-694: A steel frame that supports curtain walls . This idea was invented by Viollet le Duc in his discourses on architecture. These curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a steel frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete . Modern skyscraper walls are not load-bearing , and most skyscrapers are characterized by large surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames and curtain walls. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with
865-543: A French restaurant called Le Bernardin . Palio's ground-floor bar measured 30 by 30 feet (9.1 by 9.1 m), with a 24-foot-tall (7.3 m) ceiling, and its second floor contained a dining room. The former bar room's walls still contain a mural by Sandro Chia entitled Palio , which depicts the Palio di Siena horse race. Le Bernardin, a Michelin-starred restaurant, occupies a less architecturally elaborate space, originally decorated with velvet upholstery. A third restaurant,
1038-541: A city consisting entirely of high-rise housing is the 16th-century city of Shibam in Yemen . Shibam was made up of over 500 tower houses, each one rising 5 to 11 stories high, with each floor being an apartment occupied by a single family. The city was built in this way in order to protect it from Bedouin attacks. Shibam still has the tallest mudbrick buildings in the world, with many of them over 30 m (98 ft) high. An early modern example of high-rise housing
1211-629: A cube made from more than 1,000 light-coloured bricks that measure five meters on each side. It was installed at the Kivik Art Centre in Lilla Stenshuvud, Sweden, in 2014. In 1968, LeWitt began to conceive sets of guidelines or simple diagrams for his two-dimensional works drawn directly on the wall, executed first in graphite , then in crayon , later in colored pencil and finally in chromatically rich washes of India ink , bright acrylic paint, and other materials. Since he created
1384-485: A different system of change to each of twenty-four possible combinations of a square divided into four equal parts, each containing one of the four basic types of lines LeWitt used (vertical, horizontal, diagonal left, and diagonal right). The result is four possible permutations for each of the twenty-four original units. The system used in Drawings Series I is what LeWitt termed 'Rotation,' Drawings Series II uses
1557-488: A dining hall with a baby grand piano, sofas, and a fireplace. There were two executive rooms at the 50th story: one facing east and the other facing west. The rooms had classical-inspired moldings, large woodwork, and custom furnishings designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Conway . The western room, which served as Equitable's main boardroom, was originally designed with a green carpet with a large circular table. The eastern room had Equitable's main dining room and contained Triptych ,
1730-704: A drawing with instructions. Installed in 2011, Lines in Four Directions in Flowers is made up of more than 7,000 plantings arranged in strategically configured rows. In his original proposal, the artist planned an installation of flower plantings of four different colors (white, yellow, red & blue) in four equal rectangular areas, in rows of four directions (vertical, horizontal, diagonal right & left) framed by evergreen hedges of about 2' height, with each color block comprising four to five species that bloom sequentially. In 2004, Six Curved Walls sculpture
1903-502: A fire in 1912 and replaced by the current Equitable Building at 120 Broadway . Equitable Life moved to 393 Seventh Avenue (now 11 Penn Plaza ) in 1924, and it moved to 1281 Sixth Avenue in 1961. Equitable had occupied all 1.8 million square feet (170,000 m) in its Sixth Avenue building for over twenty years. However, by the 1980s, it was looking to move decentralize its New York City office. The company split into four major divisions, of which only one, Equitable Capital, remained in
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#17327763354232076-685: A gold-colored frame. The basement concourse is connected to Rockefeller Center 's underground concourse, which in turn provides a connection to the New York City Subway 's 47th–50th Streets–Rockefeller Center station . Axa Center's basement concourse also contains the Athletic & Swim Club, which has a fitness center and a small swimming pool. Valerie Jaudon had created a mural for the swimming pool's wall, measuring 72 by 12 feet (21.9 by 3.7 m). Axa Center contains 1,740,000 square feet (162,000 m) of interior space. According to
2249-408: A jazz performance by Roy Nathanson in 1990. Equitable officials had their own private bathrooms as well as Chippendale furniture. The 49th and 50th floors comprised Equitable's executive suite and were connected by a stair. The 49th floor was designed with 14 dining rooms, each with works from a different artists. The dining rooms range from a small accommodation, with one table and four chairs, to
2422-751: A more classical approach came back to global skyscraper design, that remains popular today. Examples are the Wells Fargo Center , NBC Tower , Parkview Square , 30 Park Place , the Messeturm , the iconic Petronas Towers and Jin Mao Tower . Other contemporary styles and movements in skyscraper design include organic , sustainable , neo-futurist , structuralist , high-tech , deconstructivist , blob , digital , streamline , novelty , critical regionalist , vernacular , Neo Art Deco and neohistorist , also known as revivalist . 3 September
2595-613: A night receptionist and clerk he took in 1960 at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, would influence LeWitt's later work. At MoMA, LeWitt's co-workers included fellow artists Robert Ryman , Dan Flavin , Gene Beery , and Robert Mangold , and the future art critic and writer, Lucy Lippard who worked as a page in the library. Curator Dorothy Canning Miller 's now famous 1960 "Sixteen Americans" exhibition with work by Jasper Johns , Robert Rauschenberg , and Frank Stella created
2768-399: A particularly small surface area of what are conventionally thought of as walls. Because the walls are not load-bearing most skyscrapers are characterized by surface areas of windows made possible by the concept of steel frame and curtain wall. However, skyscrapers can also have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls and have a small surface area of windows. The concept of a skyscraper is
2941-420: A product of the industrialized age , made possible by cheap fossil fuel derived energy and industrially refined raw materials such as steel and concrete . The construction of skyscrapers was enabled by steel frame construction that surpassed brick and mortar construction starting at the end of the 19th century and finally surpassing it in the 20th century together with reinforced concrete construction as
3114-454: A proto-skyscraper, or to New York's seven-floor Equitable Life Building , built in 1870. Steel skeleton construction has allowed for today's supertall skyscrapers now being built worldwide. The nomination of one structure versus another being the first skyscraper, and why, depends on what factors are stressed. The structural definition of the word skyscraper was refined later by architectural historians, based on engineering developments of
3287-412: A proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line. Some structural engineers define a high-rise as any vertical construction for which wind is a more significant load factor than earthquake or weight. Note that this criterion fits not only high-rises but some other tall structures, such as towers . Different organizations from
3460-418: A retrofit of 1285 Sixth Avenue. The building is internally connected to 1285 Sixth Avenue at the ground floor, concourse, and first eight stories. The 787 Seventh Avenue building was known as Equitable Center West or Equitable Tower, while the 1285 Sixth Avenue building was known as Equitable Center East. The two structures were initially known collectively as the "Equitable Center". Leading from Seventh Avenue
3633-678: A significant departure from the rest of his practice, as he created these works with his own hands. LeWitt's gouaches are often created in series based on a specific motif. Past series have included Irregular Forms , Parallel Curves , Squiggly Brushstrokes and Web-like Grids . Although this loosely rendered composition may have been a departure from his earlier, more geometrically structured works visually, it nevertheless remained in alignment with his original artistic intent. LeWitt painstakingly made his own prints from his gouache compositions. In 2012, art advisor Heidi Lee Komaromi curated, "Sol LeWitt: Works on Paper 1983-2003", an exhibition revealing
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#17327763354233806-571: A skyscraper today, it was record setting. The building of tall buildings in the 1880s gave the skyscraper its first architectural movement, broadly termed the Chicago School , which developed what has been called the Commercial Style. The architect, Major William Le Baron Jenney , created a load-bearing structural frame. In this building, a steel frame supported the entire weight of the walls, instead of load-bearing walls carrying
3979-522: A small plot on the corner of Seventh Avenue and 52nd Street, Equitable had control of the entire city block. Equitable first announced its intention, in March 1981, to construct a tower on the newly acquired Seventh Avenue site. Demolition of existing buildings, such as the Victoria and Abbey hotels, began soon after. General contractor Turner Construction performed the demolitions manually, even though it had
4152-417: A small surface area of windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a tubular structure , and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind, seismic, and other lateral loads. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure and transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks , which in some cases is also structurally required. As of September 2023 , fifteen cities in
4325-406: A standard version for his modular cubes, circa 1965: the negative space between the beams would stand to the positive space of the sculptural material itself in a ratio of 8.5:1, or 17 2 {\displaystyle {\frac {17}{2}}} . The material would also be painted white instead of black, to avoid the "expressiveness" of the black color of earlier, similar pieces. Both
4498-476: A support system for avant-garde artists, balancing its role as publisher, exhibition space, retail space, and community center for the downtown arts scene, in that sense emulating the network of aspiring artists LeWitt knew and enjoyed as a staff member at the Museum of Modern Art. LeWitt collaborated with architect Stephen Lloyd to design a synagogue for his congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek ; he conceptualized
4671-522: A swell of excitement and discussion among the community of artists with whom LeWitt associated. LeWitt also became friends with Hanne Darboven , Eva Hesse , and Robert Smithson . LeWitt taught at several New York schools, including New York University and the School of Visual Arts , during the late 1960s. In 1980, LeWitt left New York for Spoleto, Italy . After returning to the United States in
4844-570: A system termed 'Mirror,' Drawings Series III uses 'Cross & Reverse Mirror,' and Drawings Series IV uses 'Cross Reverse'. In Wall Drawing #122 , first installed in 1972 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, the work contains "all combinations of two lines crossing, placed at random, using arcs from corners and sides, straight, not straight and broken lines" resulting in 150 unique pairings that unfold on
5017-470: A third of the total space, 500,000 square feet (46,000 m), was set to become available for lease in 2002 when Ernst & Young's lease expired. Much of Ernst & Young's space was taken in 2001 by law firm Sidley Austin , which had to renovate 11 floors within two months after its old World Trade Center offices were destroyed in the September 11 attacks . Another lessee that had been displaced from
5190-521: A time, the tallest of which is the 97.2 m (319 ft) high Asinelli Tower. A Florentine law of 1251 decreed that all urban buildings be immediately reduced to less than 26 m. Even medium-sized towns of the era are known to have proliferations of towers, such as the 72 towers that ranged up to 51 m height in San Gimignano . The medieval Egyptian city of Fustat housed many high-rise residential buildings, which Al-Muqaddasi in
5363-691: A trio of landscapes by Brad Davis. Equitable Holdings (originally the Equitable Life Assurance Society) had constructed several structures in New York City since the late 19th century, as well as several across the United States. The first New York City office was the Equitable Life Building on 120 Broadway in Lower Manhattan , completed in 1870. The Equitable Life Building was destroyed by
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5536-466: A variety of shapes, and it could be riveted, ensuring strong connections. The simplicity of a steel frame eliminated the inefficient part of a shear wall, the central portion, and consolidated support members in a much stronger fashion by allowing both horizontal and vertical supports throughout. Among steel's drawbacks is that as more material must be supported as height increases, the distance between supporting members must decrease, which in turn increases
5709-469: A vertical tube-like structural system capable of resisting lateral forces in any direction by cantilevering from the foundation". Closely spaced interconnected exterior columns form the tube. Horizontal loads (primarily wind) are supported by the structure as a whole. Framed tubes allow fewer interior columns, and so create more usable floor space, and about half the exterior surface is available for windows. Where larger openings like garage doors are required,
5882-620: A work of art for Paula Cooper Gallery 's inaugural show in 1968, an exhibition to benefit the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, thousands of LeWitt's drawings have been installed directly on the surfaces of walls. Between 1969 and 1970 he created four "Drawings Series", which presented different combinations of the basic element that governed many of his early wall drawings. In each series he applied
6055-415: Is set back 10 feet (3.0 m) from the street on each side. A public galleria runs from north to south, dividing the lowest six floors of the building. The seventh and eighth stories span the north and south ends of the galleria. The north and south elevations rise with three setbacks , while the west and east elevations rise without setbacks. The setbacks on the north and south elevations are placed at
6228-415: Is a five-story atrium, which serves as the main lobby. The atrium is an 80-foot (24 m) cube. Its large size is in part due to a commercial holdout who did not leave the site until construction had already started. At the center of the atrium, Burton designed Atrium Furnishment , which consists of a 40-foot-wide (12 m) marble semicircular banquette and a circular marble fountain with trees. Though
6401-489: Is a loading dock at the eastern end of the 52nd Street elevation. There are double-height mechanical spaces at each setback. These double-height floors contain recessed windows to give the impression that the red pilasters are massive piers ; the recessed windows were inspired by those in Art Deco buildings. The recessed windows on the double-height floors also wrap around to the west and east elevations. The topmost penthouse
6574-408: Is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources define skyscrapers as being at least 100 meters (330 ft) or 150 meters (490 ft) in height, though there is no universally accepted definition, other than being very tall high-rise buildings . Skyscrapers may host offices, hotels, residential spaces, and retail spaces. One common feature of skyscrapers is having
6747-573: Is also near 810 Seventh Avenue to the northwest, the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel and Flatotel New York City to the north, Credit Lyonnais Building to the northeast, 1271 Avenue of the Americas to the southeast, The Michelangelo to the south, and the Winter Garden Theatre to the southwest. The site occupied by Axa Equitable Center had contained the Victoria and Abbey hotels just before
6920-469: Is embellished with large triumphal-arched windows on its west and east elevations, which illuminate the Equitable boardrooms. The boardroom windows measure 42 feet (13 m) in diameter and 53 feet (16 m) tall. While the original plan had been to use ocular windows, Barnes instead used triumphal arches because they allowed more light to enter the boardroom spaces. At the middle of the city block
7093-491: Is housed in a three-story 27,000-square-foot (2,500 m ) historic mill building in the heart of MASS MoCA's campus fully restored by Bruner/Cott and Associates architects (and outfitted with a sequence of new interior walls constructed to LeWitt's specifications.) The exhibition consists of 105 drawings — comprising nearly one acre of wall surface — that LeWitt created over 40 years from 1968 to 2007 and includes several drawings never before seen, some of which LeWitt created for
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7266-406: Is important in most building design, but particularly for skyscrapers since even a small chance of catastrophic failure is unacceptable given the tremendous damage such failure would cause. This presents a paradox to civil engineers : the only way to assure a lack of failure is to test for all modes of failure, in both the laboratory and the real world. But the only way to know of all modes of failure
7439-433: Is largely from the force of the building material itself. In most building designs, the weight of the structure is much larger than the weight of the material that it will support beyond its own weight. In technical terms, the dead load , the load of the structure, is larger than the live load , the weight of things in the structure (people, furniture, vehicles, etc.). As such, the amount of structural material required within
7612-483: Is not about the singular hand of the artist; it is the idea behind each work that surpasses the work itself. In the early 21st century, LeWitt's work, especially the wall drawings, has been critically acclaimed for its economic perspicacity. Though modest—most exist as simple instructions on a sheet of paper—the drawings can be made again and again and again, anywhere in the world, without the artist needing to be involved in their production. His auction record of $ 749,000
7785-732: Is now installed at Altona Town Hall, Hamburg . Other major exhibitions since include Sol LeWitt Drawings 1958-1992 , which was organized by the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, the Netherlands in 1992 which traveled over the next three years to museums in the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland , France, Spain, and the United States; and in 1996, the Museum of Modern Art, New York mounted a traveling survey exhibition: "Sol LeWitt Prints: 1970-1995". A major LeWitt retrospective
7958-490: Is the galleria from 51st to 52nd Street. It is one of six passageways that form 6½ Avenue , a set of full-block passageways from 51st to 57th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. The passageway was built as a "through-block connection" under the Special Midtown District, created in 1982. The space measures 45 feet (14 m) wide and 91 feet (28 m) tall underneath the north and south ends, where
8131-399: Is the global commemorative day for skyscrapers, called "Skyscraper Day". New York City developers competed among themselves, with successively taller buildings claiming the title of "world's tallest" in the 1920s and early 1930s, culminating with the completion of the 318.9 m (1,046 ft) Chrysler Building in 1930 and the 443.2 m (1,454 ft) Empire State Building in 1931,
8304-419: Is to learn from previous failures. Thus, no engineer can be absolutely sure that a given structure will resist all loadings that could cause failure; instead, one can only have large enough margins of safety such that a failure is acceptably unlikely. When buildings do fail, engineers question whether the failure was due to some lack of foresight or due to some unknowable factor. The load a skyscraper experiences
8477-829: The AXA Center , New York (1984–85); The Swiss Re headquarters Americas in Armonk, New York, the Atlanta City Hall , Atlanta ( Wall Drawing #581 , 1989/90); the Walter E. Washington Convention Center , Washington, DC ( Wall Drawing #1103 , 2003); the Conrad Hotel , New York ( Loopy Doopy (Blue and Purple) , 1999); the Albright-Knox Art Gallery , Buffalo ( Wall Drawing #1268: Scribbles: Staircase (AKAG) , 2006/2010); Akron Art Museum , Akron (2007);
8650-776: The Columbus Circle Subway Station , New York; The Jewish Museum (New York) , New York; the Green Center for Physics at MIT , Cambridge ( Bars of Colors Within Squares (MIT) , 2007); the Embassy of the United States in Berlin ; the Wadsworth Atheneum ; and John Pearson's House, Oberlin, Ohio . The artist's last public wall drawing, Wall Drawing #1259: Loopy Doopy (Springfield) (2008), is at
8823-855: The First National Bank of Chicago , just east of the galleria, contained Agnes Denes 's artwork Hypersphere: The Earth in the Shape of the Universe , a set of 144 glass panels. LeWitt commissioned a set of six geometric artworks for the walls of the galleria entitled Wall Drawing: Bands of Lines in Four Colors and Four Directions, Separated by Gray Bands . As the name indicates, LeWitt's artwork consists of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal bands in four colors, created in acrylic paint on limestone. These works, which are up to 106 feet (32 m) high, are illuminated by natural light coming through
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#17327763354238996-502: The New York City Department of City Planning , the building has a gross floor area of 1,633,544 square feet (151,761.2 m). Equitable was allowed to include an additional 49,161 square feet (4,567.2 m) in exchange for providing privately owned public space . The steel superstructure contains two-story outrigger trusses wrapping around the 11th and 36th stories, which transfer the structural loads and absorb
9169-477: The School of Visual Arts while also pursuing his interest in design at Seventeen magazine, where he did paste-ups, mechanicals, and photostats. In 1955, he was a graphic designer in the office of architect I.M. Pei for a year. Around that time, LeWitt also discovered the work of the late 19th-century photographer Eadweard Muybridge , whose studies in sequence and locomotion were an early influence for him. These experiences, combined with an entry-level job as
9342-689: The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. After earning a BFA from Syracuse University in 1949, LeWitt traveled to Europe where he was exposed to Old Master paintings. Shortly thereafter, he served in the Korean War , first in California , then Japan , and finally Korea . LeWitt moved to New York City in 1953 and set up a studio on the Lower East Side, in the old Ashkenazi Jewish settlement on Hester Street . During this time he studied at
9515-643: The " Seven Sisters ", were built between 1947 and 1953; and one, the Main building of Moscow State University , was the tallest building in Europe for nearly four decades (1953–1990). Other skyscrapers in the style of Socialist Classicism were erected in East Germany ( Frankfurter Tor ), Poland ( PKiN ), Ukraine ( Hotel Moscow ), Latvia ( Academy of Sciences ), and other Eastern Bloc countries. Western European countries also began to permit taller skyscrapers during
9688-698: The "airy" synagogue building, with its shallow dome supported by "exuberant wooden roof beams", an homage to the wooden synagogues of eastern Europe . In 1981, LeWitt was invited by the Fairmount Park Art Association (currently known as the Association for Public Art ) to propose a public artwork for a site in Fairmount Park . He selected the long, rectangular plot of land known as the Reilly Memorial and submitted
9861-460: The 10th century described as resembling minarets . Nasir Khusraw in the early 11th century described some of them rising up to 14 stories, with roof gardens on the top floor complete with ox-drawn water wheels for irrigating them. Cairo in the 16th century had high-rise apartment buildings where the two lower floors were for commercial and storage purposes and the multiple stories above them were rented out to tenants . An early example of
10034-495: The 12th, 34th, and 50th stories, with each setback being 14 feet (4.3 m) deep. Barnes intended for the setbacks to recall those on 30 Rockefeller Plaza and the International Building , two of Rockefeller Center's tallest buildings. One of the early plans for Axa Equitable Center, which was illustrated in a monograph of Barnes's work, was for the massing to instead contain setbacks on the west and east, with
10207-465: The 1880s that had enabled construction of tall multi-story buildings. This definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry , which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicago's Monadnock Building . What is the chief characteristic of the tall office building? It is lofty. It must be tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch
10380-600: The 1960s now use a tube design derived from Khan's structural engineering principles, examples including the construction of the World Trade Center , Aon Center , Petronas Towers , Jin Mao Building , and most other supertall skyscrapers since the 1960s. The strong influence of tube structure design is also evident in the construction of the current tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa , which uses
10553-522: The 1960s using the modular form of the square in arrangements of varying visual complexity. In Issue 5 of 0 To 9 magazine , LeWitt's work 'Sentences on Conceptual Art' was published.This piece became one of the most widely cited artists' writings of the 1960s, exploring the relationship between art, practice and art criticism . In 1979, LeWitt participated in the design for the Lucinda Childs Dance Company's piece Dance . In
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#173277633542310726-406: The 1960s, LeWitt denied that approaches such as Minimalism , Conceptualism , and Process Art were merely technical or illustrative of philosophy. In his Paragraphs on Conceptual Art , LeWitt asserted that Conceptual art was neither mathematical nor intellectual but intuitive, given that the complexity inherent to transforming an idea into a work of art was fraught with contingencies. LeWitt's art
10899-603: The 1960s, according to the CTBUH, the skyscraper has been reoriented away from a symbol for North American corporate power to instead communicate a city or nation's place in the world. Skyscraper construction entered a three-decades-long era of stagnation in 1930 due to the Great Depression and then World War II . Shortly after the war ended, Russia began construction on a series of skyscrapers in Moscow . Seven, dubbed
11072-807: The 26th century BC. It was not surpassed in height for thousands of years, the 160 m (520 ft) Lincoln Cathedral having exceeded it in 1311–1549, before its central spire collapsed. The latter in turn was not surpassed until the 555-foot (169 m) Washington Monument in 1884. However, being uninhabited, none of these structures actually comply with the modern definition of a skyscraper. High-rise apartments flourished in classical antiquity . Ancient Roman insulae in imperial cities reached 10 and more stories. Beginning with Augustus (r. 30 BC-14 AD), several emperors attempted to establish limits of 20–25 m for multi-stories buildings, but were met with only limited success. Lower floors were typically occupied by shops or wealthy families, with
11245-400: The 50th floor, but it was canceled after Equitable wished to lease that floor as offices. The 1997 chess match of Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov , in which IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov , took place at Equitable Center as well. By 2000, the building's tenants included Bank One , BNP Paribas , Hicks Muse , and Willkie Farr & Gallagher. About
11418-610: The 50th-floor penthouse. Other tenants in the 2000s included investment manager New Mountain Capital as well as IT company SAS Institute . Palio's space became part of Piano Due, which closed in 2011 and was replaced by the Aldo Sohm Wine Bar in 2014. Axa Equitable placed 787 Seventh Avenue and 1285 Sixth Avenue for sale in August 2015. At the time, 787 Seventh Avenue was almost completely occupied, with only 1.6 percent of
11591-637: The 57 m (187 ft) tall 1924 Marx House in Düsseldorf , the 65 m (213 ft) tall Borsigturm in Berlin , built in 1924, the 65 m (213 ft) tall Hansahochhaus in Cologne , Germany, built in 1925; the 61 m (200 ft) Kungstornen (Kings' Towers) in Stockholm , Sweden, which were built 1924–25; the 77 m (253 ft) Ullsteinhaus in Berlin, Germany, built in 1927;
11764-613: The 89 m (292 ft) Edificio Telefónica in Madrid , Spain, built in 1929; the 87.5 m (287 ft) Boerentoren in Antwerp, Belgium, built in 1932; the 66 m (217 ft) Prudential Building in Warsaw , Poland, built in 1934; and the 108 m (354 ft) Torre Piacentini in Genoa , Italy, built in 1940. After an early competition between New York City and Chicago for
11937-537: The AXA Equitable Building) is at 787 Seventh Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City . The building's rectangular land lot occupies the western half of the city block bounded by Seventh Avenue to the west, 51st Street to the south, Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) to the east, and 52nd Street to the north. The site covers 80,333 square feet (7,463.2 m), with
12110-479: The American grill Sam's Restaurant, opened in late 1987. While Le Bernardin continued to operate in the building in the 2010s, the old Palio space has operated as the Aldo Sohm Wine Bar since 2014. Meanwhile, Sam's was replaced by Judson Grill and then Bar Americain. The building has 31 passenger elevators, as well as three freight elevators and two vehicular elevators. Twenty-six of the passenger elevators lead from
12283-496: The Arts , Center for Arts Information, and Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts , which were offered below-market-rate rents. In addition, accounting firm Ernst & Whinney (later Ernst & Young) took space in the tower. By October 1987, when Black Monday occurred, Equitable Tower was fully leased despite charging higher rents per square foot than other buildings in the area. The American grill Sam's Restaurant opened at ground level at
12456-551: The Benton murals in 1984 for a reported $ 3.1 million. The murals were relocated to 1290 Sixth Avenue in the mid-1990s. The southern passageway of the lobby has a niche, which contains Paul Manship's sculpture Day . Manship had crafted Day in 1938 as part of a set of four bronze works called The Moods of Time . A branch of the Whitney Museum of American Art occupied space in two storefront galleries from 1986 to 1992. There
12629-503: The CTBUH, is the distance between the highest floor and its architectural top (excluding antennae, flagpole or other functional extensions). Vanity height first appeared in New York City skyscrapers as early as the 1920s and 1930s but supertall buildings have relied on such uninhabitable extensions for on average 30% of their height, raising potential definitional and sustainability issues. The current era of skyscrapers focuses on sustainability , its built and natural environments, including
12802-605: The Equitable Gallery. Another tenant was the Cathedral of St. John the Divine , which operated two stores with souvenirs from the city's museums. The Urbanspace food hall has also operated at ground level since 2020. From the building's opening in early 1986, Equitable officials wanted to operate what Newsday described as "nothing but the best of restaurants". Initially, there was an Italian restaurant called Palio and
12975-523: The Equitable Life Assurance Society (later renamed Equitable Holdings , part of Axa ) adjacent to Equitable's existing skyscraper at 1285 Avenue of the Americas . The facade is clad in granite , applied in a two-tone pattern of white horizontal and red vertical bands. The building has three setbacks , as well as a penthouse at the top with arched windows. Equitable acquired an extensive collection of artwork to display in
13148-604: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Dia:Beacon , The Jewish Museum in Manhattan, Pérez Art Museum Miami , Florida, MASS MoCA , North Adams, Massachusetts Institute of Technology List Art Center's Public Art Collection, Cambridge , National Gallery of Art , Washington D.C., and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden . The erection of Double Negative Pyramid by Sol LeWitt at Europos Parkas in Vilnius, Lithuania
13321-573: The Sixth Avenue building. At the time, office space in Midtown Manhattan was in high demand and Equitable felt it could lease its Sixth Avenue building at a great profit. After considering relocating elsewhere in the United States, Equitable planned to expand its Sixth Avenue headquarters by 1980. Over the next year, it acquired an adjacent L-shaped site extending to Seventh Avenue, measuring 67,000 square feet (6,200 m). Except for
13494-716: The United States Courthouse in Springfield, Massachusetts (designed by architect Moshe Safdie ). Wall Drawing #599: Circles 18 (1989) — a bull's eye of concentric circles in alternating bands of yellow, blue, red and white — was installed at the lobby of the Jewish Community Center , New York, in 2013. In the 1980s, in particular after a trip to Italy, LeWitt started using gouache , an opaque water-based paint, to produce free-flowing abstract works in contrasting colors. These represented
13667-407: The United States and Europe define skyscrapers as buildings at least 150 m (490 ft) in height or taller, with " supertall " skyscrapers for buildings higher than 300 m (984 ft) and " megatall " skyscrapers for those taller than 600 m (1,969 ft). The tallest structure in ancient times was the 146 m (479 ft) Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt , built in
13840-578: The Wadsworth Atheneum's sixth MATRIX exhibition, providing instructions for a second wall drawing. MoMA gave LeWitt his first retrospective in 1978-79. The exhibition traveled to various American venues. For the 1987 Skulptur Projekte Münster , Germany, he realized Black Form: Memorial to the Missing Jews , a rectangular wall of black concrete blocks for the center of a plaza in front of an elegant, white Neoclassical government building; it
14013-490: The Whitney branch the "latest and largest addition to an extensive collaboration between a major art museum and the corporate world." The building was technically owned by Equitable Real Estate Investment Management, which leased space to Equitable for its own corporate offices. Within a year of Equitable Tower's opening, eighty percent of the space had been leased. Among the tenants were arts organizations American Council for
14186-436: The World Trade Center was investment banking firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods , which borrowed space from BNP Paribas and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz before leasing its own fourth-floor space. The Palio restaurant closed in 2002, and Judson Grill closed two years later; the latter was replaced by Bar Americain. Citigroup leased a major block of space, covering 250,000 square feet (23,000 m), in late 2005, including
14359-497: The amount of material that must be supported. This becomes inefficient and uneconomic for buildings above 40 stories tall as usable floor spaces are reduced for supporting column and due to more usage of steel. A new structural system of framed tubes was developed by Fazlur Rahman Khan in 1963. The framed tube structure is defined as "a three dimensional space structure composed of three, four, or possibly more frames, braced frames, or shear walls, joined at or near their edges to form
14532-459: The area at the time, in spite of a slight decline in New York City's office market. Equitable planned to sell its Sixth Avenue headquarters to get a tax deduction on the new building. The old Sixth Avenue structure would be partially occupied by Paine Webber . Equitable officials were not worried about the fact that Seventh Avenue was not a prestigious executive address. This was a contrast to two decades earlier, when officials had thought Sixth Avenue
14705-569: The art and public spaces, the building "lacks a kind of freshness, as if everyone involved in this project were doing it by rote". Equitable was the first major company to erect a headquarters on Seventh Avenue in Midtown. At the time of its completion, the building was the only major office structure on Seventh Avenue. This led Architectural Record to say: "Equitable Life Assurance Society has heeded Horace Greeley 's dictum, ' Go West ', though not, to be sure, very far west." According to Reynolds,
14878-425: The art collection: "AXA Equitable Life Insurance wished to project a positive image of itself to New Yorkers—as progressive, leading edge and civic-minded, as demonstrated by this indisputable gift to the city." Conversely, The New Criterion wrote that the collection was "not art but money", in that it was a showcase of Equitable's wealth rather than a display of art for its own sake. Goldberger thought that, even with
15051-431: The artwork was a "statement of [Equitable's] belief not only in the commercial and promotional value of art, but also in the role art can play in the quality of corporate and communal life". Progressive Architecture characterized the collection as "one of the more successful corporate art programs to come along in some time", as opposed to the "resolutely ho-hum" character of much of Equitable Tower. Phaidon Press wrote of
15224-459: The atrium in general has a white marble floor, Atrium Furnishment is surrounded by red granite pavers, which were intended to provide a contrast between the circular artwork and the cubical atrium. A bronze band surrounds the artwork as well. On the eastern wall of the atrium, facing the main archway on Seventh Avenue, is a Lichtenstein artwork, Mural with Blue Brushstroke , which measures 68 by 32 feet (20.7 by 9.8 m). Lichtenstein had painted
15397-409: The building from 450,000 to 300,000 square feet (42,000 to 28,000 m), while the lease of another major tenant, UBS , was scheduled to expire in 2026. As of 2024, several financial and law firms occupy the space, including: The design of Equitable Tower was largely criticized upon its completion. Paul Goldberger called the building "54 stories of ambivalence", saying it "adds almost no grace to
15570-444: The building's construction encouraged office development to move west from Sixth to Seventh Avenue, just as the construction of Rockefeller Center had encouraged a similar westward movement from Fifth to Sixth Avenue. Architectural Record described the building as having been proposed "amidst a swirl of controversy over what some see as an over-concentration of new skyscraper construction in Manhattan's crowded midtown". Nonetheless,
15743-569: The building's ground floor, closed in 2018. A helicopter crashed on Axa Equitable Center's roof on June 10, 2019, killing the pilot and sparking a fire that prompted the building's evacuation. No one else was hurt in the crash, and the helicopter's wreckage was removed. The Urbanspace food hall opened at the ground level of Axa Equitable Center in early 2020. In 2022, following the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City , BNP Paribas renovated its offices at 787 Seventh Avenue to encourage workers to return to
15916-420: The building's public spaces. There is a public galleria from 51st to 52nd Street, which forms part of 6½ Avenue , as well as an arched entrance atrium from Seventh Avenue. The complex also includes an underground concourse, several restaurants, and a corporate auditorium. The building was proposed in the early 1980s and, after the site was acquired, Equitable's board approved the plans for the tower in 1983. When
16089-510: The building. During construction that July, a construction hoist fell from Equitable Tower and killed two workers. By early 1986, Equitable had finished the atrium, galleria, plazas, and lobby, as well as a branch of the Whitney Museum. The company had taken the top third of the building and expected to rent out the remaining stories at a rate of $ 40 to $ 50 per square foot ($ 430 to $ 540/m), a higher rate than at nearby office buildings. At
16262-501: The city government's permission to use dynamite, since it wished to minimize disruption to neighboring structures. During one demolition in 1982, a steel beam fell through the roof of a nearby deli. Equitable's board officially approved plans in February 1983 to move its headquarters to a Seventh Avenue building. Edward Larrabee Barnes was hired as the architect. Equitable's new tower was one of several high-rise developments planned for
16435-424: The classical designs of the early skyscrapers , instead embracing the uniform international style ; many older skyscrapers were redesigned to suit contemporary tastes or even demolished—such as New York's Singer Building , once the world's tallest skyscraper. German -American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became one of the world's most renowned architects in the second half of the 20th century. He conceived
16608-648: The creation of a significant number of early skyscrapers, though none of these were steel reinforced and few remain today. Height limits and fire restrictions were later introduced. In the late 1800s, London builders found building heights limited due to issues with existing buildings. High-rise development in London is restricted at certain sites if it would obstruct protected views of St Paul's Cathedral and other historic buildings. This policy, 'St Paul's Heights', has officially been in operation since 1927. Concerns about aesthetics and fire safety had likewise hampered
16781-476: The design. Suzanne Stephens said the criticism showed that Barnes was "more adept at chipping, chamfering and chiseling buildings with rotated geometries". By contrast, architectural writer Donald M. Reynolds said the building was "one of the largest and most comprehensive collaborations of architecture, urban planning, and public art since Rockefeller Center". The artwork was received more positively by architectural and art critics. The New York Times reported that
16954-543: The development of Equitable Tower directly improved the character of the surrounding area, particularly the Midtown portion of Seventh Avenue, in the mid-1980s. Following the tower's construction, William Zeckendorf developed the nearby One Worldwide Plaza to improve the character of Eighth Avenue . Though developers praised the development boom that followed Equitable Tower's construction, civic organizations worried that theaters north of Times Square would be quickly replaced by offices. Skyscraper A skyscraper
17127-651: The development of skyscrapers across continental Europe for the first half of the 20th century. By 1940, there were around 100 high-rise buildings in Europe ( List of early skyscrapers ). Some examples of these are the 43 m (141 ft) tall 1898 Witte Huis (White House) in Rotterdam ; the 51.5 m (169 ft) tall PAST Building (1906–1908) in Warsaw ; the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool, completed in 1911 and 90 m (300 ft) high;
17300-438: The draftsmen to fill in areas of the wall by scribbling with graphite. The scribbling occurs at six different densities, which are indicated on the artist's diagrams and then mapped out in string on the surface of the wall. The gradations of scribble density produce a continuum of tone that implies three dimensions. The largest scribble wall drawing, Wall Drawing #1268 , is on view at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery . According to
17473-446: The duration of an exhibition; they are then destroyed, giving the work in its physical form an ephemeral quality. They can be installed, removed, and then reinstalled in another location, as many times as required for exhibition purposes. When transferred to another location, the number of walls can change only by ensuring that the proportions of the original diagram are retained. Permanent murals by LeWitt can be found at, among others,
17646-402: The early 1960s Bangladeshi-American structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan , considered the "father of tubular designs " for high-rises, discovered that the dominating rigid steel frame structure was not the only system apt for tall buildings, marking a new era of skyscraper construction in terms of multiple structural systems . His central innovation in skyscraper design and construction
17819-425: The early 1960s, LeWitt first began to create his "structures," a term he used to describe his three-dimensional work. His frequent use of open, modular structures originates from the cube , a form that influenced the artist's thinking from the time that he first became an artist. After creating an early body of work made up of closed-form wooden objects, heavily lacquered by hand, in the mid-1960s he "decided to remove
17992-604: The end of that year. By 1990, Equitable was in the process of being acquired by the French company Axa . Within two years, Equitable had gone public and downsized most of its employees, leaving only 2,200 working at 787 Seventh Avenue. The company was considering leaving for the suburbs, given the high costs of occupying office space in midtown, but ultimately decided against it. The Whitney branch in Equitable Tower closed in 1992, when its original agreement expired, and it
18165-416: The environment and loaded structures with decorative elements and extravagant finishes. This approach to design was opposed by Fazlur Khan and he considered the designs to be whimsical rather than rational. Moreover, he considered the work to be a waste of precious natural resources. Khan's work promoted structures integrated with architecture and the least use of material resulting in the smallest impact on
18338-454: The environment. The next era of skyscrapers will focus on the environment including performance of structures, types of material, construction practices, absolute minimal use of materials/natural resources, embodied energy within the structures, and more importantly, a holistically integrated building systems approach. Modern building practices regarding supertall structures have led to the study of "vanity height". Vanity height, according to
18511-557: The exhibition "Selections from The LeWitt Collection" at the Weatherspoon Art Museum assembled approximately 100 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and photographs, among them works by Andre, Alice Aycock , Bernd and Hilla Becher , Jan Dibbets , Jackie Ferrara , Gilbert and George , Alex Katz , Robert Mangold , Brice Marden , Mario Merz , Shirin Neshat , Pat Steir , and many other artists. LeWitt's work
18684-426: The facades into horizontal spandrel bands of buff-colored limestone, which alternate with glass windows on each floor. Barnes had used these materials because they harmonized with the colors and materials used on the neighboring buildings. Axa Equitable Center uses 5,800 panes of glass on its facade. The main entrance on Seventh Avenue is set within a semicircular-headed arch measuring 72 feet (22 m) tall. There
18857-506: The firm's physical offices. In addition, a sign with the name "BNP Paribas" was installed above the Seventh Avenue entrance, replacing Equitable's name. Although 787 Seventh Avenue had an occupancy rate of 96 percent by early 2024, its value had declined by $ 123 million since the pandemic; at the time, the building was estimated to be worth $ 917 million. The reduced valuation reflected the fact that BNP Paribas had downsized its space at
19030-528: The first building in the world to feature a metal-framed glass curtain wall , a design element which creates light, airy interiors and has since been used the world over as a defining feature of skyscrapers". Further developments led to what many individuals and organizations consider the world's first skyscraper, the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago, built in 1884–1885. While its original height of 42.1 m (138 ft) does not even qualify as
19203-482: The first cement Cube was built in a park in Basel . From 1990 onwards, LeWitt conceived multiple variations on a tower to be constructed using concrete blocks. In a shift away from his well-known geometric vocabulary of forms, the works LeWitt realized in the late 1990s indicate vividly the artist's growing interest in somewhat random curvilinear shapes and highly saturated colors. In 2007, LeWitt conceived 9 Towers ,
19376-400: The gallery walls. LeWitt further expanded on this theme, creating variations such as Wall Drawing #260 at the Museum of Modern Art , New York, which systematically runs through all possible two-part combinations of arcs and lines. Conceived in 1995, Wall Drawing #792: Black rectangles and squares underscores LeWitt's early interest in the intersections between art and architecture. Spanning
19549-479: The glass façade skyscraper and, along with Norwegian Fred Severud , designed the Seagram Building in 1958, a skyscraper that is often regarded as the pinnacle of modernist high-rise architecture. Skyscraper construction surged throughout the 1960s. The impetus behind the upswing was a series of transformative innovations which made it possible for people to live and work in "cities in the sky". In
19722-471: The highest-ranking executives remaining at 787 Seventh Avenue. Much of Equitable's space at 787 Seventh Avenue was taken by law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher , and the floor just below the penthouse was occupied by Paramount Capital. With Equitable's relocation, the America Today murals were moved to 1290 Sixth Avenue. In the late 1990s, David Emil planned to open a restaurant called Night Sky on
19895-473: The hundred-story John Hancock Center and the massive 442 m (1,450 ft) Willis Tower . Other pioneers of this field include Hal Iyengar , William LeMessurier , and Minoru Yamasaki , the architect of the World Trade Center . Many buildings designed in the 70s lacked a particular style and recalled ornamentation from earlier buildings designed before the 50s. These design plans ignored
20068-592: The late 1980s, LeWitt made Chester, Connecticut , his primary residence. He died at age 78 in New York from cancer complications. LeWitt is regarded as a founder of both Minimal and Conceptual art . His prolific two and three-dimensional work ranges from wall drawings (over 1200 of which have been executed) to hundreds of works on paper extending to structures in the form of towers , pyramids , geometric forms, and progressions. These works range in size from books and gallery-sized installations to monumental outdoor pieces. LeWitt's first serial sculptures were created in
20241-429: The late 1990s and early 2000s, he created highly saturated colorful acrylic wall drawings. While their forms are curvilinear, playful and seem almost random, they are also drawn according to an exacting set of guidelines. The bands are a standard width, for example, and no colored section may touch another section of the same color. In 2005 LeWitt began a series of 'scribble' wall drawings, so termed because they required
20414-616: The limitations of the canvas for more extensive constructions. "Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective", a collaboration between the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG), MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art), and the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) opened to the public in 2008 at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. The exhibition will be on view for 25 years and
20587-487: The lobby to the upper floors. Four of these elevators run from the lobby to floors 2 through 9; eight elevators serve floors 9 through 23; six elevators serve floors 23 through 33; and eight elevators serve floors 34 through 50. There are also two elevators in the annex, serving the lobby through floor 8; another elevator connecting the lobby to the subcellar; and two elevators connecting the Axa Equitable auditorium to
20760-457: The lobby. A broadcast studio and auditorium were also designed for the building. The Equitable auditorium has 487, 495, or 500 seats, accessed from a staircase from the atrium. The auditorium has been used for several major corporate events, including the announcement of a merger between IBM and Lotus Software , as well as the merger announcement of Kimberly-Clark and Scott Paper Company . It has also been used for musical performances, such as
20933-454: The lower levels of a skyscraper will be much larger than the material required within higher levels. This is not always visually apparent. The Empire State Building 's setbacks are actually a result of the building code at the time ( 1916 Zoning Resolution ), and were not structurally required. On the other hand, John Hancock Center 's shape is uniquely the result of how it supports loads. Vertical supports can come in several types, among which
21106-674: The most common for skyscrapers can be categorized as steel frames, concrete cores, tube within tube design, and shear walls. The wind loading on a skyscraper is also considerable. In fact, the lateral wind load imposed on supertall structures is generally the governing factor in the structural design. Wind pressure increases with height, so for very tall buildings, the loads associated with wind are larger than dead or live loads. Other vertical and horizontal loading factors come from varied, unpredictable sources, such as earthquakes. By 1895, steel had replaced cast iron as skyscrapers' structural material. Its malleability allowed it to be formed into
21279-435: The most complex encountered given the balances required between economics , engineering , and construction management. One common feature of skyscrapers is a steel framework from which curtain walls are suspended, rather than load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Most skyscrapers have a steel frame that enables them to be built taller than typical load-bearing walls of reinforced concrete. Skyscrapers usually have
21452-475: The mural on-site in 1986. A pair of parallel passageways leads east from the atrium to the galleria, each originally decorated with a separate artwork. Thomas Hart Benton 's America Today murals, commissioned in 1931, were originally installed in the northern passageway, around the elevator core. The Benton murals were originally installed in the New School for Social Research , and Equitable had acquired
21625-467: The north and south elevations rising as a slab-like wall from the street. In a subsequent iteration of the plans, Barnes had planned deep porches at the setbacks. The facade is made of limestone, granite, and glass. The Indiana limestone and Brazilian granite on the facade is applied in a two-tone pattern. The vertical pilasters are clad with reddish-brown granite, which is also used for some horizontal bands just below each setback. The pilasters divide
21798-435: The offices. Some works, such as a mobile by Alexander Calder and the bronze sculpture Day by Paul Manship , were already in Equitable's art collection when Equitable Tower was built. Equitable hired several experts, including art consultant Emily Braun , to assist in arranging the artwork. Equitable publications referred to 787 Seventh Avenue, along with 1285 Sixth Avenue, as "one square block of art". The entire building
21971-406: The performance of structures, types of materials, construction practices, absolute minimal use of materials and natural resources, energy within the structure, and a holistically integrated building systems approach. LEED is a current green building standard. Architecturally, with the movements of Postmodernism , New Urbanism and New Classical Architecture , that established since the 1980s,
22144-606: The precise style for the building, Equitable CEO John B. Carter had requested only that Barnes create "a top-quality building". Nonetheless, Carter had specific requests for several of the interior spaces. For Equitable Tower's construction, Equitable acquired $ 7 million or $ 7.5 million worth of artwork to display in both public and private spaces. The work includes large murals by Sol LeWitt and Roy Lichtenstein and sculptures by Scott Burton and Barry Flanagan . In addition, works by Milton Avery , George Bellows , James E. Buttersworth , Marsden Hartley , and Alex Katz decorated
22317-728: The price of steel decreased and labor costs increased. The steel frames become inefficient and uneconomic for supertall buildings as usable floor space is reduced for progressively larger supporting columns. Since about 1960, tubular designs have been used for high rises. This reduces the usage of material (more efficient in economic terms – Willis Tower uses a third less steel than the Empire State Building) yet allows greater height. It allows fewer interior columns, and so creates more usable floor space. It further enables buildings to take on various shapes. Elevators are characteristic to skyscrapers. In 1852 Elisha Otis introduced
22490-550: The principle of his work, LeWitt's wall drawings are usually executed by people other than the artist himself. Even after his death, people are still making these drawings. He would therefore eventually use teams of assistants to create such works. Writing about making wall drawings, LeWitt himself observed in 1971 that "each person draws a line differently and each person understands words differently". Between 1968 and his death in 2007, LeWitt created more than 1,270 wall drawings. The wall drawings, executed on-site, generally exist for
22663-466: The project shortly before his death. Furthermore, the artist was the subject of exhibitions at P.S. 1 Contemporary Center, Long Island City ( Concrete Blocks ); the Addison Gallery of American Art , Andover ( Twenty-Five Years of Wall Drawings, 1968-1993 ); and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford ( Incomplete Cubes ), which traveled to three art museums in the United States. At
22836-592: The ratio and the color were arbitrary aesthetic choices, but once taken they were used consistently in several pieces which typify LeWitt's "modular cube" works. Museums holding specimens of LeWitt's modular cube works have published lesson suggestions for elementary education, meant to encourage children to investigate the mathematical properties of the artworks. Beginning in the mid-1980s, LeWitt composed some of his sculptures from stacked cinder blocks, still generating variations within self-imposed restrictions. At this time, he began to work with concrete blocks. In 1985,
23009-404: The rooftop skylights. In addition, Flanagan designed two bronze sculptures at the galleria's north and south ends, each depicting animals in whimsical scenes. The north end contains Young Elephant (1986), while the south end contains Hare on Bell (1985). Two escalators lead from the galleria to Axa Center's public basement concourse. The escalators are placed within a glass enclosure containing
23182-409: The safety elevator at the E. V. Haughwout Building in New York City, allowing convenient and safe transport to buildings' upper floors. Otis later introduced the first commercial passenger elevators to the Equitable Life Building in 1870, considered by some architectural historians to be the first skyscraper. Another crucial development was the use of a steel frame instead of stone or brick, otherwise
23355-643: The safety elevator, allowing convenient and safe passenger movement to upper floors. Another crucial development was the use of a steel frame instead of stone or brick, otherwise the walls on the lower floors on a tall building would be too thick to be practical. Today major manufacturers of elevators include Otis , ThyssenKrupp , Schindler , and KONE . Advances in construction techniques have allowed skyscrapers to narrow in width, while increasing in height. Some of these new techniques include mass dampers to reduce vibrations and swaying, and gaps to allow air to pass through, reducing wind shear. Good structural design
23528-534: The seventh and eighth floors cross the galleria. The center of the space, beneath the skylights, is 124 feet (38 m) tall. Burton designed outdoor seating for the galleria. On the galleria's eastern wall is a passageway to 1285 Sixth Avenue's lobby, which originally connected with the Paine Webber Art Gallery in that building. The lobbies of 1285 Sixth Avenue and Equitable Center measured a combined 800 feet (240 m) long. An elevator lobby for
23701-677: The skin altogether and reveal the structure." This skeletal form, the radically simplified open cube, became a basic building block of the artist's three-dimensional work. In the mid-1960s, LeWitt began to work with the open cube: twelve identical linear elements connected at eight corners to form a skeletal structure. From 1969, he would conceive many of his modular structures on a large scale, to be constructed in aluminum or steel by industrial fabricators. Several of LeWitt's cube structures stood at approximate eye level. The artist introduced bodily proportion to his fundamental sculptural unit at this scale. Following early experimentation LeWitt settled on
23874-654: The skyline". Progressive Architecture was similarly critical of the "undistinguished quality" of the facade, saying: "Barnes's tower can't seem to make up its mind whether it's a Modern skyscraper or a Post-Modern one", Roger Kimball of The New Criterion wrote: "Mr. Barnes seems to have abandoned any attempt at a cogent architectural design. Instead, he has contrived to produce one of the most pretentious and ungainly new buildings in New York." The New Criterion cited Equitable Tower's "large clunky base", its "replaceable"-looking granite and limestone facade, and its massive arches that "seem more like movie-set novelties" as flaws in
24047-561: The skyscraper's construction. Axa Equitable Center was designed in the postmodern style by Edward Larrabee Barnes for the Equitable Life Assurance Society . The building is 752 feet (229 m) tall with 54 stories. Severud Associates was the structural engineer and Turner Construction was the main contractor. The structure uses 300,000 square feet (28,000 m) of stone and 28,000 short tons (25,000 long tons; 25,000 t) of steel. Rather than dictate
24220-540: The space vacant. By the end of the year, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) had shown interest in acquiring 787 Seventh Avenue for $ 1.9 billion. This would make Axa Equitable Center one of the most expensive single buildings to ever be sold in New York City. In February 2016, CalPERS announced it had purchased the building. The purchase was financed with a $ 780 million mortgage from Deutsche Bank . Bar Americain, at
24393-462: The subject of hundreds of solo exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world since 1965. The first biography of the artist, Sol LeWitt: A Life of Ideas , by Lary Bloom, was published by Wesleyan University Press in the spring of 2019. LeWitt was born in Hartford, Connecticut , to a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia. His father died when he was 6. His mother took him to art classes at
24566-906: The time of his death, LeWitt had just organized a retrospective of his work at the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, Ohio . At Naples Sol LeWitt. L'artista e i suoi artisti opened at the Museo Madre on December 15, 2012, running until April 1, 2013. LeWitt's works are found in the most important museum collections including: Tate Modern , London, the Van Abbemuseum , Eindhoven, National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade, Centre Georges Pompidou , Paris, Hallen für Neue Kunst Schaffhausen, Switzerland, Australian National Gallery , Canberra, Australia, Guggenheim Museum ,
24739-501: The time, there were few tenants for the west tower's vacant space, and Equitable was marketing both the west and east towers as part of the same complex. The building ultimately cost $ 200 million to construct. A public preview of the new tower's boardrooms took place on February 1, 1986, as part of a benefit event for the Center for Arts Information. The Whitney branch opened on February 11, 1986. Douglas McGill of The New York Times called
24912-438: The title for six years. The design and construction of skyscrapers involves creating safe, habitable spaces in very tall buildings. The buildings must support their weight, resist wind and earthquakes, and protect occupants from fire. Yet they must also be conveniently accessible, even on the upper floors, and provide utilities and a comfortable climate for the occupants. The problems posed in skyscraper design are considered among
25085-479: The tower opened, the company's corporate offices occupied about a third of the space, and the ground story had commercial concerns such as the Le Bernardin restaurant and a branch of the Whitney Museum . Equitable only used the tower as its headquarters until the late 1990s, and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) acquired Axa Equitable Center in 2016. 787 Seventh (formerly known as
25258-715: The tube frame must be interrupted, with transfer girders used to maintain structural integrity. Tube structures cut down costs, at the same time allowing buildings to reach greater heights. Concrete tube-frame construction was first used in the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartment Building , completed in Chicago in 1963, and soon after in the John Hancock Center and World Trade Center . The tubular systems are fundamental to tall building design. Most buildings over 40 stories constructed since
25431-482: The tube structure was the Chestnut De-Witt apartment building, considered to be a major development in modern architecture. These new designs opened an economic door for contractors, engineers, architects, and investors, providing vast amounts of real estate space on minimal plots of land. Over the next fifteen years, many towers were built by Fazlur Rahman Khan and the " Second Chicago School ", including
25604-481: The two floors of the Barbara Gladstone Gallery, Brussels, this work consists of varying combinations of black rectangles, creating an irregular grid-like pattern. LeWitt, who had moved to Spoleto, Italy, in the late 1970s credited his transition from graphite pencil or crayon to vivid ink washes, to his encounter with the frescoes of Giotto , Masaccio , and other early Florentine painters. In
25777-478: The upper rented to the lower classes. Surviving Oxyrhynchus Papyri indicate that seven-stories buildings existed in provincial towns such as in 3rd century AD Hermopolis in Roman Egypt . The skylines of many important medieval cities had large numbers of high-rise urban towers, built by the wealthy for defense and status. The residential Towers of 12th century Bologna numbered between 80 and 100 at
25950-804: The variety of techniques LeWitt employed on paper during the final decades of his life. From 1966, LeWitt's interest in seriality led to his production of more than 50 artist's books throughout his career; he later donated many examples to the Wadsworth Athenaeum's library. In 1976 LeWitt helped found Printed Matter, Inc , a for-profit art space in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City with fellow artists and critics Lucy Lippard , Carol Androcchio, Amy Baker (Sandback), Edit DeAk , Mike Glier, Nancy Linn, Walter Robinson , Ingrid Sischy , Pat Steir , Mimi Wheeler, Robin White and Irena von Zahn. LeWitt
26123-465: The walls on the lower floors on a tall building would be too thick to be practical. An early development in this area was Oriel Chambers in Liverpool , England, built in 1864. It was only five floors high. The Royal Academy of Arts states, "critics at the time were horrified by its 'large agglomerations of protruding plate glass bubbles'. In fact, it was a precursor to Modernist architecture, being
26296-617: The weight of the building. This development led to the "Chicago skeleton" form of construction. In addition to the steel frame, the Home Insurance Building also utilized fireproofing, elevators, and electrical wiring, key elements in most skyscrapers today. Burnham and Root 's 45 m (148 ft) Rand McNally Building in Chicago, 1889, was the first all-steel framed skyscraper, while Louis Sullivan 's 41 m (135 ft) Wainwright Building in St. Louis, Missouri, 1891,
26469-490: The wind loads at each of the setbacks. Belt trusses connect the outrigger trusses to the building's structural core. The roof is surrounded by a hat truss, behind which is mechanical equipment. From the beginning, 787 Seventh Avenue contained several "smart" building systems, such as high-capacity fiber optic cables and conduits, as well as a computerized display to monitor energy use, security, and elevators. The "smart" systems cost $ 2 to $ 4 million, though that cost also included
26642-814: The world have more than 100 skyscrapers that are 150 m (492 ft) or taller: Hong Kong with 552 skyscrapers; Shenzhen , China with 373 skyscrapers; New York City , US with 314 skyscrapers; Dubai , UAE with 252 skyscrapers; Guangzhou , China with 188 skyscrapers; Shanghai , China with 183 skyscrapers; Tokyo , Japan with 168 skyscrapers; Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia with 156 skyscrapers; Wuhan , China with 149 skyscrapers; Chongqing , China, with 144 skyscrapers; Chicago , US, with 137 skyscrapers; Chengdu , China with 117 skyscrapers; Jakarta , Indonesia , with 112 skyscrapers; Bangkok , Thailand , with 111 skyscrapers, and Mumbai , India with 102. As of 2024, there are over 7 thousand skyscrapers over 150 m (492 ft) in height worldwide. The term "skyscraper"
26815-664: The world's tallest building for forty years. The first completed 417 m (1,368 ft) tall World Trade Center tower became the world's tallest building in 1972. However, it was overtaken by the Sears Tower (now Willis Tower ) in Chicago within two years. The 442 m (1,450 ft) tall Sears Tower stood as the world's tallest building for 24 years, from 1974 until 1998, until it was edged out by 452 m (1,483 ft) Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, which held
26988-432: The world's tallest building, New York took the lead by 1895 with the completion of the 103 m (338 ft) tall American Surety Building , leaving New York with the title of the world's tallest building for many years. Modern skyscrapers are built with steel or reinforced concrete frameworks and curtain walls of glass or polished stone . They use mechanical equipment such as water pumps and elevators . Since
27161-476: The world, although only partially iron framed, is The Flaxmill in Shrewsbury , England. Built in 1797, it is seen as the "grandfather of skyscrapers", since its fireproof combination of cast iron columns and cast iron beams developed into the modern steel frame that made modern skyscrapers possible. In 2013 funding was confirmed to convert the derelict building into offices. In 1857, Elisha Otis introduced
27334-671: The years immediately following World War II. Early examples include Edificio España (Spain) and Torre Breda (Italy). From the 1930s onward, skyscrapers began to appear in various cities in East and Southeast Asia as well as in Latin America . Finally, they also began to be constructed in cities in Africa , the Middle East , South Asia , and Oceania from the late 1950s. Skyscraper projects after World War II typically rejected
27507-455: Was "more like Speakeasy Row than Corporate Corridor". While much of the building was to be completed by 1985, the section at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 52nd Street was occupied by an eight-story building and would be delayed. Construction of Equitable Tower had to be closely coordinated to avoid delays or disruptions, since even a one-month delay in completion would cost Equitable $ 6 million in rent and $ 3 million in construction loans. Work
27680-399: Was a north gallery for permanent works and a south gallery for temporary exhibitions. The Equitable Tower location, the largest of the Whitney's four branches at the time, occupied 3,000 square feet (280 m) in each gallery. As part of the arrangement, Equitable gave money to the Whitney and paid the branch's operating expenses for six years. After the Whitney branch closed, its space became
27853-444: Was a signal innovator of the genre of the "artist's book," a term that was coined for a 1973 exhibition curated by Dianne Perry Vanderlip at Moore College of Art and Design , Philadelphia. Printed Matter was one of the first organizations dedicated to creating and distributing artists' books, incorporating self-publishing, small-press publishing, and artist networks and collectives. For LeWitt and others, Printed Matter also served as
28026-459: Was a significant event in the history of art in post Berlin Wall era. Sol LeWitt was one of the main figures of his time; he transformed the process of art-making by questioning the fundamental relationship between an idea, the subjectivity of the artist, and the artwork a given idea might produce. While many artists were challenging modern conceptions of originality, authorship, and artistic genius in
28199-459: Was complicated by the fact that traffic on the neighboring streets could not be disrupted during construction. On two sides of the construction site, there was only 10 to 12 feet (3.0 to 3.7 m) of space within which builders could work, and there was no space for materials to be stored on site. Equitable president John B. Carter announced in May 1985 that a series of artworks would be commissioned for
28372-621: Was first applied to buildings of steel-framed construction of at least 10 stories in the late 19th century, a result of public amazement at the tall buildings being built in major American cities like New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Chicago , Detroit , and St. Louis . The first steel-frame skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building , originally 10 stories with a height of 42 m or 138 ft, in Chicago in 1885; two additional stories were added. Some point to Philadelphia's 10-story Jayne Building (1849–50) as
28545-547: Was first publicly exhibited in 1964 in a group show curated by Dan Flavin at the Kaymar Gallery, New York. Dan Graham 's John Daniels Gallery later gave him his first solo show in 1965. In 1966, he participated in the " Primary Structures " exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York (a seminal show which helped define the minimalist movement), submitting an untitled, open modular cube of 9 units. The same year he
28718-424: Was in 17th-century Edinburgh , Scotland, where a defensive city wall defined the boundaries of the city. Due to the restricted land area available for development, the houses increased in height instead. Buildings of 11 stories were common, and there are records of buildings as high as 14 stories. Many of the stone-built structures can still be seen today in the old town of Edinburgh. The oldest iron framed building in
28891-565: Was included in the "10" exhibit at Dwan Gallery , New York. He was later invited by Harald Szeemann to participate in "When Attitude Becomes Form," at the Kunsthalle Bern , Switzerland, in 1969. Interviewed in 1993 about those years LeWitt remarked, "I decided I would make color or form recede and proceed in a three-dimensional way." The Gemeentemuseum in The Hague presented his first retrospective exhibition in 1970, and his work
29064-757: Was installed on the hillside slope of Crouse College on Syracuse University campus. The concrete block sculpture consists of six undulating walls, each 12 feet high, and spans 140 feet. The sculpture was designed and constructed to mark the inauguration of Nancy Cantor as the 11th Chancellor of Syracuse University . Since the early 1960s he and his wife, Carol Androccio, gathered nearly 9,000 works of art through purchases, in trades with other artists and dealers, or as gifts. In this way he acquired works by approximately 750 artists, including Dan Flavin , Robert Ryman , Hanne Darboven , Eva Hesse , Donald Judd , On Kawara , Kazuko Miyamoto , Carl Andre , Dan Graham , Hans Haacke , Gerhard Richter , and others. In 2007,
29237-568: Was later shown in a major mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art , New York in 1978. In 1972/1973, LeWitt's first museum shows in Europe were mounted at the Kunsthalle Bern and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford . In 1975, Lewitt created "The Location of a Rectangle for the Hartford Atheneum" for the third MATRIX exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Later that year, he participated in
29410-570: Was organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2000. The exhibition traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago , and Whitney Museum of American Art , New York. In 2006, LeWitt's Drawing Series… was displayed at Dia:Beacon and was devoted to the 1970s drawings by the conceptual artist . Drafters and assistants drew directly on the walls using graphite , colored pencil , crayon , and chalk . The works were based on LeWitt's complex principles, which eliminated
29583-414: Was replaced by an art gallery called the Equitable Gallery. Sam's Restaurant closed the next year, being replaced by another American grill, Judson Grill, in early 1994. Equitable only occupied ten percent of 787 Seventh Avenue by early 1995, when it placed 300,000 square feet (28,000 m) of space for lease. That year, Equitable announced it would be moving one block east to 1290 Sixth Avenue, with only
29756-454: Was the concept of the "tube" structural system , including the "framed tube", "trussed tube", and "bundled tube". His "tube concept", using all the exterior wall perimeter structure of a building to simulate a thin-walled tube, revolutionized tall building design. These systems allow greater economic efficiency, and also allow skyscrapers to take on various shapes, no longer needing to be rectangular and box-shaped. The first building to employ
29929-613: Was the first steel-framed building with soaring vertical bands to emphasize the height of the building and is therefore considered to be the first early skyscraper. In 1889, the Mole Antonelliana in Italy was 197 m (549 ft) tall. Most early skyscrapers emerged in the land-strapped areas of New York City and Chicago toward the end of the 19th century. A land boom in Melbourne , Australia between 1888 and 1891 spurred
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