Everyone knows Cass Gilbert’s Woolworth Building. But not everyone knows it’s the last of three Lower Manhattan office buildings he designed between 1900 and 1912. Seen together, they reveal the rapid advance in the structural and architectural development of the New York office building. With Gilbert’s two earlier buildings, we can see him working through the limits-and the opportunities-of skyscraper design.
The architects of the three- and four-story businesses that mushroomed in Manhattan after the Civil War drew their design inspiration from classical architecture. But as office buildings doubled, then tripled, in height, a new aesthetic was needed. Still firmly rooted in the classical world, late-nineteenth-century architects conceived of the tall thin structure as a classical column-and designed it with a distinctive base, shaft, and capital.
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Broadway-Chambers Building, 1900
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Gilbert’s first New York work, the 1900 Broadway-Chambers Building, proudly advanced that aesthetic-building as classical column. Distinct materials and shapes clearly define its parts, but it was his radical use of color that made this one stand out. A pink granite base (well, it used to be pink) supports an eleven-story red-and-blue brick shaft. A four-floor capital of colorful terra cotta completes the imagery. But this accepted solution also came with a “use-by” date. As rising land values and new technologies pushed Manhattan buildings ever upward, any agreed-upon architectural expression was a moving target. What was an appropriate design for a ten-story building was no longer appropriate for a thirty-story one and would certainly not be appropriate for those reaching eighty stories. A new aesthetic had to be found.
And so in 1905, Gilbert approached the design of 90 West Street differently. Through the use of a single color from top to bottom and by barely there horizontal stringcourses, he de-emphasized the column’s tripartite division of base, shaft, and capital-and its inherent solidness-in favor of a unified expression of upward movement. Gilbert embraced and celebrated the vertical. Lines that begin at ground level rise uninterrupted, not stopping until they reach that great mansard roof-a roof, by the way, that implies even further upward movement. (Compare that cap to the flat one Broadway-Chambers wears.) The architect has allowed himself the freedom to design in a more-romantic, less-classical (indeed, Gothic!) manner. And it’s here at 90 West that the seeds of the stunning interplay of soaring monumentality and personal style that defines his masterful Woolworth Building were sown.
The similarities between 90 West and the basic block of the 1912 Woolworth Building are obvious. Even before we reach the tower-which appears to have sprouted from those seeds sown at 90 West-the emphasis on the vertical pull is just as strong. Classical has again given way to the more romantic Gothic. The same de-emphasis of distinct parts, the same use of one-color limestone from top to bottom.
The groundwork Gilbert laid at 90 West has reached full fruition here, with the thirty-story tower (itself twice the height of his Broadway-Chambers building designed only a dozen years earlier) giving solid form to the implied upward movement of 90 West’s mansard roof.
In roughly a dozen years, the evolution of Manhattan skyscraper technology and its accompanying aesthetic expression is astounding, and three Cass Gilbert buildings help tell its story.
John Simko
An excellent read, but the pictures are the real draw. Looking at the buildings today, it’s unimaginable that they literally towered over everything nearby.
Very well written, John. I wrote a piece on Cass Gilbert a number of years ago, for the Broadsheet print edition, and I think I’ll rummage through my archive (complete, as far as I know) to remember what I said. I don’t think it was as insightful as yours, however.
Great article! I love the comparisons between his 3 buildings. I have studied these myself, also.
you might want to look at Cass’s design of the army terminal building over in Brooklyn and the recently converted-to-condos building it’s is also a warehouse – much like the also-converted warehouse he did along the High Line.
it’s amazing the number of structures he did in the New York City area.
a great disciple of Stanny and Mckim Mead and White.
Cass Gilbert was one of the greats.
Thank you for sharing all this knowledge and insight, John.
A superb job!
RR
I highly doubt he would have been happy with the skyscrapers destroying so much of Lower Manhattan.
Something for profit-centered public servants and developers to think about.
I would concur with Ms. Romine as to his being unhappy. If he had lived long enough he would have decried Robert Moses destruction of NYC and to me in particular the loss of little Damascus, not to mention the rape of the Bronx with his road.