William Van
Alen is an architect who changed the face of New York City in terms of design,
Alen is the pioneer behind the famous Chrysler building. This building is well
known for it’s massive height and design relating to the Art Deco era’ with the
use of metal and steel construction.
The building
is primarily designed to house office spaces but by time we see this design
being used a lot in the movie industry such as Men in black and the great
Gatsby. This fascinating structure shows
the true ability man made structures, this building is manually laid by hand
‘creating non-load bearing walls’. The use of white and grey brick work within
in the facade shows the horizontal rows of the windows, the multiple gargoyles
above are made of stainlesteel.
‘More noticeable
connections between the exterior of the building and the Chrysler car are the
sculptures modelled after radiator caps and ornaments of car wheels that
decorate the lower setbacks.’
Standing sky high
with almost 320 meters this building houses 77 floors, The artist Edward
Trumbull is known for his artistic murals shown on the ceiling of this
building. This structure is decorated with expensive and rich materials such as
Red Moroccan marble walls, marble, steel and onyx, these materials depict the
true value of this structure within the well-known city. This building also
serves as a representation of the automotive industry and the Chrysler brand in
particular, This is a reflection of the Chrysler automotive industry back in
the 1920’s.
The use of
chrome, repeated and manipulated patterns, use of repetition, sharp angles and
triangles are the true depiction of the Art Deco style. We need to also keep in
mind that at this time it was also the age of seeing aeroplanes being born and
the industry taking shape, this reflects also on the interior of this building
were you could find iconic symbols such as compasses that tribute to airplane
and the age of flight.
Art Deco is
all about the style of visual arts both in architecture and art, this building
shows that exactly with the precision and use of Luxurious design both found in the
exterior and interior parts. Art Deco was founded in the 1920’s but it was
further developed in countries located in western Europe and USA at the late
20’s or even beginning of the 1930’s.
This
building cost around 20 million US dollars, at the same time in America around
15 million people were still unemployed, This building apart from it’s
unarguably well designed and luxurious piece of architecture was key in
America’s history, it was also a huge question on the amount of money that was
spend this building bearing in mind the employment crisis at the time.
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