The Architecture of New York's Art Deco Towers

The Chrysler Building, completed in 1930, remains the most exuberant expression of Art Deco ambition. Designed by William Van Alen, its stainless steel crown catches light at every hour, while its lobby of African marble transforms entry into ceremony. It was the world's tallest for eleven months before the Empire State Building surpassed it.

Art Deco arrived in New York following the 1925 Paris exposition. American architects adapted the style to the unprecedented scale of Manhattan skyscrapers. The 1916 zoning resolution required setbacks that produced the stepped silhouettes defining the Deco skyline.

Rockefeller Center, completed between 1930 and 1939, represents Art Deco at urban scale. Its fourteen buildings create a city within a city. Lee Lawrie's sculptures and the commissioned artistic programme demonstrate the movement's ambition to integrate architecture with fine art.

Material richness distinguishes Art Deco from the austere modernism that succeeded it. Lobbies use exotic marbles, bronze, nickelled steel, and inlaid wood to create cinematic grandeur, expressions of corporate identity and civic aspiration during extraordinary economic confidence.

The craftsmanship has no contemporary equivalent. Ornamental metalwork, carved stone, and custom lighting were produced by specialised workshops from architects' detailed drawings. The Chrysler Building's eagles and the brickwork of One Hanson Place represent decorative handwork current economics cannot support.

New York's Art Deco heritage has been well preserved. The Art Deco Society organises tours revealing details invisible to hurried pedestrians, advocating for preservation of these landmarks.

Visit https://www.artdeco.org for tour schedules. Look up. The Art Deco skyline, best appreciated by studying upper storeys most passersby ignore, represents an era when commercial architecture aspired to be art and occasionally achieved it.