At only 302 ft, the Lever House is a small building by Manhattan standards, but the glass-walled skyscraper marked a turning point in American office architecture.
A Squeaky Clean Building
The Lever House was constructed in 1952 as the new headquarters for the Lever Brothers Company, the biggest manufacturers of soap and detergents.
They commissioned Skidmore, Owings and Merrill to build a modern, clean and American building. Gordon Brunshaft, the leading architect, based its design on earlier ideas from European modernist architects such as Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, but it was the first time their radical ideas were implemented in a corporate office tower.
They commissioned Skidmore, Owings and Merrill to build a modern, clean and American building. Gordon Brunshaft, the leading architect, based its design on earlier ideas from European modernist architects such as Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, but it was the first time their radical ideas were implemented in a corporate office tower.
An Innovative Design
Gordon Brunshaft made the tower a slab with its narrow side towards the street. The slab is counter-posed to a horizontal slab which floats on a series of columns. The horizontal mezzanine is cut out in the center, creating a central courtyard. Due to its inefficient use of the available space (only 25 percent of the surface is used for the tower), the suburban-style layout has not been copied much,
but its curtain glass office tower became the de facto standard for modern office buildings in the United States.
Detail of the 'floating' mezzanine
Copycats
The fact that the tower now seems like just one of so many office towers shows how much it has been copied. When it was built in 1952 it was the first glass-walled building amid the masonry structures of residential Park Avenue. It was soon followed by many other modern office buildings, among them Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Buildingdiagonally across the street.
A Modern Historic Landmark
In recognition of its historical importance, the Lever House was designated an official landmark in 1992. The building was renovated in 1998 by SOM and - appropriately for the headquarters of a soap company - is again as squeaky clean as ever.
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