How Buildings Say Things
Reading Architecture From the Street
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The book explores how buildings create atmosphere through spatial arrangements and structural choices. It examines the Empire State Building's classic skyscraper style, the Shearing layers technique used in contemporary design, and the broader concept of architecture as a form of communication. These examples span decades and continents, showing how different architects express similar themes.
This guide helps anyone walking through a city understand what buildings are trying to say. Whether you're seeing the Postmodern style or analyzing the atmosphere of a space, these chapters teach you to read architecture like a professional while keeping it accessible for ordinary readers.
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Overview
Postmodern architecture started in the 1960s as a pushback against the strict, plain look of modernism, especially the international style promoted by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock. Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi formally introduced the movement in their 1972 book Learning from Las Vegas, expanding on Venturi’s earlier "gentle manifesto" Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, which came out in 1966. Charles Jencks declared the death of modern architecture in his 1977 book The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. The style thrived through the 1980s and into the 1990s, with key figures like Scott Brown & Venturi, Philip Johnson, Charles Moore, and Michael Graves. By the end of the 1990s, it split into many new directions, including high-tech, neo-futurism, new classical architecture, and deconstructivism, though some buildings afterward are still seen as postmodern.
Origins
Postmodern architecture began in the late 1960s as a pushback against modernism's strict rules and plain look. In 1966, Venturi spelled out the new direction in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, saying he wanted an architecture full of richness and ambiguity, one that embraced contradictions instead of avoiding them. He preferred hybrid, compromising, and inclusive designs over clean, exclusive ones. Venturi and his wife Denise Scott Brown expanded this idea in Learning from Las Vegas (1972), arguing that buildings should respond to people and place, not impose idealized visions. They believed ornament and historical references could meet real human needs for variety and communication. In Italy, Aldo Rossi criticized the postwar rebuilding of cities in a style disconnected from local history, insisting on preserving tradition. The movement spread to France, Spain, and Japan through architects like Christian de Portzamparc, Ricardo Bofill, and Arata Isozaki.
Robert Venturi
Robert Venturi was both a leading theorist and a practicing architect in the postmodern movement. He studied at the American Academy in Rome and worked in the offices of Eero Saarinen and Louis Kahn until 1958, after which he became a professor at Yale University. Among his early buildings were a house for his mother in Chestnut Hill and another structure in Philadelphia, both of which came to symbolize postmodern ideas. In the 1960s and 1970s, he designed a series of works that drew on historical influences and responded to the actual forms and concepts present in urban life.
Michael Graves
Michael Graves, who lived from 1934 to 2015, designed two of the most recognizable buildings in postmodern style: the Portland Building and the Denver Public Library. Early in his career, he was part of a group known as the New York Five, which promoted pure modern architecture. But in 1982, he turned toward postmodernism with the Portland Building, one of the first major structures in that style. Later, he shifted focus to designing large, low-cost retail stores for chains like Target and J.C. Penney, influencing how stores are built in city centers and malls. The Portland Building has since been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Charles Moore
Charles Moore, who lived from 1925 to 1993, created the Piazza d'Italia in New Orleans in 1978, a public space built from fragments of famous Italian Renaissance architecture. The design draws on the Spanish Revival style of the city hall, and Moore also worked on the Beverly Hills Civic Center, blending Spanish Revival, Art Deco, and postmodern elements. That project includes courtyards, colonnades, and open spaces with stairways and balconies. Later, Moore designed the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, integrating it with both the neo-Renaissance buildings on campus and the wooden residential architecture of the nearby Berkeley Hills.
Philip Johnson
Philip Johnson started as a modernist, co-authoring the 1935 Museum of Modern Art catalog on the International Style and studying with Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer at Harvard. His Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, built in 1949, became an icon of modernism, inspired by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's similar work. He later collaborated with Mies on the Seagram Building in New York City. In the 1950s, Johnson began incorporating playful elements into his designs, like the Synagogue of Port Chester and the Art Gallery at the University of Nebraska. By the 1970s, he returned to a more traditional modernist style with projects such as the IDS Center in Minneapolis and Pennzoil Place in Houston. Then, with the AT&T Building—now 550 Madison Avenue—completed between 1978 and 1982, Johnson fully embraced postmodernism, adding a Chippendale-inspired decorative top that made it stand out among other skyscrapers. He followed this with PPG Place in Pittsburgh, completed between 1979 and 1984, featuring neo-gothic elements including 231 glass spires. In 1995, he built a postmodern gatehouse pavilion for his own Glass House residence, calling it "Da Monstra," made of gunite, colored gray and red, with no right angles and few straight lines.
Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry was a leading voice in postmodern architecture, known for breaking with tradition and creating buildings that looked unfinished and unstable. After studying at the University of Southern California and Harvard Graduate School of Design, he opened his own office in Los Angeles in 1962. Beginning in the 1970s, he used industrial materials to build unusual private homes, including his own house in Santa Monica in 1978. His Schnabel House from 1986 to 1989 was made of separate structures, one for each room. The Norton Residence in Venice from 1983 had a workroom shaped like a lifeguard tower. In the 1980s, he received major commissions including Loyola Law School and the California Aerospace Museum. His "Dancing House" in Prague from 1996 featured an undulating façade of concrete plaques and glass. His most famous project was the Guggenheim Bilbao museum, built from 1991 to 1997 with titanium skin that changes color with light. Gehry refused to be labeled, even as he was often called a proponent of deconstructivism.
César Pelli
César Pelli, the Argentine architect who shaped skylines across the globe, left his mark with iconic buildings like the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, completed in 1997, and the World Financial Center in New York, finished in 1988. His career included the expansion of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Crile Clinic Building in Cleveland, and the Wells Fargo Center in Minneapolis. Pelli’s designs often featured stainless steel and drew on Islamic motifs, as seen in the Petronas Towers, which stood tallest in the world until 2004. That year, he received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for that work. In 1995, he was honored with the AIA Gold Medal, and in 2005, his firm changed its name to Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects.
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Overview
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened on 18 October 1997, designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry and built alongside the Nervion River in Bilbao, Spain. It's part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and holds both permanent and visiting exhibitions of modern and contemporary art by Spanish and international artists. The building was hailed as a “signal moment in the architectural culture,” according to critic Paul Goldberger, because it united critics, academics, and the public in admiration. In the 2010 World Architecture Survey, it was named one of the most important buildings completed since 1980 among architecture experts. It changed the city quarter.
Founding
In 1991, the Basque Government offered to fund a new Guggenheim museum in Bilbao’s old port area, which had once been the city’s main economic driver. They agreed to pay for construction, create an art acquisitions fund, cover a one-time fee to the foundation, and support the museum’s annual budget. In return, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation would manage the museum, share parts of its collection, and host temporary shows. The building was constructed by Ferrovial for $89 million. Before opening on 18 October 1997, a preopening celebration drew about 5,000 locals, featuring light shows and concerts. The official opening was attended by King Juan Carlos I of Spain. Two days earlier, on 13 October, two ETA militants killed a Basque policeman who tried to stop them from planting grenade launchers during the planned attack on the event.
Urdaibai expansion
In 2008, the Guggenheim Museum announced plans to expand into the Urdaibai estuary, a UNESCO biosphere reserve east of Bilbao. By 2022, the Biscay government had committed €40 million toward the project. The expansion, which would have added 5,000 square meters, faced strong opposition from local residents and environmental organizations including Greenpeace, SEO/BirdLife, and WWF. In December 2025, the Guggenheim Foundation said the project was abandoned due to "territorial, urban planning and environmental constraints and limitations."
Architecture
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation chose Frank Gehry to design the museum, with director Thomas Krens encouraging him to create something daring. The building's exterior curves were meant to look random, designed to catch the light, and its interior centers on a large, light-filled atrium Gehry called "The Flower." When it opened in 1997, it was praised as a masterpiece of Deconstructivism, with Philip Johnson calling it "the greatest building of our time" and Calvin Tomkins describing it as "a fantastic dream ship of undulating form in a cloak of titanium." The museum integrates into the urban setting along the Nervión River, unfolding its stone, glass, and titanium forms on a 32,500 square meter site. It had more exhibition space than the Guggenheim collections in New York and Venice combined, with galleries shaped both traditionally and organically. Construction stayed on time and budget, thanks to Gehry's use of computer modeling and close collaboration with builders. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines donated a million dollars toward its creation.
Foundation
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao stands on a foundation that required more than twenty-five thousand tonnes of concrete, poured into the ground to support the structure’s weight. The base was laid on reinforced concrete piles driven deep into the bedrock, reaching an average depth of fourteen meters. These pilings were embedded into the clay-rich soil from the nearby Estuary of Bilbao, with a total of six hundred sixty-five pilings used to anchor the building securely. Each pile was installed using powerful boring machines, ensuring the museum’s stability on this challenging geological site.
Cladding
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao's exterior features 33,000 titanium plates, each 0.4 millimeters thick and carefully shaped to match the building's flowing form. Made in Pittsburgh, these lightweight plates weigh only 60 tons total—much lighter than steel would have been. Titanium was chosen after tests compared copper and lead, which were too toxic. The material resists heat and weather while staying true to Frank Gehry's vision, with each piece tailored to its specific location. The plates are laid in scales over a galvanized steel frame, protecting the interior from sun and weather. The museum's base uses beige limestone from Huéscar quarries near Granada, cut from 50-millimeter slabs. Windows are specially treated glass to shield art from light damage. The cladding's lamination required high-energy facilities, and the quilted shape helps the structure resist wind and storm vibrations. Titanium was also selected for its low pollution.
Virtual Building
In fall 1993, Gehry Partners began using Dassault Systèmes' CATIA software for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, a tool that helped them model the building's complex exterior. The software calculated stresses point by point, allowing architects to determine how materials like steel, titanium, and stone would behave under pressure. It also automated cutting processes for these materials. The team brought in techniques learned from Rick Smith's work on the Walt Disney Concert Hall, applying what they called Master Modeling and Virtual Build Processes. The success of the Bilbao project marked a turning point, leading to widespread use of what would later be known as Building Information Modeling. Architectural critic Paul Goldberger said the building "could not have been constructed without CATIA," and that it was "the first building for which CATIA played a role in almost every aspect of the design and construction process."
Exhibitions
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao houses large-scale, site-specific works by contemporary artists, including Richard Serra's 100-meter Snake, and features pieces by Basque artists alongside selections from the foundation's modern art collection. When it opened in 1997, it hosted "The Guggenheim Museums and the Art of This Century," a 300-piece overview of 20th-century art that included works by Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still, as well as new pieces by Francesco Clemente, Anselm Kiefer, Jenny Holzer, and Serra. The museum regularly changes its thematic exhibitions, often focusing on Chinese or Russian art, and emphasizes installations and electronic forms over traditional paintings and sculptures. Its only permanent exhibit is "The Matter of Time," a series of weathering steel sculptures by Serra in the 130-meter Arcelor Gallery. In 2011, an exhibition titled "The Luminous Interval" sparked criticism for its curator's ties to a major benefactor. Olivier Berggruen and Ingrid Pfeiffer curated a Yves Klein retrospective in 2005, and in 2012, David Hockney's show drew over 290,000 visitors.
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Description
One UN Plaza is a 39-story mixed-use building in Turtle Bay, Manhattan, designed by Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo for the United Nations and built in 1976. It sits on the north side of 44th Street, across First Avenue from the UN headquarters. The United Nations Development Corporation developed and still operates the office space. The hotel, known as the Millennium Hilton New York, is run by the Millennium Hotel Group and occupies the lobby, upper floors, pool, and courts. The building was constructed in stages due to funding issues and public opposition in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Located at the northwest corner of 44th Street and First Avenue, it includes 420,000 square feet of office space, hotel rooms, and ground-floor lobbies. The structure is part of a larger complex that includes Two and Three UN Plaza, all in the heart of Midtown Manhattan near major transportation hubs and cultural centers.
Architecture
Roche-Dinkeloo designed One United Nations Plaza as a modernist office and hotel building, standing 505 feet tall with 360,000 square feet of office space on the lower floors and a 292-room hotel on the top thirteen. It was the first mixed-use building of its kind in New York City, officially opening on November 20, 1975. The project took nearly ten years to complete, going through two mayoral administrations, and was built by the Turner Construction Company. Located across First Avenue from the United Nations, it reaches just three feet short of the height of the UN Secretariat due to zoning rules.
Features
One UN Plaza, built between 1968 and 1975 for the UNDC and known as project number 6904, is an L-shaped, hexagonal building designed by Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo (KRJDA). Its office floors stretch twenty-six stories, while the top eleven are hotel space, with walls sloping inward to meet zoning requirements. The structure uses a steel frame covered in aluminum curtain wall with reflective glass, a third-generation material that bounces heat while remaining see-through from inside. Roche initially considered red and blue polychrome glass but chose a green tone similar to the UN Secretariat. He saw the building’s design as a minimalistic expression using uniform surfaces to highlight its geometric setbacks. The building's facade reflects the “Crystal Palace” look, and its windows are arranged in four rows per floor, creating a flat texture without protruding mullions.
Interior features
Kevin Roche was put in charge of One United Nations Plaza's interior design, a role not typically assigned to someone overseeing just office decorating. Most office styles of the time were conventional, but Roche approached the task differently. He used metal and mirrors to expand the sense of space, aiming to "explode the space beyond its confines." In the lobbies, he installed a hung ceiling made of Plexiglass below and reflective metal above, making it hard to tell where the actual ceiling ended. Polished marble and stainless steel added to what he called the “delirium.” His goal was a constantly shifting kaleidoscopic effect, one that was always changing.
Opening ceremony
On November 20, 1975, One United Nations Plaza officially opened, marking the completion of a project that had started under Mayor John Lindsay and concluded under Mayor Abraham Beame. The dedication brought together prominent figures from New York’s political world, including Mayor Beame, United States Ambassador to the UN Daniel Patrick Moynihan, UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, and UNDC chairman John J. McCloy. Upon its opening, the hotel lobby was accessible directly from 44th Street, while the office lobby had been designed by Roche. A notable security feature allowed entry not just from the main floor on Forty-fourth Street but also via a private through-block driveway, built specifically to let dignitaries or UN officials enter without public view or extra security concerns if necessary.
Offices and hotel
The glass tower at One United Nations Plaza was designed with two distinct parts: the first twenty-six floors housed offices for the United Nations and its delegations, situated on the northwest corner of 44th Street near the U.S. Mission. Above that, the top thirteen floors functioned as a hotel, offering 292 rooms and suites, a swimming pool beneath an Oriental canopy, and a gymnasium on the twenty-seventh floor, with an air-conditioned tennis court on the roof. The property was initially run by Hyatt International Hotels, which said the hotel would give priority to heads of state, dignitaries, and foreign government representatives before opening to the public, according to the UNDC. Although the offices were ready for occupancy when the building opened, the hotel did not begin operations until March 1976, after being renamed the United Nations Plaza Hotel.
History of Turtle Bay
Turtle Bay was once a farm named after a cove filled with turtles in the slow, brackish water of the East River, located between 45th and 48th Streets and fed by a stream starting near Second Avenue and 48th Street. Residents held a "turtle feast" because of the abundance. The cove was later filled in for development, now covered by gardens on the northern edge of the United Nations grounds. By the mid-18th century, the farm gave way to homes, industry, and shantytowns. Historical records describe the Turtle Bay Gardens Historic District, a two-block area from East 48th to 49th Street between Second and Third Avenues, where twenty homes were built. Notable residents included Katharine Hepburn, Stephen Sondheim, and Tyrone Power. But others called the area "Blood Alley," reflecting its rough past as a slaughterhouse near the river. After renovations in the 1920s, rapid building followed, and the cove was finally filled in.
Land acquisition
In the 1940s, developer William Zeckendorf began buying land in Turtle Bay, unsure what he could build there, calling it "X City" because the Planning Commission and City Council would decide. The city's home-rule powers meant both had to approve any new building, along with the Board of Estimate, the mayor, the governor, and the state legislature. In 1946, after World War II, a six-block area and a slaughterhouse were demolished. The Third Avenue El closed in 1955, ending Manhattan's elevated trains. Then John D. Rockefeller Jr. offered Zeckendorf $8.5 million, which he accepted. After last-minute talks, Rockefeller gifted the land to the UN, helping New York win over Boston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Mayor William O'Dwyer accepted the gift. The Ford Foundation later added $6.2 million for the Dag Hammarskjold Library and $6.5 million for a school. That "Turtle Bay" area — from 42nd to 46th Streets, East River to 2nd Avenue — became the UN Plaza. Zeckendorf later built Roosevelt Field Shopping Center on Long Island, and a boulevard there still bears his name.
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Overview
The Portland Building, also known as the Portland Municipal Services Building, rises 15 stories at 1120 SW 5th Avenue in downtown Portland, Oregon. Constructed at a cost of $29 million and finished in 1982, it was seen as architecturally innovative for its time. The building serves as an office space for the City of Portland and stands near Portland City Hall. In 2011, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A major renovation began in December 2017 and wrapped up in 2020, after a temporary closure that lasted through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
History
The Portland Building, designed by Michael Graves and completed in 1985, broke from sleek glass-and-steel office tower designs. Its bold use of color, varied materials, and decorative details made it a standout in postmodern architecture, opening before Philip Johnson's AT&T Building. Graves won the competition that included Johnson on the selection panel; he had originally rejected Gunnar Birkerts' entry for not being postmodern enough. Birkerts later re-clad the Detroit Institute of Arts South Wing in 2007. Mayor Frank Ivancie criticized modernist downtown monotony, calling it "boring," and the building's reception among architects was split. In 1985, the hammered-copper Portlandia statue was added above its entrance. Structural problems emerged soon after, earning jokes and complaints from workers who found it poorly built. By 1990, only eight years later, the lobby and food court needed remodeling, with Graves's firm among those bidding. Karen Nichols said, "Michael feels like he owes the city one."
Reconstruction
In 2014, city commissioners debated demolishing the Portland Building over structural damage, with one calling it a "white elephant," while Michael Graves opposed tearing it down. By 2015, officials considered a $175 million renovation. In July 2016, the city chose contractor DLR Group and Howard S. Wright Construction, setting a $140 million budget, not including up to $55 million in non-construction costs. The plan kept the building’s postmodern style but updated materials to resist weather and earthquakes, replacing tiles, cladding, windows, and garlands. The project, known as the Portland Building Reconstruction Project, began in fall 2017, with an official groundbreaking in December. It was expected to finish by late 2020, though only about 30 employees were working there by August 2020, as most stayed home due to the pandemic. The building’s reopening celebration was canceled, and the George Floyd protests took place nearby in 2020.
Features
The Portland Building’s roof, installed in 2006, features a green roof designed as part of an experiment led by Oregon State University. The project aimed to test Sedum spathulifolium, a water-absorbing plant suited for the northwest region. This new roof was proposed just one year earlier, in 2005, and it helps the building manage heating, cooling, and storm-water runoff systems more efficiently.
Offices
In October 2009, the Portland Building stood as a hub of city operations, home to departments like the Office of Management and Finance, the Bureau of Technology Services, and the Portland Water Bureau. It housed bureaus focused on transportation, human resources, environmental services, and parks and recreation, among others. Located across from Portland City Hall, the building served as a central point for municipal work, hosting agencies that managed everything from cable communications to risk management, all under one roof in the heart of the city’s administrative district.
Reception
In May 1983, the Portland Building won an American Institute of Architects honor award, with Ada Louise Huxtable calling it a "competition-winning, postmodernist exercise of romantic classical persuasion." It stood in contrast to the State of Illinois Center in Chicago, also completed around the same time. The building's style sparked controversy, even among Portlanders, with The Oregonian noting in 1990 that it was hard to find anyone who admitted to liking it. Italian-born modernist architect Pietro Belluschi declared it "totally wrong," calling it "not architecture, it's packaging." Architectural critic Paul Goldberger said the building was more significant for what it did than how well it was done, arguing that it brought a return to classicism that led to better buildings. In 2009, Travel + Leisure called it "one of the most hated buildings in America," and in 2014, David Sarasohn wrote that its "huge blue tiles, colored glass and odd pastel flourishes" resembled something designed by "a Third World dictator's mistress' art-student brother."
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Overview
The Empire State Building stands 102 stories tall in Midtown South, Manhattan, designed in Art Deco style by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built between 1930 and 1931. Rising 1,454 feet including its antenna, it was the world's tallest until 1970, then briefly reclaimed that title after the September 11 attacks, only to be surpassed again in 2012. The site was once home to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, acquired in 1929 by Empire State Inc., which planned the skyscraper after fifteen design changes. Construction began March 17, 1930, and the building opened May 1, 1931; it did not turn a profit until the early 1950s due to the Great Depression and World War II. Its Art Deco form, height, and observation decks have made it a global icon, drawing around four million visitors annually, with an indoor observatory added in 2019. Featured in over 250 films and TV shows since King Kong in 1933, the building and its interior were designated city landmarks in 1980 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Site
The Empire State Building stands on the west side of Fifth Avenue, bounded by 33rd and 34th Streets in Midtown South, with its main entrance at 350 Fifth Avenue and observatory access at 20 West 34th Street—though before August 2018, visitors entered through the Fifth Avenue lobby. Despite being in a mixed residential and commercial area, the building is so large it has its own ZIP Code, 10118, one of 43 in New York City as of 2012. Nearby attractions include Macy’s at Herald Square and Koreatown, while to the east lies Murray Hill. The block northeast holds the B. Altman and Company Building, home to the City University of New York's Graduate Center. The closest subway stations are 34th Street–Herald Square and 33rd Street at Park Avenue, with a PATH station also nearby at 33rd Street and Sixth Avenue.
Architecture
The building now known as the Empire State Building rose 1,250 feet to its 102nd floor, or 1,453 feet 8+9⁄16 inches when measured to its 203-foot pinnacle. Designed by Shreve, Lamb and Harmon in the Art Deco style, it was the first structure in the world to surpass 100 stories in height. Only the lowest 86 stories are usable, with the first through 85th floors containing 2.158 million square feet of office space, while the 86th floor holds an observatory. The remaining 16 stories form a spire that ends in a lightning rod and is mostly used for mechanical functions, though it also includes another observatory on the 102nd floor.
Form
The Empire State Building stands tall and structured, its form shaped by the size of its lot and the zoning rules of 1916. Its massing is symmetrical, with a base, shaft, and capital—like the parts of a column—divided into three horizontal sections. The five-story base fills the entire lot, while the 81-story shaft rises sharply above it, set back by sixty feet on all sides starting at the fifth floor. There are additional setbacks at the 21st, 25th, 30th, 72nd, 81st, and 85th stories, designed to bring quiet interior spaces away from street noise. These setbacks also allowed sunlight to reach the streets, as required by law. Architectural writer Robert A. M. Stern noted that this design contrasted with the nearby 500 Fifth Avenue, which had a different, asymmetrical massing on a smaller lot.
Facade
The Empire State Building's Art Deco facade features Indiana limestone from a southern Indiana quarry, giving it its signature blonde hue. The structure uses 200,000 cubic feet of limestone and granite, ten million bricks, and 730 short tons of aluminum and stainless steel. Fifth Avenue entrance includes three metal doors centered on the facade, flanked by molded piers topped with eagles, transom window with geometric patterns above fifth-floor windows, and golden letters "Empire State." Secondary entrances on 33rd and 34th streets have modernistic stainless steel canopies and triple windows less elaborate than those on Fifth Avenue. First floor storefronts are clad in black granite with aluminum-framed doors and windows, while upper stories alternate wide stone piers with narrower mullions. The tower's facade is divided into vertical bays with windows projecting from the limestone, arranged in sets of one, two, or three per floor, separated by alternating narrow and wide piers. Vertical nickel-chrome steel mullions and horizontal aluminum spandrels connect the windows, which are set in stainless-steel frames to save on stone finishing and avoid cross-bonding required if stone had been used instead.
Lights
The Empire State Building's lights have told stories for decades. Originally lit with white searchlights in 1932 to celebrate Roosevelt's election, they were replaced by "Freedom Lights" in 1956. In 1964, floodlights were added to showcase the building during the World Fair. During the 1973 energy crisis, the lights went off, but in 1976, businessman Douglas Leigh proposed brighter metal-halide bulbs. These were installed for the bicentennial, and the building kept them due to lower maintenance. Since 1977, the spire has changed colors for holidays and events—red, white, and blue after 9/11, purple and gold for Kobe Bryant, and in Darth Vader hues after James Earl Jones's death. In 2012, LED lights allowed for millions of color options and synchronized shows, including music from Alicia Keys and later Eminem and OneRepublic. The building's owners also use the lights to honor sports teams, disasters, anniversaries, and celebrations like Pride and Halloween.
Interior
The Empire State Building’s interior is designed to house 20,000 tenants and 15,000 visitors, with 2,768,591 square feet of floor space and a total volume of 37 million cubic feet. Its steel frame was built to carry gravitational stresses and wind loads, making it stiffer than other skyscrapers, with a structural stiffness of 42 pounds per square foot. The building uses 1,172 miles of elevator cable and 2 million feet of electrical wiring. Offices are arranged around a central shaft, with corridors surrounding the main space on all four sides, and each floor contains 210 structural columns that reduce open area. A December 1930 article in Popular Mechanics said the building could still stand even if struck by an object weighing 50 short tons. The structure’s low stone-to-building ratio allows for more usable space than similar buildings.
Lobby
The Empire State Building’s main lobby, accessed from Fifth Avenue, is the only part where its design conveys a narrative. Above the entrance doors are bronze motifs symbolizing Electricity, Masonry, and Heating—crafts involved in its construction. The space runs parallel to 33rd and 34th Streets, with dark marble wainscoting topped by lighter marble, and a zigzag terrazzo floor guiding movement from east to west. North and south sides feature storefronts framed by rounded dark marble tubes and vertical grooves. Until the 1960s, a Longchamps restaurant occupied this area, with murals by Winold Reiss; those were stored after the restaurant closed. At the western end is an aluminum relief of the building as originally built, showing rays from the spire and the sun behind it, with a New York state map marking its location in the southeast corner, a compass in the bottom right, and a plaque honoring major developers. A scale model stands nearby. The plaque sits on the eastern interior wall of a corridor surrounding the escalators, made up of long hallways on the north and south and shorter ones on the east and west. At each end of the northern and southern corridors are banks of four low-rise elevators. The western side connects to entrances on 33rd and 34th Streets, leading to two-story-high corridors around the elevator core, crossed by glass bridges at the mezzanine level. Ceiling murals inspired by the Machine Age were installed in the 1930s but later damaged; reproductions replaced them. In 2009, renovations restored much of its original grandeur, including replacing a clock with an anemometer and installing two chandeliers meant to have been there from the start. In the north corridor, eight illuminated panels depicting the building as the Eighth Wonder of the World were created in 1963 for the 1964 World’s Fair. Paintings by Kysa Johnson were installed on the concourse level, but she later sued under the Visual Artists Rights Act, claiming negligence and reputational harm. As part of a 2010 renovation, Denise Amses created an etched-glass installation with 15,000 stars and 5,000 circles in the lobby.
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Overview
In architecture, spatial design, literary theory, and film theory, affective atmosphere—often shortened to just atmosphere—is the mood, situation, or sensory feel of a place. Spaces that hold this kind of atmosphere are shaped by how people experience them, through both personal and shared interactions with the physical and emotional qualities of the building. This concept links to fields like anthropology, architectural theory, critical theory, cultural geography, the phenomenology of architecture, and pragmatism.
Overview
Architecture creates atmosphere through physical space that we feel and experience, not just see. This sense of atmosphere comes from our emotional and bodily response to a place. Vitruvius believed the human body is the measure of architecture, and it's through the body that we perceive spatial qualities. Twenty-century architects like Peter Zumthor, Steven Holl, and Juhani Pallasmaa have taken this idea further, drawing on philosophers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger, who saw the body and mind as inseparable. German thinker Gernot Böhme emphasized that to truly experience space, one must be physically present in it. Italian philosopher Tonino Griffero has also explored how atmospheres shape our daily lives, identifying feelings like pain, shame, and twilight as part of a new category he calls quasi-things.
Light
Light filling a room can make a space feel serene, gloomy, celebratory, or even creepy—because the mood of a place comes from what it communicates. Peter Zumthor describes how daylight moves him deeply, calling it spiritual, saying the morning sun casting light on things feels like it doesn't quite belong in our world. Böhme notes that architecture, like stage design, evokes emotion through atmosphere, shaped not only by walls and solids but also by light, sound, and color. Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanizaki, in In Praise of Shadows, speaks poetically about how darkness creates quietude and stillness within interior spaces. Light, then, is essential to architecture—it changes how we experience space, making it more enjoyable, comfortable, and visible.
Object
In The System of Objects, Jean Baudrillard introduced atmosphere in interior design, linking it to consumption's status image. He described how functional interiors are shaped by placed objects giving spaces meaning. These objects, he argued, are constructed rather than natural, acting as mass culture replacements helping express personal identity and social standing. Peter Zumthor shared a similar view, saying room objects should be imagined as having rightful place—like things that "have nothing to do with me as an architect" but still belong there. For him, imagining how these objects will be used helps shape space's future. Objects carry physical and emotional qualities—light, color, smell, memory, texture—all contributing to architectural atmosphere.
Air
Air surrounds and defines buildings, giving them a sense of life. When we inhabit a space, we bring imagination and presence that animate it. The air inside a building helps create its atmosphere. In his essay "Building Breathing Space," Steven Connor describes how space itself is mobile and changeable, shaped by sound, heat, and smell—forces carried through the air. These elements disturb and fill space, making it feel alive. Buildings protect and support the interiors they contain, and it’s through air that an atmosphere emerges within architecture.
Materials
Materials shape the atmosphere of a building, and they can be transformed in many ways to create specific moods. A stone, for instance, can be split, cut, sawed, drilled, or polished—and each method gives it a different quality. These materials are also combined with others in a structure, playing with texture, color, temperature, and tone to form an overall feeling. For architect Peter Zumthor, “Materials react with one another and have their radiance, so that the material composition gives rise to something unique. Material is endless” (Atmospheres, p. 25).
Sound
Peter Zumthor says interiors work like large instruments, gathering sound, making it louder, and sending it somewhere else. How this happens depends on the shape of each room and the materials used inside, and how those materials are put together. Sounds connect with certain places and memories. Even empty spaces make sound through their quiet and silence, shaped by size and material. Sound in architecture is experienced through being there and paying attention. It causes feelings and physical sensations. The materials, size, past experiences, and how familiar a place feels all shape what we hear. People have to recognize and link sounds to their surroundings. Sound is both something you can touch and something you can’t— it’s part of the atmosphere in a building. It lets you hear, feel, and sense what’s around you.
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Overview
Architecture is the practice of designing buildings for people to live and work in, combining civil engineering with visual art. The word comes from Latin and Greek, meaning "chief creator." It involves sketching, planning, and building, used by every civilization to express culture. The earliest architectural theory is found in De architectura, written by Vitruvius in the 1st century BC, who said a good building must be durable, useful, and beautiful. Later, Leon Battista Alberti believed beauty came from proportion, and in the 19th century, Louis Sullivan said "form follows function." By the late 20th century, sustainability became part of the field. Architecture began with simple oral traditions but evolved to include grand religious and political structures. Greek and Roman styles shifted focus to civic virtues, while Indian and Chinese architecture shaped much of Asia. Medieval Europe saw Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals, and the Renaissance brought named architects working in classical forms. After World War I, modern architecture emerged, emphasizing new materials and simplified designs for everyday use. Over time, the field expanded beyond buildings to include interiors and even ships.
Theory
Architecture, as a field of study, sits at the intersection of philosophy and art, exploring how buildings communicate and what they mean. Philosophers from Plato through Michel Foucault have asked whether architecture is truly distinct from mere building. Among them, Gilles Deleuze, Robert Venturi, and Ludwig Wittgenstein have also grappled with the nature of architecture and its place in culture. The question remains: does architecture possess a unique identity that sets it apart from simply functional construction?
Historic treatises
The earliest written work on architecture is De architectura by Roman Vitruvius, dating to the early 1st century BC. He said a good building must be firm, useful, and beautiful—durability, utility, and delight. Later, Leon Battista Alberti expanded on these ideas in De re aedificatoria, believing beauty came from proportion, especially the golden mean tied to the ideal human form. The concept of style didn't emerge until the 16th century, when Giorgio Vasari wrote Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, which was translated into several languages by the 18th century. In the 16th century, Sebastiano Serlio published Tutte L'Opere D'Architettura et Prospetiva, the first practical handbook that cataloged the five architectural orders. In the 19th century, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin contrasted modern industrial life with a neo-medieval ideal in Contrasts, praising Gothic architecture as the only true Christian form. John Ruskin, in Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), said architecture must contribute to mental health and pleasure, insisting that buildings need adornment to qualify as art. Le Corbusier once said: "You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces: that is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say: This is beautiful. That is Architecture." Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, in a 1959 interview, said: "Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins."
Modern concepts
Louis Sullivan, the 19th-century architect who helped define the skyscraper, believed that "form follows function," a principle that shifted design focus from Vitruvius' "utility" to a broader idea of function including use, perception, and enjoyment. Nunzia Rondanini noted that architecture's aesthetic dimension goes beyond mere functionality, shaping social life in ways that aren't reducible to art for art's sake. Still, debates over architectural aesthetics persist—studies show the public often prefers traditional styles to modernist ones. James Stevens Curl criticized modernist designs as alienating and environmentally harmful, while Léon Krier pointed out the contrast between democratic preference for traditional private homes and modernist public buildings. Philosophies like Rationalism, Structuralism, and Phenomenology have shaped how architects think today. In the late 20th century, sustainability became central to design, requiring buildings to respect environmental limits in construction and operation.
Origins and vernacular architecture
Buildings began as responses to basic human needs like shelter, safety, and worship, shaped by what materials were available and what skills people had. As cultures grew, these practices became more organized, turning into a craft. Over time, the formal side of this craft was called architecture. People often think that architectural progress came from trial and error, with success leading to repetition. But vernacular architecture—simple, traditional building based on cultural habits—still lives on today in many parts of the world.
Prehistoric architecture
Early human settlements were mostly rural, but as economies expanded, proto-cities and urban areas began to form. Some grew very quickly, like Çatalhöyük in Turkey or Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan. Neolithic sites from this time include Göbekli Tepe and Çatalhöyük in Turkey, Jericho in the Levant, Mehrgarh in Pakistan, Skara Brae in Orkney, and the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture settlements in Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. These places show how people first learned to build permanent homes and organize larger communities.
Classical era
In ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, buildings were deeply tied to the divine, with architecture serving as a way to show power and connect with the supernatural. In Egypt, architects were trained by the priestly class, and knowledge was passed down through families using tools like the ruler, square, and triangle. Later, Greek and Roman civilizations shaped architecture around civic ideas instead of religion or practical needs. The Romans borrowed heavily from the Greeks, adopting their styles and techniques. Writers like Vitruvius, in the 1st century BC, set down rules for building that influenced design for centuries. Religious buildings were among the most important early examples of this formal approach to architecture.
Asian architecture
Asian architecture took its own path, shaped by religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism, each with distinct styles. Unlike Indian and Chinese architecture, which spread influence across regions, Japanese architecture remained more isolated. Buddhist structures show strong regional variation, while Hindu temple design, developing from the 5th century CE, follows principles laid out in ancient texts called Shastras, aiming to reflect both the universe and human life. Many Asian buildings were built to blend with nature, using wood for grand homes until recently, though Buddhism favored stone and brick, starting with rock-cut forms that often survived well. Early architectural writings include China’s Kao Gong Ji from the 7th–5th centuries BC, India’s Shilpa Shastras, Sri Lanka’s Manjusri Vasthu Vidya Sastra, and Nepal’s Araniko.
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Overview
Frank Duffy came up with the idea of shearing layers, a way to think about how buildings change over time. Stewart Brand expanded on this concept in his 1994 book, How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built. He described buildings as being made up of several layers of modifications and updates. The idea has since been taken up by technology companies to describe the different levels within an organization’s systems.
Description
A building, properly conceived, isn’t one thing but several layers that last at different lengths of time, according to Frank Duffy and DEGW. Duffy summed up this idea by saying, “Our basic argument is that there isn't any such thing as a building,” and he listed four shearing layers: shell, services, scenery, and set. Brand later added two more—site and structure—and explained that the skin of a building changes every twenty years or so, while services wear out every seven to fifteen years. The space plan shifts every few years in commercial settings but can stay put for decades in homes. And then there’s “stuff”—furniture and daily objects that move around on a monthly or even weekly basis.
Theory
The idea comes from ecologists O'Neill et al., who in 1985 explored how natural systems work on different timescales with little energy or information exchange between them. Systems theorist Salthe, in 1993, built on that. Architect Brand took this insight and applied it to buildings, noticing that older structures adapted well because they allowed layers to move independently—faster systems like services weren’t blocked by slower ones like structure. This led to the concept of shearing layers, which became the basis for a design principle called pace-layering, introduced in Brand’s 1999 work.
Variations
The term “pace layering” comes from Gartner, a technology advisory firm that tweaks the shearing layer idea. They explain how software within organizations operates at different speeds, dividing applications into three groups: Systems of Record, Systems of Differentiation, and Systems of Innovation. According to Gartner, companies must consider how these layers are governed, managed, sourced, maintained, and work together to better respond to shifting business needs. The firm has trademarked this method of organizing software as the PACE layered application strategy.
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