Phyllis Lambert,Barry Bergdoll
The Seagram building rises over New Yorkâ€™s Park Avenue, seeming to float above the street with perfect lines of bronze and glass. Considered one of the greatest icons of twentieth-century architecture, the building was commissioned by Samuel Bronfman, founder of the Canadian distillery dynasty Seagram. Bronfmanâ€™s daughter Phyllis Lambert was twenty-seven years old when she took over the search for an architect and chose Mies van der Rohe (1886â€“1969), a pioneering modern master of what he termed â€œskin and bonesâ€ architecture. Mies, who designed the elegant, deceptively simple thirty-eight-story tower along with Philip Johnson (1906â€“2005), emphasized the beauty of structure and fine materials, and set the building back from the avenue, creating an urban oasis with the buildingâ€™s plaza. Through her choice, Lambert established her role as a leading architectural patron and singlehandedly changed the face of American urban architecture.,Building Seagram, is a comprehensive personal and scholarly history of a major building and its architectural, cultural, and urban legacies. Lambert makes use of previously unpublished personal archives, company correspondence, and photographs to tell an insiderâ€™s view of the debates, resolutions, and unknown dramas of the buildingâ€™s construction, as well as its crucial role in the history ofÂ modern art and architectural culture.
Architecture,Nonfiction
Building Seagram