Buchmann Tower | office building, high-rise, 1957_construction

 office building, high-rise, 1957_construction

333-foot, 27-story modernist office building completed in 1957 for Webb & Knapp. Designed by Eggers & Higgins with Marazio & Morris, it is clad in limestone. The building's main mass forms a 27-story tower rising set-back from the lot line, where there is a 3-story base and 9-story lower wing at the same height as the neighboring St. Thomas Church. The building has previously been known as Canada House and the Mutual Benefit Life Building.

The base fronting Fifth Avenue has five bays. The 2nd bay from the south is slightly-recessed and the 3-story area is lined with black granite and contains the main entrance at the ground floor. There are two sets of bronze-and-glass double-doors, with a bronze panel reading "BUCHMAN TOWER". There is a large panel of 4-over-4 glass panes in bronze framing at the 2nd floor, and 4-over-3 bronze panels at the 3rd floor with bronze numbers "680". The other bays have plate-glass storefronts covered by glass-and-metal canopiesl the south bay is narrower. Above each of the canopies, the 2nd-3rd floors have glass walls at each bay with thin metal framing. The north facade on 54th Street has five bays, with storefronts in the eastern three, a metal service door in the next bay, and a freight entrance in the west bay. 2-story surrounds frame the 2nd-3rd floors of the four eastern bays, with the same glass infill as on the east facade, except for the western of these four bays, which has limestone infill. The far west bay has a large metal vent at the 2nd floor, and paired openings with smaller vents at the 3rd. Above there are four more floors with paired windows at this bay, which ends at the 7th floor.

The rest of the base is topped by the remaining six floor of the low wing, with three windows in each bay on the north facade, and two windows in the northern three bays of the east facade (with the piers framed by projecting borders at the southern two of these bays. The base sets back above the 3rd floor at the two south bays on the avenue to the main tower.

The tower has four single-window bays (also with projecting edges of the piers) above the 3-story base, and rises above and behind the 9-story wing with six such bays. The north elevation of the tower spans four bays of three windows each. There is a mechanical floor at the top with metal vents in place of windows. Above the 3-story base, the south-facing wall of the low wing on the avenue side has two bays of single-windows, also ending at the 9th floor.

The south facade of the tower is a blank limestone wall. The west elevation has four bays of single-windows at the north end, and blank limestone at the south third. The ground floor is occupied by the Fifth Avenue flagship of Swarovski which was designed by Giovanna Engelbert.

dlc.library.columbia.edu/catalog/cul:1jwstqjrg2