Rodin Studios Building (New York City, New York)
USA /
New Jersey /
West New York /
New York City, New York /
West 57th Street, 200
World
/ USA
/ New Jersey
/ West New York
World / United States / New York
office building
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162-foot, 14-story Neo-Gothic office building completed in 1917 as a residential building. Designed by Cass Gilbert specifically for artists, it was named for the most innovative living artist of the time, sculptor Auguste Rodin. It contained double-height studios, most of them facing north onto West 57th Street, and duplex living units at the rear. The duplex units have since been subdivided, and the tower now houses offices.
Cass used rough, multi-colored brick (buff to grey) for the face of the building then embellished it with cast and wrought iron, and terra-cotta. By 2006 chunks of the decorative terra-cotta were falling to the pavement below and the structural steel was corroding. Architects Zaskorski & Notaro spearheaded a restoration, working with engineers Robert Silman Associates and restoration contractor Nicholson & Galloway, Inc. The entire 8-foot tall cornice was removed; replaced with new structural steel and Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete replicas. Around 400 pieces of damaged terra cotta were replaced with new cast stone units.
The building's base on 57th Street is comprised of five broad bays with a central entrance and four shop windows; the narrow bays contain shop doors or smaller show windows. A row of five double-hung sash windows fill the five bays on the 2nd floor. Single, double-hung sash windows fill the narrow bays. The five broad bays within the building's main section contain the duplex studio windows. The staggered studio windows within the center bay are the only exterior clue to the system of interlocking units within. Instead of five, the center bay contains four duplex windows; single story windows (on the 3rd and 12th floors) compensate for the interlocking arrangement. The four narrow bays contain single double-hung windows on each story, lighting the overlapping bathrooms and kitchenettes of the interlocked studio units in the building's three center bays. Within the building's cap the five broad bays contain duplex studio windows and the narrow bays, as below, single windows at each of the cap's two floors, repeating the interlocked system below.
On 7th Avenue the broad bays at the building's base contain four shop windows, though not all the narrow bays contain these shops' entrances. On the 2nd floor paired double-hung sash windows fill the broad bays and single, double-hung sash windows the narrow bays. This pattern is repeated across the building's main section although, originally, there were no windows on the 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th floors of the northernmost broad bay. The left-hand openings in the southernmost broad bay, again on the 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th floors, remain blind. In the building's 2-story cap, the pattern of paired and single-windows is retained, though the paired windows in the northernmost bay on the 14th floor, as well as the single-window in the niche to the right and the left-hand window in the southernmost broad bay, are blind.
Looking north on Seventh Avenue from West 56th Street, several bays of the building's southern elevation are apparent but only the first contains a window type unlike those in either the north or east facades; these windows are tripartite. The face brick here is uniformly buff; there are neither polychrome brick nor other decorative elements.
Some of the base's original ornamental brickwork can still be seen below the shop windows' terra-cotta corbel table cornices. Adjacent to the gateway south of the building's Seventh Avenue elevation is a broad terra-cotta molding just above the granite base and a string course. The building's entrance is round-arched and now faced with travertine. The original corbel table cornices above the broad bay show windows remain. The twelve corbel arches are supported by a series of five antic figures, or "marmosets": a frog, a rapt reader, a sky gazer, a frontal supporting figure and a supporting figure in profile, repeated as necessary. Above the corbel arches the cornice comprises a fluted frieze and Roman molding. In a wall extending from the building's south wall to the southern lot line, a few feet back from the building line along Seventh Avenue, there is an arched gateway, originally permitting access to the building's basement and rear yard but now the service entrance to the 1-story restaurant addition of 1932-33. The gateway's foliated surround and ogee drip molding terminate in a crocketed accolade. Above the arch three rectangular plaques containing a tracery design -- a circle and four mouchettes -- ornament the wall surface. The accolade's finial becomes the central element in the design of the middle plaque. The wall's coping is supported on a corbel table cornice like those above the shop windows.
Most of the ornament in the building's main section is on the West 57th street elevation and most of this is iron. Terra-cotta is limited to two string courses and five drip moldings. The string courses run the breadth of the 57th Street and Seventh Avenue elevations the thinner just above the 2nd-floor windows, the thicker above it at the 3rd-floor windows' sill. Above each of the adjacent windows in the northernmost broad bay of the Seventh Avenue facade -- at the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 11th floors -- there is an ogee, drip molding and accolade, borne on "marmoset" corbels. Not unlike the gateway diagonally below, the accolade finial is incorporated into the tracery design -- a circle and four mouchettes -- of the rectangular plaque above the window.
The terra-cotta of the building's 2-story cap features the arched corbel motif from over the shop windows reintroduced in great variety. An arched corbel course and frieze between the 12 & 13th floors on both the 57th Street and Seventh Avenue elevations separates the building's cap from its main section. Across the broad bays the corbelled course comprises twelve arches, like the shop window cornices, and thirteen marmosets; the narrow bays course have only four arches and five "marmosets." The "marmosets" are not a repetition of those below. There are three: one wears a head band, another is hooded, and the third bears an expression of stress. In both the broad and narrow bays all but the narrow panels at the extreme ends of the deeply molded frieze depict paired dolphins supporting a disk above a reeded basin; the narrower panels contain flarnbeaux in low relief.
Corbelled pilasters corresponding to the brick reveals below mark the broad and narrow bays in the building's cap. Like the masks of comedy and tragedy the "marmosets" alternate in expression: one depicts a grinning ancient grasping a palette; the other a distraught ancient pointing to a slender statuette. Each ''marmoset" supports a paneled plinth faced with an urn in low relief. The pilaster rises from this plinth and, like the plinth is paneled. Its lower portion is fluted.
Terra-cotta plaques in brick borders face the spandrels between the paired windows of the 13th & 14th floors. Canopies of small pendant arches articulate the tops of the broad bays, above the duplex windows of the 57th Street elevation and the paired 14th-floor windows of the Seventh Avenue elevation. All of the single windows on the 14th floor in both elevations have become niches with corbelled sills articulated with escutcheons bearing fleur-de-lys and flanked by antic eagles. Repeated above each face of the tri-faceted canopies is the mask of a hooded gnome.
The cornice itself is an elaborate corbel table; the small arches therein incorporate the shell motif and are supported on modillions. Between each of these modillions, on the bottom face of the corbel table, the winged heads of putti are molded in low relief. The cornice cymatium is articulated in a variation of a Roman molding; the acanthus leaves alternate with fleur-de-lys.
Cast and wrought iron in combination are also used within the building's decorative program. Except for the tympanum in the gateway adjacent to the Seventh Avenue elevation, most of the iron is found on the West 57th facade. Iron is used exclusively for the canopies which project from between the duplex windows. Gothic choir stall canopies appear to have been the model for these elements. Each is five bays wide, corresponding to the windows below and above, and each bay is separated by a thin rib and pinnacle. It is on these pinnacles that the winged finial figures perch.
Each of the iron canopies has a narrow ivy frieze running across the top. The thin ribs correspond with the mullions between windows and rise across the ivy to become brackets supporting the canopy; the top of the bracket is attached to the back of the pendant pinnacle. The panel (the spandrel) above the window and below the canopy is divided in half vertically by a thinner rib. Running behind the canopy pinnacles are three horizontal moldings: the lowest one of pendant arches; a broad rinceaux; and a cable molding on top. Each pinnacle carries a winged creature finial; a foliate boss is the pinnacle's lower terminal feature.
The ground floor is occupied by APR57 Appraisals, FedEx Office Ship Center, Fresh & Co. restaurant, USA Brooklyn Delicatessen, and Trattoria Dell'Arte restaurant.
www.200west57.com/
babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015086592048&v...
archive.org/details/officialsouvenir00demo/page/n109/mo...
Cass used rough, multi-colored brick (buff to grey) for the face of the building then embellished it with cast and wrought iron, and terra-cotta. By 2006 chunks of the decorative terra-cotta were falling to the pavement below and the structural steel was corroding. Architects Zaskorski & Notaro spearheaded a restoration, working with engineers Robert Silman Associates and restoration contractor Nicholson & Galloway, Inc. The entire 8-foot tall cornice was removed; replaced with new structural steel and Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete replicas. Around 400 pieces of damaged terra cotta were replaced with new cast stone units.
The building's base on 57th Street is comprised of five broad bays with a central entrance and four shop windows; the narrow bays contain shop doors or smaller show windows. A row of five double-hung sash windows fill the five bays on the 2nd floor. Single, double-hung sash windows fill the narrow bays. The five broad bays within the building's main section contain the duplex studio windows. The staggered studio windows within the center bay are the only exterior clue to the system of interlocking units within. Instead of five, the center bay contains four duplex windows; single story windows (on the 3rd and 12th floors) compensate for the interlocking arrangement. The four narrow bays contain single double-hung windows on each story, lighting the overlapping bathrooms and kitchenettes of the interlocked studio units in the building's three center bays. Within the building's cap the five broad bays contain duplex studio windows and the narrow bays, as below, single windows at each of the cap's two floors, repeating the interlocked system below.
On 7th Avenue the broad bays at the building's base contain four shop windows, though not all the narrow bays contain these shops' entrances. On the 2nd floor paired double-hung sash windows fill the broad bays and single, double-hung sash windows the narrow bays. This pattern is repeated across the building's main section although, originally, there were no windows on the 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th floors of the northernmost broad bay. The left-hand openings in the southernmost broad bay, again on the 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th floors, remain blind. In the building's 2-story cap, the pattern of paired and single-windows is retained, though the paired windows in the northernmost bay on the 14th floor, as well as the single-window in the niche to the right and the left-hand window in the southernmost broad bay, are blind.
Looking north on Seventh Avenue from West 56th Street, several bays of the building's southern elevation are apparent but only the first contains a window type unlike those in either the north or east facades; these windows are tripartite. The face brick here is uniformly buff; there are neither polychrome brick nor other decorative elements.
Some of the base's original ornamental brickwork can still be seen below the shop windows' terra-cotta corbel table cornices. Adjacent to the gateway south of the building's Seventh Avenue elevation is a broad terra-cotta molding just above the granite base and a string course. The building's entrance is round-arched and now faced with travertine. The original corbel table cornices above the broad bay show windows remain. The twelve corbel arches are supported by a series of five antic figures, or "marmosets": a frog, a rapt reader, a sky gazer, a frontal supporting figure and a supporting figure in profile, repeated as necessary. Above the corbel arches the cornice comprises a fluted frieze and Roman molding. In a wall extending from the building's south wall to the southern lot line, a few feet back from the building line along Seventh Avenue, there is an arched gateway, originally permitting access to the building's basement and rear yard but now the service entrance to the 1-story restaurant addition of 1932-33. The gateway's foliated surround and ogee drip molding terminate in a crocketed accolade. Above the arch three rectangular plaques containing a tracery design -- a circle and four mouchettes -- ornament the wall surface. The accolade's finial becomes the central element in the design of the middle plaque. The wall's coping is supported on a corbel table cornice like those above the shop windows.
Most of the ornament in the building's main section is on the West 57th street elevation and most of this is iron. Terra-cotta is limited to two string courses and five drip moldings. The string courses run the breadth of the 57th Street and Seventh Avenue elevations the thinner just above the 2nd-floor windows, the thicker above it at the 3rd-floor windows' sill. Above each of the adjacent windows in the northernmost broad bay of the Seventh Avenue facade -- at the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 11th floors -- there is an ogee, drip molding and accolade, borne on "marmoset" corbels. Not unlike the gateway diagonally below, the accolade finial is incorporated into the tracery design -- a circle and four mouchettes -- of the rectangular plaque above the window.
The terra-cotta of the building's 2-story cap features the arched corbel motif from over the shop windows reintroduced in great variety. An arched corbel course and frieze between the 12 & 13th floors on both the 57th Street and Seventh Avenue elevations separates the building's cap from its main section. Across the broad bays the corbelled course comprises twelve arches, like the shop window cornices, and thirteen marmosets; the narrow bays course have only four arches and five "marmosets." The "marmosets" are not a repetition of those below. There are three: one wears a head band, another is hooded, and the third bears an expression of stress. In both the broad and narrow bays all but the narrow panels at the extreme ends of the deeply molded frieze depict paired dolphins supporting a disk above a reeded basin; the narrower panels contain flarnbeaux in low relief.
Corbelled pilasters corresponding to the brick reveals below mark the broad and narrow bays in the building's cap. Like the masks of comedy and tragedy the "marmosets" alternate in expression: one depicts a grinning ancient grasping a palette; the other a distraught ancient pointing to a slender statuette. Each ''marmoset" supports a paneled plinth faced with an urn in low relief. The pilaster rises from this plinth and, like the plinth is paneled. Its lower portion is fluted.
Terra-cotta plaques in brick borders face the spandrels between the paired windows of the 13th & 14th floors. Canopies of small pendant arches articulate the tops of the broad bays, above the duplex windows of the 57th Street elevation and the paired 14th-floor windows of the Seventh Avenue elevation. All of the single windows on the 14th floor in both elevations have become niches with corbelled sills articulated with escutcheons bearing fleur-de-lys and flanked by antic eagles. Repeated above each face of the tri-faceted canopies is the mask of a hooded gnome.
The cornice itself is an elaborate corbel table; the small arches therein incorporate the shell motif and are supported on modillions. Between each of these modillions, on the bottom face of the corbel table, the winged heads of putti are molded in low relief. The cornice cymatium is articulated in a variation of a Roman molding; the acanthus leaves alternate with fleur-de-lys.
Cast and wrought iron in combination are also used within the building's decorative program. Except for the tympanum in the gateway adjacent to the Seventh Avenue elevation, most of the iron is found on the West 57th facade. Iron is used exclusively for the canopies which project from between the duplex windows. Gothic choir stall canopies appear to have been the model for these elements. Each is five bays wide, corresponding to the windows below and above, and each bay is separated by a thin rib and pinnacle. It is on these pinnacles that the winged finial figures perch.
Each of the iron canopies has a narrow ivy frieze running across the top. The thin ribs correspond with the mullions between windows and rise across the ivy to become brackets supporting the canopy; the top of the bracket is attached to the back of the pendant pinnacle. The panel (the spandrel) above the window and below the canopy is divided in half vertically by a thinner rib. Running behind the canopy pinnacles are three horizontal moldings: the lowest one of pendant arches; a broad rinceaux; and a cable molding on top. Each pinnacle carries a winged creature finial; a foliate boss is the pinnacle's lower terminal feature.
The ground floor is occupied by APR57 Appraisals, FedEx Office Ship Center, Fresh & Co. restaurant, USA Brooklyn Delicatessen, and Trattoria Dell'Arte restaurant.
www.200west57.com/
babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015086592048&v...
archive.org/details/officialsouvenir00demo/page/n109/mo...
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Coordinates: 40°45'55"N 73°58'49"W
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