Bloomberg Tower (New York City, New York)

 office building, skyscraper, condominiums, 2005_construction

806-foot, 54-story postmodern mixed-use building completed in 2005 for Vornado Realty Trust. Designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates with interiors by Studios Architecture with Shen Milsom & Wilke and furniture by Knoll International, Herman Miller, and Teknion, the new building consists of a high rise tower on the west and a mid-rise building on the east end of the block. The building provides not only the Headquarters for the Bloomberg financial news service, but 105 luxury condominiums beyond the 31st floor as well. The structural frame is also mixed: office and retail floors have a steel frame, while the residential portion is concrete. The complex was built on the site of the former Alexander's Department Store flagship building which closed in 1992.

The centerpiece of the project is a 6-story canoidal (sloping ellipse) skylight between the two podiums. The design of the courtyard at One Beacon Court, which connects 58th and 59th Streets, was inspired by other historic New York enclosures such as Grand Central Terminal, the reading room of the New York Public Library Main Branch, and the skating rink at Rockefeller Center; glass walls curve around the perimeter of the courtyard, tilting slightly inward as they rise. The 110-foot-high court, one of the city’s more intriguing spaces, inclines about 7 degrees inward and has a broad entrance on 58th Street and a small one on 59th Street.

The facades are clad in glass and shiny stainless-steel and aluminum. Most of the glass on the tower is silver, while around the courtyard and base there are green-tinted glass spandrels. The shorter east building section has an angled roof line setback along the side streets. Together with the inwardly canted large elliptical court, it is an interesting and surprising foil to the very crisp and handsome rectilinearity of the tower. The Bloomberg office space has a large atrium called The Link that overlooks the elliptical court and the atrium has a curved escalator between the 5th and 6th floors. The top six levels of the tower are brightly illuminated at night. The retail spaces at the lower levels are currently occupied only by Laederach chocolate shop.

www.bloomberg.com/company/
www.beaconcourtrealty.com/
www.vnooffice.com/portfolio/property/731-lexington-aven...
metropolismag.com/programs/total-design-2/