Lipstick Building (New York City, New York)

 office building, skyscraper, interesting place, 1986_construction, movie / film / TV location, postmodern (architecture)

453-foot, 34-story Postmodern office building completed in 1986 for Hines Interests. Designed by Philip Johnson, the building is officially named 53rd at Third, but is commonly known as The Lipstick Building due to its shape and color, which resemble a tube of lipstick. The facades are clad in two shades of red granite and brushed stainless-steel.

At three levels, blocks of the building recede as part of Manhattan's zoning regulation in which the building is required to recede within its spatial envelope, to increase the availability of light to street level. The result is a form that looks as though it could retract telescopically. The oval shape, which is unusual in comparison to surrounding buildings, uses less space at the base than a regular skyscraper of quadrilateral footprint would use. This provides more room for the high numbers of pedestrians who travel via Third Avenue.

At the base, the building stands on columns which act as an entrance for a vast post-modern hall. They are two stories high and separate the street from the 30-foot-high lobby. Because the elevators and emergency staircases are located to the rear of the building, this area appears hollow. The exterior of the building is a continuous wall of red enameled Imperial granite and steel. The ribbon windows are surrounded by grey frames. In between floors is a thin red band which recalls the red color of lipstick. The curvature of the building allows light to reflect off the surface at different places.

Attached to the northeast corner of the oval shaped main tower is a shorter, 9-story structure with a simpler box form. It is clad in matching granite of two shades of red, the darker shade consisting of horizontal bands above and below the windows on each floor. The ground floor has a loading dock at the east half, and a bay with plate-glass at the west, housing Wolfgang's Steakhouse. The upper floors have six bays of square windows with 2-over-2 panes with the same tinted glass and framing as the oval tower. There is another bay of windows at the front edge of the west elevation, and narrower windows at the front edge of the east elevation.

Besides the lobby and restaurant, the ground floor is occupied by Crimson & Rye bar. The anchor tenant, Latham & Watkins, relocated in 2021. The interior's 31st floor was used as the location of Davis MacLean's office on "Power".

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