GALLERY
The Hearst Tower is not an exceptionally high building in comparison to others in the city, so you can see the tower between other skyscrapers from the outside right next to Columbus Circle, a very popular spot in New York since it is located in the South entrance of Central Park, next to the Central Park Zoo or the Carnegie Hall. In this case, you can enter the lobby and watch the amazing structure of the base of the Tower. A beautiful example of modern architecture that you shouldn’t miss.
The Hearst Tower had the difficult task of being the first building presented in Manhattan for its construction after the terrorist attack of 9/11 during 2001. But nevertheless, the Tower, soon after its inauguration in 2006, became one of the modern icons in the city and even won the Emporis Skyscraper Award that year.
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The design of the Tower was Sir Norman Foster’s first design in New York, however, what makes this building so special is the combination between the avant-garde modern glass structure and the six-floor Art-Decó base, originally constructed in 1928. This base was originally conceived as the International Magazine Building and later on the headquarters for the Hearst Corporation. Designed by Joseph Urban for William Randolph Hearst, the building was supposed to also be the base for a skyscraper also property of Hearst whose construction got first delayed and eventually cancelled because of the effects of the Great Depression. However, the building is one of New York City’s landmarks since 1988, which is the reason why Foster had to keep the original base for the building.
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HEARST TOWER
It is also highlightable that the Hearst Tower had a strong concern about being ecological since its construction, including in the original plan several green measures. For instance, the lobby is notable for, among others, the three-story waterfall that serves as a tool for cooling the area and maintaining the clime in the original building, and whose water comes from the recollection of rain-water in the roof stored in a tank in the basement. This water is used for the irrigation of all the flora in the building as well as for the circulation through the polyethylene tubing system installed in the tower used both for cooling in summer and heating in winter. The building is known to use 26% less energy than the minimum requirements for New York and became the first building to receive a Gold LEED designation from the United States Green Building.
The construction started by demolishing the interior of the original building while respecting the original Art-Decó façade with its characteristic chamfered corners, and in its inside, Foster started the construction of an independent tower. The space between the old building and the tower serves as a three-floor lobby that was covered by a glass roof so that it could use natural light, and that connects all the different parts of the building.
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The structure of the modern tower is a triangle glass parallelepiped hold by 12 huge pillars that are located in the lobby, something that you can see when you visit it and the gives it a really modern appearance. Furthermore, the Hearst Tower is the first building in North America that doesn’t use vertical iron columns on the outside, which gives the building not only its characteristic appearance of triangle-tech but this way it also achieves a superior structural efficiency and saved up to 20% of the steel used for an average building, something that later on would be imitated by different architects on the construtions of later buildings.
TEXT-SOURCES:
Jose Miguel Hernández Hernández Blog - The Hearst Tower
WikiArquitectura - Oficinas Hearst
Hearst Company - Hearst Tower
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia - The Hearst Tower
Writer
IMAGES-SOURCES (GALLERY):
Image 1, 3, 5, 6: Foster + Partners
Image 2: © Pavel Benodv
Image 4: © Adam Kane Macchia Photography