The building is considered one of the symbols of New York.

Skyscraper Chrysler Building once belonged to the company "Chrysler».
The building was built in 1930, today it is considered one of the symbols of New York.
Building height 319 m. Located in the eastern part of it in Manhattan.
Who are the owners of the skyscraper: «TMW Real Estate» (75 percent) and «Tishman Speyer Properties» (25 percent).



In the late twenties - early thirties of the last century in New York, one after the other skyscrapers were built, and for the owners of each of them was a matter of prestige to surpass the height of its predecessor. Architect William Van Alen developed the project building height of 246 meters for a contractor, William Reynolds, but later the right to build were bought by Walter Chrysler, who had planned to place in the new structure of the headquarters of his automobile corporation. At the request of Chrysler's design was revised, the planned height of the building has increased by ten stories (up to 282 meters).



The initial design of the Van Allen suggested as an ornament glass roof in the form of a diamond. The project has also been indicated by the base, where the exhibition windows were increased in height three times and had an over 12 floors with glass corners, which should create a visual and physical effect of lightness, as if the tower floating in the air. Also skyscraper originally had to be 246 meters in height. However, the project was considered too ahead of time, and besides expensive for his client, William H. Reynolds, who approved the original plan of the Van Allen. Then the design and lease were sold to Walter P. Chrysler, who worked with Van Alen and altered the design of the skyscraper, adding several floors; He eventually reached 282 meters in height. Since Walter Chrysler was chairman of the Chrysler Motor Corporation (Chrysler Automobile Corporation), a variety of architectural details, and especially the statues and gargoyles on the building were made in the form of products of Chrysler, for example, in the form of hoods Plymouth; they were a mechanical age in the 1920s



Work on clearing the site for construction began in October 1928, six months after the start of construction of the foundation, and after another six months I was already fully erected the steel frame of the building. The opening of the building took place on 27 May 1930.



In general, it has been used almost 400,000 rivets and approximately 3,826,000 bricks were laid by hand to create the curtain walls of a skyscraper. To coordinate the construction to contractors, builders and engineers have joined other experts of building services.



77-storey skyscraper was part of Chrysler's erratic trilateral competition for the title of the tallest building in the world. We struggled with Chrysler for the title of the company building the Bank of Manhattan with Wall Street 40, erected by the former partner of Van Allen and his main rival Craig Severance implacable (H. Craig Severance), as well as the Empire State Building. When Severance got wind of the fact that Chrysler are going to build up to a height of 925 feet (281, 94 m), he added a 50-foot (15, 24 m), the flagpole, which made him the building on two feet higher, reaching 927 feet (282, 55 m). Then, in August 1930, Van Alen revealed his "secret weapon" - the tip of the spire made of stainless steel, which, under the cloak of secrecy has been assembled inside the dome of the building, and then raised, so skyscraper reached an altitude of 1048 feet (319, 43 m). The spire of the Van Allen was the first man erected object, surpassed the height of 1024, 5-foot (312 27 m) of the Eiffel Tower, which holds the record heights since the Paris World Fair in 1889.



At the same time in New York ended with the construction of another skyscraper - semidesyatietazhnogo building at 40 Wall Street (who later became known as the "Trump Building"). Its architect was Craig Severance, a former colleague and rival at the time Van Alen. Knowing Expected height Chrysler Building, Severance in the pursuit of fame has increased its building height to 283 meters.



William Van Alen's response was to obtain permission to increase the height of the "Chrysler Building". Quietly, he gathered a skyscraper under construction in steel spire height of about 38 meters. After the steeple was hoisted to the top of the building, the Chrysler Building, reached an altitude of 320 meters, becoming the tallest building in the world.



The land on which stands the Chrysler Building, the organization was given to The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art - private colleges offering each entrant full scholarship, in 1902. The land was leased to the Chrysler Corporation in 1929. College still owns the land. The rights to the building had several owners. Chrysler family sold the building in 1947. Chrysler Corp. slid out in the 1950s, and in 1957 it was purchased by the leaders in the real estate Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo, and it passed into the possession of the Massachusetts life insurance companies on a reciprocal basis (Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company). The lobby was decorated in the new, and the facade redone in 1978-1979. In 1979, a building owned by Jack Kent Cooke - investor from Washington, DC. The spire underwent renovation, which ended in 1995. In 1998, the company Tishman Speyer Properties (Tishman Speyer Properties) and group travel insurance (Travelers Insurance Group) bought the Chrysler Building at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, and adjacent building Kent Building (Kent Building) in 1997 for about $ 220 million at the a consortium of banks and organizations Jack Kent Cooke. Until 1997, the company Tishman Speyer Properties, the company begged Cooper Union rent the land for 150 years and still continues to hold the lease rights.



In 2001, 75% of the buildings were sold for 300 million dollars to the German branch of the investment fund TMW headquartered in Atlanta. June 11th, 2008 it was reported that the Board of Investments of Abu Dhabi is in talks to buy 75% of shares from TMW and 15% of shares from Tishman Speyer Properties, as well as the proportion of the organization Trylons in the neighborhood of $ 800 million. July 9, 2008 announced that a deal has been made and now the Council of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority holds a 90% stake in the building.



Chrysler Building held the crown of the highest building in the world in just eleven months, until he was defeated skyscraper Empire State Building, which opened in May 1931. (Without its mooring mast, the Empire State was just two feet (0, 61 m) higher than Chrysler. However, the 200-foot (60, 96 m) tower, originally designed for mooring airships and then installed in 1950 204-foot (62, 18 m), TV antenna increased the height to 1452 feet, 8, and 9/16 inch (442, 787 m) to the top of the lightning rod.)



There were many attempts to decipher the facade of Chrysler, particularly the spire, which is derided by leading critics of the time as a "design-nedorostok" with "all those vacuous romanticism, this meaningless lust, this empty symbolism" as "inverted swordfish" and as "architecture Little Nemo ", referring to the futuristic design of the space.



Thirty-first floor of the tower, lined with white bricks with inserts of gray brick, decorated with a frieze of stylized car crowned winged urns resembling the radiator cap models Chrysler in 1929. On the next ledge eight giant metal eagle head guard of the compass as a protective symbols on medieval castles.



The leitmotif of the building - it's a car turning into a flying machine or apparatus, becoming a living flying creatures. Urns, grow wings, head eagles made of metal. In this context, the spire can be interpreted as a tail made of metal, with triangular windows and sculpted metal panels, which are elements of this feather.



May 27, 1930 Chrysler Building was opened to visitors. Despite the very rapid pace of building (four floors per week), very primitive security measures during the construction of the building was killed no one.



Chrysler Building is also known for its crown adorning the front of the roof. Having seven semicircular arches terraces Design Crown Van Alen Groin vault is made of seven semi-circular parts of the transitional bevels, erected one after another. Plated stainless steel and are secured shackled in a sunny pattern with many triangular vaulted windows, turning into small segments of the seven narrow ramps facade crown. The corona itself is laid out in silver metal "Enduro KA-2" - austenitic stainless steel, developed by Krupp in Germany and sold under the name "Nirosta" (German acronym word nichtrostender Stahl - Stainless Steel ».



When the building was originally opened, it had a gallery that is accessible to the public, on the 71st floor, which was closed in 1945. Now, the floor - the highest of all occupied floors in the building, most recently occupied by the office. Private club «Cloud Club» occupied space on three floors - from 66 to 68, but it was closed in the late 1970s. Above the 71 th floor of the building is mostly stairs of the steeple. These floors are very narrow with a low ceiling slanted serve only to hold radio and other equipment. TV channel WCBS-TV (second channel) was originally broadcast from the roof of the Chrysler Building in the 1940s and early 1950s, before moving to the Empire State Building. Over the years, the station WPAT-FM and WTFM (Now WKTU) also used the Chrysler Building as its tower, but they also moved into the Empire State Building to the 1970th year. At the moment, the Chrysler Building is no radio.



On the spire and its decoration there are two kinds of lighting. First - V-shaped entrances lighting in the building. Later, the group has been added to Spotlight on the brackets lighting poles directed to the rear side of the building. It allows you to light up the roof lights of different colors for special occasions. This lighting was installed Londnerom electrician Charles and his team during the construction of the building.

According to many experts Chrysler Building - is the most beautiful of the many skyscrapers of Manhattan. The building is traditionally one of the ten "most favorite" architectural structures of the United States of America.



Immediately after completion of the building at the seventy-first floor was located accessible to the public observation deck, but in 1945 it was closed. By the end of the seventies of the last century three-storey Chrysler Building (with sixty-sixth to sixty-eight) held a special "Cloud Club". Some time in the upper (technical) floors were installed television and radio transmitters, but eventually almost all of them are "moved" to the Empire State Building.

In 1976, the building received the Chrysler Building National Historic Landmark USA.

Until the fifties of the XX century the building was the property of the Chrysler family, later it changed many owners. Now there are offices of many companies, in connection with which access is only open in the first floor lobbies. Nevertheless, the Chrysler Building is one of the most famous sights and symbols of New York and has consistently attracted the attention of many tourists.

Chrysler Building - an example of Art Deco architecture. The peculiar ornamentation of a skyscraper - a repetition of motifs design cap for wheel drive Chrysler vehicles of the time. Perhaps the Chrysler Building, the best example of the Art Deco period in New York's architecture, which is the most beautiful period in the development of the city.



Extremely elegant hall is a skyscraper, and on top of the building was equipped with a viewing platform, which in a few years replaced the restaurant. But with the beginning of the Great Depression, the former site Ferris turned into a private club. The uppermost levels of the skyscraper are narrow, have low ceilings, they were created primarily for viewing outside, they were used to install the radio equipment and other devices (mechanical and electrical).

Materials Applied on to finish building luxurious and exotic - red Moroccan marble with a pattern reminiscent of the flames, purple layers which, like capture the spirit of the era of jazz, and floors made of yellow Siena marble. Fine inlaid doors and elevator cars, like the poem, from memory to read aloud: Teak, Philippine mahogany, Cuban plum, English maple with green wood, American and South African prima vera, aspen, curly maple and walnut tree from America, Australian silky oak. The rich wood trim - is another literal image of the car in the interior of the building, because the cars of that time had in its interior decoration a lot of wooden elements and wooden dashboard



At the time, the Chrysler Building has been criticized for his "frivolous" design that departed from modernism, characterized by directness and functionality. For example, the top of the building installed huge silver gargoyles in the form of eagles. Yet the public admiration and enthusiasm took the building, sometimes even giving him a nickname, such as "Beauty of Manhattan." Over time, many acknowledged the skyscraper Chrysler highest architectural expression of the era of the 1920s.

And, of course, unusual and beautiful building was seen and used in many films, games and cartoons. In recent years, the Chrysler Building remains the favorite building of New York. In summer 2005, the Museum Skyscraper (Skyscraper Museum) in New York asked 100 architects, builders, critics, engineers, historians and scientists to select the 10 most favorite building of 25 towers in New York. Chrysler Building took the first place, since 90% of respondents called it in the top ten favorite buildings.



The distinctive design of the Chrysler Building has inspired architects to build buildings like him, including a set of Ples Liberty Tower 1 (One Liberty Place) in Philadelphia.

As one of the symbols of New York City, Chrysler Building, "lit up" in virtually all types of art - film, photography, video, painting, advertising, music, literature and even fashion, since the choice of different events often falls on it.

The tallest building before it: Trump Building (40 Wall Street)

The tallest building after him: the Empire State Building (Empire State Building)

Address: 405 Lexington Avenue, Manhattan, NY, United States

Built: 1928-1930

Scope of Use: Office

The height of the antenna / spire: 318, 9 m (1046 ft)

The height of the roof: 282 m (925 ft)

Top floor: 274 m (899 ft)

Number of floors: 77

Total area: 1,195,000 square feet (111,000 m2)

Number of lifts: 32

Interior decoration:

















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