Friday, June 6, 2008

The CHRYSLER BUILDING Crown


On a clear, pleasant late afternoon before sunset, I made these images of the art deco ornamentation at the crown of the Chrysler Building. In one of the images, the crown is reflected on the glass siding of another building. The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper in New York City, located on the east side of Manhattan at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. (From wikipedia): Standing at 319 meters (1,047 ft), the Chrysler Building was designed by architect William Van Alen to house the Chrysler Corporation. The easily recognizable crown is composed of seven radiating terraced arches, Van Alen's design of the crown is a cruciform groin vault constructed into seven concentric members with transitioning set-backs, mounted up one behind each other.[30] The stainless-steel cladding is ribbed and riveted in a radiating pattern with many triangular vaulted windows, transitioning into smaller segments of the seven narrow set-backs of the facade of the terraced crown. The entire crown is clad with silvery "Enduro KA-2" metal, an austenitic stainless steel developed in Germany by Krupp and marketed under the trade name "Nirosta" (a German acronym for nichtrostender Stahl, meaning "rust-proof steel"). As an iconic part of the New York City skyline, the Chrysler Building has been depicted countlessly in almost every medium—film, photography, video games, art, advertising, music, literature, and even fashion, as its use quickly establishes without doubt the location in which the depicted events are occurring.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have great blog and this post is good!
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best regards, Greg

Anonymous said...

Lady Gaga is probably my biggest guilty pleasure in music. I can't explain why I like her.
And you?