January 21, 2011

Snow-trimmed.



I never knew what this building was and really wanted to know because of its Art Nouveau/tangled Gothic style - and - those faces. It sits right next to the office building where I work and I am on the 44th floor, so the view out the windows on one side of the floor directly confronts these faces. Directly. I love the view. I walk over there all the time just to take them in. So, I found out what the building is (thank you, Paul). It was the RCA Victor Building (Radio Corporation of America), built in 1931 and is, today, the General Electric Building. The building is described well by Robert Stern, when he said, it "continued the mood and tone, if not the specific vocabulary of...St. Bartholomew's church, which it overlooked...evoking the dynamic energy of radio transmission to suggest a cathedral for the age of crystal sets." (Quote taken from Robert A.M. Stern's New York 1930: Architecture and Urbanism between the Two World Wars. New York: Rizzoli, 1987 - thanks again Paul). St. Bartholomew's church and the base of this building is featured below. Took these this morning after a nice snow sprinkle.





...It is a good thing that the locus of my working world harbors such great visuals, otherwise these pages might start to bore. I used to have intriguing dreams at night - chocolate shops in Paris with kooky characters or schooner rides on a lanky river. Now my dreams are nightmares about disarranged outlook invitations and mislaid documents. Eh. Got to keep the inspiration trickling notwithstanding. Thank goodness for monkeys.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

what a lovely view of the Wireless Maiden.

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