CHRYSLER BUILDING

Designed by William Van Alen, completed 1930 New York City
The Chrysler Building, designed by William Van Alen, stands 77 stories tall at
Lexington Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Streets in Manhattan, and is considered one of
the most famous and admired skyscrapers in the world. The Chrysler Building owes this
position primarily to its distinctive tower, which terminates in a series of curves that
support a final pointed spire. At night, v-shaped light patterns mark the successive curves,
keeping the structure conspicuous around the clock.
The building occupies an easily visible site, across the street from the Grand Central
Terminal, where subway lines, commuter rail lines, and long-distance rail lines converge.
Other buildings in the area attract less attention because their towers are rectilinear, and
thus commonplace. Not only does the Chrysler spire draw attention at close range as well
as from afar, but also the ground floor features tall, angular entrances, a lavishly
decorated lobby, and beautifully inlaid elevator cabs. Several setbacks along the
building’s silhouette have easily visible decorations including metal eagles, winged
radiator caps, and a brick frieze of Chrysler automobiles. The combination of stiff
stylization and recognizable imagery marks a phase of the style known as Art Deco, an
amalgam of French-inspired semi-abstraction and popular, easily intelligible subject
matter. The decorative forms at the Chrysler Building are more energetic than the more
classicizing ones used at the contemporary Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
All this came about when Walter Chrysler, Jr., a free spirit in his family of automobile
industrialists, obtained the building site and existing plans in 1928. Between 1925 and
1929, highrise office construction in New York City expanded markedly, and a site
convenient to public transportation was an ideal one for luring tenants in a highly
competitive market. There are entrances to the subway and terminal system within the
building, so that people could avoid walking outdoors to reach their workplaces.
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To design the project, Chrysler employed William Van Alen, a socially wellconnected
architect trained in the neoRenaissance tradition of the École des Beaux-Arts
who accommodated his work to the stylistic preferences of his clients. For Chrysler he
created a building that is seen as glamorous, amusing, and utilitarian all at once, although
it is rarely considered to exemplify serious high art. Neither architect nor client was
making a profound aesthetic or philosophical statement; the aim was pragmatic: to be
distinctive, as a good advertisement is. Van Alen was probably prodded by Chrysler to
design details in a more popular contemporary mode than was customary for this
architect.
The owner hoped to capture additional publicity by building the world’s tallest office
building. The title was then held by 40 Wall Street, but Chrysler expected that his
building in the newer office zone of midtown Manhattan would confirm a trend toward
relocation of major firms to the Grand Central area. He did not achieve his goal because
the owners of the nearby rival Empire State Building commissioned a last-minute change
of design from their architects and erected a higher tower. Nevertheless, the Chrysler
tower earns more aesthetic admiration.
The imaginations of architect and client were constrained by the zoning regulations of
New York City, which decreed that buildings taller than specified limits had to be set
back from the building line on several sides. The setback rules applied particularly to the
silhouette above a legal multiple of the adjacent street width. Above that level, the
building had to recede until it occupied only one-quarter of the site, at which point it
could rise as a tower to any height that the owner desired; this accounts for the setbacks
and tower of the Chrysler Building.
Their imaginations were also constrained by the building code, which required
provisions for safety and health, and also by the customs of the day. These determined
that tenants would not rent office space that was more than 30 feet from perimeter
windows, as deeper spaces were considered to lack sufficient light and air. Accordingly,
owners and architects designed insets, courtyards, and other receding forms to produce
maximal office space and minimal storage or service space, as the latter rented at lower
rates per square foot.
No constraints seem to have operated when it came to decorating the Chrysler
Building. At ground level, shops along the street and the entrances to the building were
given angular decoration, much of it in metal that forecast vibrant embellishments inside.
The lobby, entered from both Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street, appears triangular, thus
unusual in a city where axial lobbies are the norm. The Chrysler’s lobby is decorated in
warm colors of inlaid wood, of metal, and of paint. Above the marble and granite walls, a
ceiling mural by Edward Trumbull depicts the building, airplanes, the Chrysler
automobile assembly line, and other emblems of modernity. The 30 elevator cabs are
inlaid in wood veneer on steel, featuring simplified floral forms and geometric shapes,
separated into panels.
The office floors have double-loaded corridors and office spaces that were standard at
the period of their construction; several revisions have-been made to parts of the interior
since the building was completed in 1930. At the top of the tower is a tall space,
furnished for dining and receptions. The exterior surface is made primarily of pale brick
over a steel frame; stainless steel marks the entrances, decorative details, and the tower.
Tower lighting, originally planned, was activated in 1981.
Minor alterations and restoration especially of the lobby, entrances, and ornamental
features, followed several changes of ownership. In 1978 the New York City Landmarks
Preservation Commission designated the Chrysler Building as a municipal landmark.
This prevents the owners from changing the designated features unless severe economic
hardship can be demonstrated. Aware of the building’s prestige, owners have generally
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been willing to repair essential functional and ornamental features. The building is now
admired as a delightful relic of an optimistic era in skyscraper building and an urban icon,
although, having always functioned as an obvious selfadvertisement, it has not been
regarded as a seminal work of modern architecture.