1001 Fifth Avenue

A postmodern design by Johnson & Burgee, 1001 Fifth Avenue was widely criticized when completed in 1979 for its “billboard” façade and “sliced-off Tootsie Roll” fenestration (the latter crack coming from The New York Times’ architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable).  As a forerunner of the later and more celebrated AT&T Building by the same firm,… Continue reading

693 Fifth Avenue

Called “the best Postmodern building in the city” by architectural historian Carter B. Horsley, 693 Fifth Avenue was designed by Johnson & Burgee for the Japanese department store Takashimaya.  Completed in 1993, the building provided a robustly contextual solution to the gap that previously existed between two of Midtown’s most refined buildings, the Elizabeth Arden… Continue reading