The Coming of the Boxes
Toronto Dominion Centre, opened in 1967
The last post jumped 28 years so easily because not a hell of a lot happened in the world of tall buildings after the great burst of construction of the 1920s and early 1930s.
Mind you, it wasn't all dead time. In Midtown Manhattan literally dozens of major office buildings sprung up after the Second World War. In the post-war economic expansion, the older office buildings of downtown Manhattan filled up with tenants, and new office construction commenced again. Thing is, land values were steep downtown and with so many workers commuting into New York via bridges and the subway, Midtown Manhattan was actually a more "central" location for business expansion.
Today midtown Manhattan has more workers and office space than downtown Manhattan. New York City essentially has two "downtowns" in the sense of central business districts.
Other cities also began to build again, but most of this new construction was rather modest compared to the triumphalist constructions of the 1930s. There simply wasn't the need for buildings with a million square feet of office space in them...yet.
But the need eventually arrived, in part because the older buildings not only filled up but because they were designed for the needs of another time. The classic skyscrapers had floors divided into corridors and dozens of small offices rather than the larger, more "open concept" floor plans that were emerging as the standard in the 1950s.
Second, the old buildings often had utterly inadequate electrical systems for running air conditioners, florescent lighting, electric typewriters, copy machines, coffee makers, overhead projectors, radios, and big mainframe computers that were being installed in the "space age."
There just weren't enough goddamn plugs. In the 1930s, the boss and a few others had a phone, and messenger boys carried memos around between offices. Some buildings used pneumatic tubes to move internal mail. (Everything I know I learned from old Warner Bros. cartoons.)
By the 1960s people expected to have a phone on every desk. So begining in the later 1950s, many corporate executives began to mull over the situation and decided to build new buildings to house their modern operations. This was often cheaper than renovating the older buildings.
Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, along with Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier changed everything again.
The post-war architects established a new architectural style that they felt could represent modern times just as classical and gothic did for their own eras. They really believed this, and their ideas were profound and influential.
Mies van der Rohe designed buildings using industrial steel and plate glass to create a minimalist framework allowing open spaces that could be subdivided according to the whim of tenants.
He called his buildings "skin and bones" architecture and is known for his use of the aphorisms “less is more” and "God is in the details". Few know that he coined these phrases.
The 731-foot (57-storey) Toronto Dominion bank tower pictured above is an example of his work. The ground floor consists of an exposed concrete core with enormous plate glass windows. The effect is austere, but strangely calm and elegant in its way. There is a kind of beauty in the modernist skyscraper if it is done right.
The sides of the TD Tower are sheer, black, made of steel and the windows are also very large, and tinted black not only to blend in with the steel structure, but to minimize heat loss through the windows in winter and keep in the A/C in summer. The windows cannot be opened. The ceilings are 13 1/2 feet high, to accommodate all the cables and wires a modern office needs. These are hidden above a styrofoam "drop ceiling" with florescent lights.
In other words, exactly what every modern office has today. Mies van der Rohe invented this stuff in the 1950s. He was a visionary.
Problem is, geniuses aren't the norm and less imaginative architects imitated Mies. Builders encouraged the form because it was cheaper to build shapeless boxes for workers than actually design something complicated or beautiul. Mies did everything for a reason, and it shows in the touches he included in his buildings, like the railings he placed under windows so window washers could connect safety lines. He thought of everything.
Those who imitated him...
not so much.
Welcome to the era of the shapeless box. It wouldn't have been so terrible if it were not for the fact that many of the grand old dames — such as the Singer Building — were given the wrecking ball to clear the way for the boxes.
^Compared to the inactive 28-year period of 1932-1960,
these five giants were completed in four years (1961-1965), and numerous structures of only slightly smaller stature were underway at the time.
Chase Manhattan Plaza, completed in 1961, was the first office building to surpass the amount of floor space contained in the GE Building since the GE building itself opened in 1933.