SkyscraperPage Forum - NEW YORK | Metlife North Building | 1454+ FT | 100 FLOORS

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- - NEW YORK | Metlife North Building | 1454+ FT | 100 FLOORS | NEVER COMPLETED (https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=151636)

Yes, yes lovely rooftop garden, now what we want to see grow is the G-D tower! "Finish 'em!"

this video veers off topic pretty quickly but it does feature this proposal at the beginning.

• Video Link

Goddamn sucker was gonna be fucking HUGE!

One of the greatest shames in architecture it wasn't built right up there with Penn's destruction.

Hi there!
That skyscraper always caught my attention.
One day I decided to finish it with the 3D visualization tools that I use.
I share one of the renders I did.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. :tu p:

Sorry for the use of Google Translate.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...77ca764c_k.jpg metlife north-escena 3 copy-9-logo-2 by Nicolás Molina, en Flickr
Image by 90-Grados.com

Absolutely beautiful, nmolina83! This is by far the best rendering of this building I've seen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duffstuff129 (Post 9357706)

Absolutely beautiful, nmolina83! This is by far the best rendering of this building I've seen.

Thanks a lot!!
I share another image that was very nice. Greetings!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...1edb9e38_k.jpg metlife north-escena 5-2 logo by Nicolás Molina, en Flickr
https://www.90-grados.com/
https://www.instagram.com/90grados_renderings/

Beautiful building. One thing about the taller version, some of the features would have been different from the tower that eventually got built. But the massing is pretty much the same.

By the way, I like these as well....

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...ef0ea372_h.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...495b10fd_h.jpg

Hello,
The design is very tentative. I did not find any plans.
I just relied on the guidelines of the constructed building and the setback from the original design. Although the latter was designed with a facade in steel and glass.
The following are all the designs that I found that helped me decide some doubts that appeared:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...8371c6de_h.jpg diseños metlife by Nicolás Molina, en Flickr

When I was building it, it gave me the impression of being very wide on one side. But in the end I followed the vertical guidelines of the constructed building. I think that would have been the architect's idea. We will never know...
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...de5379ee_k.jpg MetLife North-006-g copy by Nicolás Molina, en Flickr
Image by https://www.90-grados.com/

I tried to imitate the details as best I could.
Most of the time it would be seen from afar. So they didn't need to be identical.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...2d9f7e90_k.jpg Captura-11 copy by Nicolás Molina, en Flickr

^ Excellent work.

A little more on the original design:

"The American Skyscraper"
Roberta Moudry

Quote:

Met Life entered the 1920s with the pressing task of accommodating rapid growth, and industry-wide phenomenon that ceased only in the 1930s.

.....With the hubris that raised the 1909 campanile, the 12,000-employee company announced plans for the world's tallest building that would house up to 30,000 workers.

.....Unlike the campanile and office block the new tower, or North Building, was fashioned on no historical precedent; in the words of its architects, it was "a creation of this age and time" and "unhampered by archaeological precedent:"

Sleek and stunning, the 100-story building moved upward from its massive marble base containing a continuous pedestrian arcade in tiers of angled glass panels creating a telescoping structure of glass and steel........its bowed Madison and Fourth Avenue facades and recessed flanks created a distinctive figure-eight-shaped plan that became increasingly pronounced in the upper floors.

.....The North Building was completed in three phases. Unit One, built between 1930 and 1932, filled the eastern half of the site; Unit Two, situated in the northwestern quadrant of the block, was built between 1938 and 1941; and the southwestern quadrant, which comprised Unit Three, was completed in 1950, its construction delayed by World War II. Rising thirty-two stories, with four levels below grade, the finished building was clad entirely in limestone, a much-subdued version of the widely published marble, metal, and glass tower, a base without its tower.

This version of the tower had the major entrances in the center, rather than the eventual corners...

http://imgs.6sqft.com/wp-content/upl...rett-Waid-.jpg

Anyway, this is probably the favorite of my small collection of models...

https://a4.pbase.com/o12/06/102706/1...k.IMG_3285.JPG

https://a4.pbase.com/o12/06/102706/1...v.IMG_3286.JPG

https://a4.pbase.com/o12/06/102706/1...E.IMG_3287.JPG

https://a4.pbase.com/o12/06/102706/1...h.IMG_3288.JPG

https://a4.pbase.com/o12/06/102706/1...0.IMG_3289.JPG

Thank you very much!
Great 3D model. It would have been very helpful to have those photos of the details first!
At the top is where I had the most doubts. Because I didn't have good quality photos of that 3D model.
I decided to be guided by other buildings that the Architect made. And above all with the Rockefeller Center, in which he participated:
"Later, in the 1920s, Harvey Wiley Corbett was part of one of the three firms that designed Rockefeller Center in New York. [5] Corbett, however, left the Rockefeller Center project in 1928, so was able to work on the plans for the Metropolitan Life North Building, designed as a 100-story skyscraper and the tallest building in the world. "
So the top is a mix of Rockefeller Center style and original volumetry.
The antennas is a separate issue.
The original design surely did not include a Chrysler Building-style spire. But in 1950 with the advent of television they needed an antenna for coverage of Manhattan Island. At that time the highest point was the Empire State Building, but MetLife North would have been the chosen one.
I tried with a central antenna but it did not fit well with the design. It seemed more harmonious that they are two symmetrical antennas in the style of some Chicago skyscrapers.
In the photomontage of the old photo it does not have them.
Just my assumptions, of course. ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by nmolina83 (Post 9359663)

At the top is where I had the most doubts. Because I didn't have good quality photos of that 3D model.

The original design surely did not include a Chrysler Building-style spire. But in 1950 with the advent of television they needed an antenna for coverage of Manhattan Island. At that time the highest point was the Empire State Building, but MetLife North would have been the chosen one.

Yeah, MetLife would have been the tallest tower, and when we look at the configuration of the roof, there probably would have been two. On the other hand, when we look at the skyscraper race, the Empire State didn't originally have it's spire, it was added once the Chrysler kept getting close. You have to wonder if MetLife would have considered something to distance itself more from the Empire State. We'll never know. But this tower has always fascinated me.

ESB

https://a4.pbase.com/o12/06/102706/1...R.IMG_1276.JPG

https://a4.pbase.com/o12/06/102706/1...N.IMG_1279.JPG

https://a4.pbase.com/o12/06/102706/1...g.IMG_1277.JPG

Another MetLife alternate....

http://a4.pbase.com/o10/06/102706/1/...ticleLarge.jpg__http://imgs.6sqft.com/wp-content/upl...rett-Waid-.jpg

I agree.
I particularly like Art Deco buildings that end in spiers much more.
It would have been glorious!

Greetings!