AT&T Building. Image credit: LPC.

Designation will include that owners intend to demolish, but report will focus on the significance of the main tower. On July 31, 2018, Landmarks voted to designate the former AT&T Headquarters Building, at 550 Madison Avenue, an individual City landmark. The 37-story-tall, granite-clad tower was designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee, and completed in 1983. An early major work of postmodern architecture, the tower rejected the unadorned glass curtain walls of the International Style, and reintroduced masonry cladding and ornament, in a playful pastiche of quotation. The pinkish Stony Creek granite recalled the City’s Beaux Arts architecture, while at the base a monumental central entrance arch is flanked by Renaissance-inspired flat arches that originally opened to twin arcade beneath the tower. The iconic pediment topping the building, with its circular opening, recalls sources such as Chippendale furniture and a 15th-century Florentine chapel. (read more…)