About the Council

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, based at the Illinois Institute of CTBUH Journal Technology in , is an international International Journal on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat not-for-profi t organization supported by architecture, engineering, planning, development, and construction professionals. Founded in 1969, the Council’s mission is to disseminate multi-disciplinary information on Tall buildings: design, construction, and operation | 2013 Issue IV tall buildings and sustainable urban environments, to maximize the international interaction of professionals involved in creating Case Study: Gate Towers, Abu Dhabi the built environment, and to make the latest knowledge available to professionals in a useful Designing Tall to Promote Physical Activity in China form. The Monadnock Building, Technically Reconsidered The CTBUH disseminates its fi ndings, and facilitates business exchange, through: the Thermal Breaks in High-Rise Balconies publication of books, monographs, proceedings, and reports; the organization of Demolition or Renovation? world congresses, international, regional, and specialty conferences and workshops; the In Numbers: Middle East maintaining of an extensive website and tall building databases of built, under construction, Talking Tall with and proposed buildings; the distribution of a monthly international tall building e-newsletter; the maintaining of an international resource center; the bestowing of annual awards for design and construction excellence and individual lifetime achievement; the management of special task forces/ working groups; the hosting of technical forums; and the publication of the CTBUH Journal, a professional journal containing refereed papers written by researchers, scholars, and practicing professionals.

The Council is the arbiter of the criteria upon which tall building height is measured, and thus the title of “The World’s Tallest Building” determined. CTBUH is the world’s leading body dedicated to the fi eld of tall buildings and urban habitat and the recognized international source for information in these fi elds.

Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

S.R. Crown Hall Illinois Institute of Technology 3360 South State Street Chicago, IL 60616 Phone: +1 (312) 567 3487 Fax: +1 (312) 567 3820 Email: [email protected] http://www.ctbuh.org

ISSN: 1946 - 1186 Inside

News and Events Features 26 History, Theory & Criticism The Monadnock Building, Technically Reconsidered problematic, in that it presents the Monadnock’s street wall as a Far from being the world’s last and largest “masonry skyscraper,” the monolithic surface, emphasizing the Root labored to “solve” the tall office reading of its brick skin as a single Monadnock was a profoundly transitional structural achievement, making structural element that is molded to “building with the Monadnock important advances in steel construction while still relying in part on the accommodate bay windows along its 02 This Issue 44 Tall Buildings in Numbers well-proven strength and reliability of masonry. Historically celebrated as the elevation. In fact, this obscures the commission, and the resulting elevations “last masonry skyscraper,” the real story behind the Monadnock is more Monadnock’s actual structural system, show him struggling to resolve the mass complex, and more revolutionary than commonly assumed. which was more of a hybrid between steel and masonry than has typically Thomas Leslie of a heavy, brick-pier skyscraper with David Malott, The Middle East: 20 Years of been acknowledged. A close reading of Author Introduction – The Monadnock in Chicago’s that usually relied on sheer mass to resist wind the building’s construction drawings the proportions and textures of the Thomas Leslie, Skyscraper History forces (Condit 1974). Donald Hoffman also from sets in the Centre Canadien Pickard Chilton Professor in Architecture pointed out in his interpretation of the block d’Architecture and newly executed modified Richardsonian Romanesque Iowa State University 146 College of Design Burnham and Root’s 1892 Monadnock Building that the building’s undulating bay windows digital reconstructions by a team of Ames IA 50011 at 53 W. Jackson Boulevard (see Figure 1), also relied on advanced cantilevered steel to graduate students at Iowa State that had become his métier. CTBUH Trustee Building Skyscrapers occupying half a block on Chicago’s Dearborn support their weight (Hoffman 1973: 137). University show that the Monadnock t: +1 515 294 8460 ” f: +1 515 294 1440 Street between Jackson and Van Buren streets, Further pioneering technology at work in the was largely a steel frame that worked e: tleslie @iastate.edu http://www.design.iastate.edu/ has come to symbolize the “apotheosis of the Monadnock included electric lighting. It was in tandem with a system of much Burnham and Root. Rumors structed nearby, while the Dearborn Street Figure 2. The 1885 scheme brick wall in American urban architecture” the most extensively wired skyscraper in larger brick piers. The bay windows of restrictive building codes elevation was developed as a plain grid of 1 originally drawn by John Thomas Leslie (Hoffman 1973: 165). At 16 stories (plus a Chicago at the time, in part to overcome the that both Hoffman and Condit Wellborn Root (Drawing by forced the hands of double-hung windows and wide brick piers Thomas Leslie, AIA, is the Pickard Chilton Professor the author, based on Centre in Architecture at Iowa State University, where he penthouse) and 65.5 meters, it was not the shadows of its deeply recessed windows. referred to were structured in a way developers throughout the – the Brooks brothers were known for their teaches building design, history, and technology. tallest building in Chicago, but its thick that was virtually identical to those of Canadien d’Architecture city that year, and this aversion to excess ornament, since projec- He is the author of Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871–1934 drawing DR1986:0767:063). 3 (University of Illinois Press, 2013), and Louis I. masonry walls and restrained ornament made The paradox of the Monadnock – that it was a Holabird and Roche’s Tacoma (1887) scheme seems to have been tions attracted dirt and pigeons. “As yet,” Kahn: Building Art, Building Science (Rizzoli, 2005). it one of the city’s most remarkable. conservatively expressed yet technically or the Pontiac (1891) – two skyscrapers that are rushed through to ensure they could build noted Hoffman of the early scheme, “there are His research, which focuses on the influence of Surrounded by structures that adhered to the advanced structure – has been noted but often cited as technically more advanced than under older, more permissive codes. This none of the wonderful projecting bays” 04 CTBUH Latest 46 Talking Tall : engineering, design, and construction on one another, has been supported by grants from the tenuous proportions of lighter-weight steel never adequately explained. The choice of the Monadnock – and the combination of iron original Monadnock commission in 1885 was (Hoffman 1967: 271). National Endowment for the Humanities, the Graham Foundation, and the American Philosophical Society, framing, the Monadnock’s relentless brick bearing masonry as a structural system has and brick structural elements that supported put on hold as economic uncertainty slowed and he is the 2013–2014 recipient of the Booth elevations have also stood as a counterpoint to generally been assigned to the buildings’ the Monadnock was nearly identical to those construction, but the project was revived and The lack of bay windows, however, should not Family Rome Prize in Historic Preservation. the more open, glass-filled frames of the era, clients, the Brooks brothers from , and which held up these two buildings. The executed rapidly in 1890–1892 when be surprising for a scheme developed in 1885. Antony Wood, “Joan of Architecture” and the and as an endpoint to the long tradition of this has allowed critics and historians to credit Monadnock was, in fact, a building that marked excitement over the Columbian Exposition Bay windows, or oriels, had only just appeared masonry skyscraper construction throughout John Wellborn Root for finding an expressive the beginning of the metal framing era more began to drive real-estate prices back up.2 in Chicago skyscraper elevations. John J. North America. “It is,” noted Carl Condit in his language with which to refine and dress the than it did the end of masonry, and it is Flanders used them in the Mallers Building 1964 book The Chicago School of Architecture, bulky form that was handed to him. This is precisely the details so praised by Hoffman – These two schemes by Root are similar in mass (1884), but their deployment as a non-bearing CTBUH Executive Director Difficulty of Simplicity “the ultimate logical step in strictly functional certainly not undeserved, as the consistency the gently-curved brick interfaces between bay but different in appearance and structure. The curtain wall came only with Holabird & construction with masonry bearing walls; it with which the Monadnock was detailed windows and masonry “wall” – that conceal its 1885 scheme recalls contemporary projects in Roche’s Tacoma Building, completed in 1889. remains today the last great building in the remains a remarkable example of brick’s reading as a frame structure. Far from being the Burnham and Root’s office, in particular the Root’s elevations for the Monadnock at this ancient tradition of masonry architecture.” expressive potential. In particular, the gently world’s last and largest “masonry skyscraper,” Rialto, the Phoenix (1886), and the Rookery early stage came before the full exploration of Siegfried Giedion, among others, used its brick curved brick that makes up transitions from the the Monadnock was a profoundly transitional (1888), which relied on brick piers for their the bay window as a lighting and space- Phyllis Lambert elevations to point out the functional base and cornice to the subtly battered street structural achievement, making important structures and elevational motifs. Hoffman grabbing device in Holabird and Roche’s shortcomings that came with heavy masonry wall, and from that wall into gracefully advances in steel construction while still relying notes that Root labored to “solve” the tall office Caxton (1890) or Pontiac (1891) buildings. construction – particularly the resulting deep, undulating bay windows are detailing tours de in part on the well-proven strength and building with the Monadnock commission, Instead, his use of brick piers and double- narrow windows in a building type that force that “succeed in making the bays appear reliability of masonry. and the resulting elevations show him hung windows related more to buildings of demanded maximum daylight. “Heavy masonry to have grown from the wall” (Hoffman 1973: struggling to resolve the mass of a heavy, this scheme’s era – W. W. Boyington’s Royal 05 Debating Tall: walls,” wrote Giedion, “were not the solution to 166). For Hoffman, this organic metaphor Burnham and Root designed the Monadnock brick-pier skyscraper with the proportions and Insurance, for example (1885), or Cobb and the problem of the many-storied building.” extended to the entire elevation, which in two phases. The Brooks family had planned textures of the modified Richardsonian Frost’s Opera House (1885). All of these seemed to reflect the proportions and shapes to develop their lot at the corner of Dearborn Romanesque that had become his métier. One buildings struggled to bring in enough Yet historians have also noted – often of an Egyptian papyrus reed. and Van Buren since 1881, but only after the sketch shows arches in the lower stories that daylight, since neither the steel to make these parenthetically – major technical advances city planned to open Dearborn south to are clear allusions to Richardson’s Field piers narrower, nor the plate glass to fill larger Is Sky City’s Prefabricated 50 Design Research contained within the Monadnock. Condit, for By pointing out the organic appearance of this Dearborn Station in 1885 did they commission Warehouse (see Figure 2), then being con- openings, was economical enough to example, noted that the building’s walls are detailing palette, Hoffman made a case for 1 braced, in part, by steel portal framing, a Root as a forebear to Sullivan and Wright’s In fact, Root’s Women’s Temple, completed in 1892, was the last bearing masonry skyscraper constructed in Chicago. 2 Among other sources, “Chicago’s Great Buildings.” Chicago Daily Tribune. Jan. 1, 1893: 28, gives evidence that the real estate boom of 1890–93 was largely speculative, and based on Figure 1. Monadnock Building, Chicago. remarkable distinction for a construction type claim to the organic. Yet this family of details is assumptions that Chicago’s economy would benefit from the Columbian Exposition – predictions that proved to be wildly optimistic. Approach Viable for the Future Tall Buildings: A Tall Order © Aric Austermann 3 Burnham & Root Drawing, Centre Canadien d’Architecture, Acquisition DR1986:0767:001. n.d. 26 | History, Theory & Criticism CTBUH Journal | 2013 Issue IV CTBUH Journal | 2013 Issue IV History, Theory & Criticism | 27 of Megatall Buildings? University of Calgary

06 Global News Highlights from the CTBUH 32 Materials Thermal Breaks and Energy Performance in ƒ How to effectively model several balcony state of codes and standards in North America. CTBUH scenarios using whole-building energy The objective of this paper is to highlight how Global News archive models to consider both heat loss (U-value) thermally broken slabs can help improve the High-Rise Concrete Balconies and thermal mass thermal performance of the building envelope ƒ How thermally broken slabs can help and help meet the objectives of building codes Editor’s Note: achieve code compliance for energy and energy standards, despite the current lack Thermal bridging is a significant and under-explored issue in tall buildings, efficiency requirements of prescriptive requirements for thermally particularly where floor slabs are connected to balconies and façades. While the ƒ How thermally broken slabs reduce the risk broken balconies in North America. study described below is deliberately narrow in scope, we believe it raises issues of of condensation and increase occupant broad applicability for future designs. We note that even the most innovative comfort 52 CTBUH Report Building Characteristics and Construction façade technologies available today, such as the “raster façades” used on Tour Challenged by a dynamic market fostered by Methods Dieter Hardock Patrick Roppel Total, Berlin – a Finalist for the 2013 CTBUH Innovation Award – have yet to these new standards, the industry still holds the satisfactorily resolve the issue of bridging in a way that would make it broadly desire to minimize costs, changes to These examples are covered by a case study of Authors applicable and financially appealing to developers generally. North America lags construction methods, and constraints on a multi-unit residential high-rise building. The Vanity Heights Report Gets Dieter Hardock, International Product Manager architectural design. The market desires case study building is representative of a Schöck Bauteile GmbH behind Europe in this regard; I recently toured a LEED-Gold high-rise in Chicago Figure 1. Study multi-unit residential high-rise building. Vimbucher Straße 2 window-walls spanning floor-to-ceiling and common type of construction for high-rise 76534 Baden-Baden that considered the issue, but found all the solutions on the market to be too compliance. Some codes and standards allow concrete balconies wrapping around a large buildings in some North American markets. The Germany expensive. We encourage further research and development in this vital field, so as t: +49 7223 967 229 designers to ignore the impact of structural percentage of each floor. This desire is construction is very common for the market in f: +49 7223 967 194 to create more marketable and effective solutions. – Daniel Safarik, CTBUH Case Study Media Blitz e: [email protected] slabs if the cross-sectional area of the supported by the cost-effectiveness of the question (Toronto), but the building envelope http://www.schoeck.com/ projection meets specific criteria. The lack of system, advantages related to installation and assemblies are not thermally efficient, and the

Patrick Roppel, Principal Introduction Thermal bridges – highly conductive clarity and consistency often leads designers construction sequencing, marketability, and codes in this jurisdiction have recently adopted Morrison Hershfield Limited penetrations through the envelope – can to overlook the impact of concrete balconies architectural appeal. The downside is that the more stringent energy standards. Suite 310, 4321 Still Creek Drive Burnaby BC V5C 6S7 The building sector is the largest consumer of have a significant impact on the thermal on thermal transmittance. thermal performance of window-wall systems Canada energy in the United States and Canada – performance of the building envelope and is typically poor. To overcome a marginally The study building is a multi-unit residential Daniel Safarik t: +1 604 454 0402 f: +1 604 454 0403 approximately 30 to 40% of primary energy whole-building energy consumption. However, for some cases, the standards are performing thermal envelope, heat recovery complex with 32 floors and 422 units (see e: [email protected] use. Space conditioning makes up nearly half Concrete balconies, formed by direct clear that concrete slab projections must be ventilators (HRVs) are used to lower loads Figure 1). It is designed with approximately 40% www.morrisonhershfield.com of the energy use in residential buildings extension of the concrete structural floor slab, considered when determining compliance, related to ventilation, and batt insulation is vision glass area and 3.5% exposed cantilever 12 Gate Towers, Abu Dhabi (DOE, IEA, NRCAN). This reality creates a are an example of a significant thermal bridge for example when determining compliance placed behind the spandrel areas to slab. The opaque area is largely insulated Dieter Hardock Dieter Hardock is a product manager at Schöck significant need for increased energy that not only results in poor energy efficiency, by performance paths where the balcony optimistically meet energy codes. spandrel sections with metal back-pans. Bauteile GmbH, which develops and manufactures efficiency in buildings. This need is widely but also results in cold interior surface areas are greater than 2 to 5% of the total products related to the prevention of thermal bridges and impact noise in buildings. He has more than 14 recognized, and measures are being taken by temperatures during the heating season. The envelope area. Furthermore, research such as Some people might think that the practice of The building envelope is primarily window wall, years experience in the construction industry, ranging North American jurisdictions, to implement consequences of substandard interior surface ASHRAE 1365-RP makes it more difficult to providing a marginal thermal envelope spanning floor-to-ceiling, and concrete Gurjit Singh, Hossam Eldin from structural design to project management. He specializes on solutions to structural thermal bridging increasing energy efficiency standards for temperatures include: increased risk of ignore thermal bridging where it has been alongside efficient mechanical systems is balconies wrapping around large percentages 55 CTBUH on the Road with more than six years experience, being involved in buildings. Building envelope thermal condensation and conditions favorable to demonstrated to have a significant impact on backwards. Some might question putting batt of each floor. Three types of balcony several structural researches and thermal analyses in different markets. Currently he focuses on the North performance is a critical consideration for mold growth. This paper examines the the overall thermal transmittance of the insulation behind spandrel sections because of connections were considered for this study American market. meeting current energy efficiency targets, and benefits of two methods for reducing thermal building envelope. This paper expands on the ineffectiveness of the insulation and (see Figure 2): will be an increasingly important factor, as bridging for concrete balconies, compared to 1365-RP by providing thermal performance increased risk of condensation on the metal Elsouefi & Peter Brannan Patrick Roppel authorities strive for low-energy buildings. To the prevailing method of continuous concrete data for thermally broken concrete balconies back-pan for any quantity of air leakage. These a. Cantilevered concrete balcony without CTBUH events around the Patrick Roppel is a principal and building science spe- cialist in Morrison Hershfield’s Buildings, Technology meet these challenges and completely realize projections. and examples of how the 1365-RP methodol- are valid points from a technical perspective, interruption between the interior floor slab and Energy Division. Patrick specializes in the analysis of building envelope performance through numerical the full potential of low-energy buildings, ogy can be applied in practice for the design and there are definitely more holistic and exterior slab extension – conventional methods. His mixture of field experience, investiga- building envelope durability and occupant Currently North American codes and energy of high-rise buildings. Examples include the approaches available. construction tions, computer modeling, and research is leveraged at Morrison Hershfield to set realistic expectations for comfort must be considered concurrently standards that apply to high-rise residential following: b. Cantilevered concrete balcony with building envelope performance during design and with reducing heat loss when designing buildings, with regard to energy efficiency However, this case study highlights the reality interruptions consisting of reinforced world. evaluation of existing buildings. Patrick’s research includes predicting indoor moisture levels for uncon- building envelopes. Otherwise, buildings will requirements, have no specific prescriptive of a market solution that satisfies the current concrete (500 millimeters) and rigid trolled humidity, thermal performance of the building not operate as intended and resources will be requirements for thermally broken slabs (for envelope, generic solutions for wall assemblies with low air and vapor permeance insulation, and attic wasted on components that need to be example ASHRAE 90.1, IECC, NECB, or MNECB). ventilation. prematurely repaired or replaced. With this Moreover, the codes and standards do not context in mind, this paper explores how explicitly address how thermal bridges at thermal break technology for concrete interfaces between assemblies, such as floor buildings can help designers overcome the and balcony slabs, should be addressed in challenges of meeting energy efficiency thermal transmittance calculations (U-values) a. Conventional solution with continuous concrete slab. b. Site solution with intermittent reinforced concrete and rigid c. Manufactured structural thermal break technology. standards. that are necessary when determining insulation 55 Diary Figure 2. Balcony connection details.

Research 32 | Materials CTBUH Journal | 2013 Issue IV CTBUH Journal | 2013 Issue IV Materials | 33 Upcoming tall building events 18 Designing Tall Buildings to Promote Physical Activity in 56 Reviews China Review of new books in the 46 Talking Tall: Phyllis Lambert “Joan of Architecture” and the Difficulty of copy, then it loses all the qualities. They’re not CTBUH Library artists. They’re copyists. You’ve seen it all Kristen Day, Mariela Alfonzo, Simplicity through history. The proportions are Mies famously said “God is in the details.” Is “so elegant and so Phyllis Lambert, the daughter of the beverage company owner it the details the “copyists” tend to throw Samuel , played an integral role in selecting Mies van der Rohe and aside, just because they lack the wonderful. The Zhan Guo & Lin Lin Phillip Johnson to design the definitive International Style skyscraper, the 1956 philosophy that you described? Seagram was not just a in New York (see Figure 1). Her career of advocacy for better Yes of course! There’s no question about it! urban design continued, when she mounted numerous protests against There is a wonderful edition of L’Architecture commercial building d’Aujourd’hui at the time of the Seagram Comments ill-advised construction projects in her hometown of , Canada. She 57 Building, that was written about Mies, called, « stuck up by some Phyllis Lambert later founded the Centre Canadien d’Architecture (Canadian Center for L’art difficile d’être simple, » “The Difficult Art Architecture), which holds one of the world’s most significant collections of of Being Simple.” There is a difference between architect who was Interviewee architectural drawings. Lambert’s experience has been highlighted in new somebody who’s creating something Phyllis Lambert, Founding Director trying to make a buck Feedback on past Journal issues Centre Canadien d’Architecture detail in her chronicle of the Seagram project: Building Seagram (see Review, according to a deeply understood idea of 1920, rue Baile what society is, versus somebody who’s doing 26 The Monadnock Building, Montréal, Québec H3H 2S6, Canada page 56). On November 14, she will return to her alma mater, the Illinois Figure 2. . Jean Gagnon for a developer. something commercially. t: +1 514 939 7026 Institute of Technology, home of the CTBUH headquarters office. Editor Daniel e: [email protected] because we can get back to not having www.cca.qc.ca ” Safarik caught up with Lambert before her journey. To take the devil’s advocate position, the everything [mechanically conditioned]. Given how shareholder-driven

Phyllis Lambert ideal design project would achieve both a corporations are today, and your past work Phyllis Lambert is founding director and chair Given your advocacy for one of the most The Seagram was pretty important in that commercial and artistic objective. When Mies and I were talking about glass in in getting people to change their minds Technically Reconsidered of the board of trustees of the Centre Canadien d’Architecture in Montreal. As Director of Planning for important skyscrapers of all time, I was discussion, and it was one of the first to have It’s not so much that cheap, run-off copies are buildings such as 860–880 Lake Shore Drive about design, do you think a shareholder the Seagram Building, she was influential in bringing surprised to learn that you actually a plaza cleared around it. bad; it’s the fact that there’s no thought given (see Figure 4), he said, “Well, it’s really not up to revolt in favor of better design would be onto the project. In 1975, she founded the heritage preservation group Heritage participated in a struggle against an earlier It’s a private company building with a great as to why the building is being done. Why are the architect, it’s up to the engineers to find possible? 58 Meet the CTBUH Montreal. In 1979, she founded the Centre Canadien design for a tall building, the Place Montreal architect, which is rare. What happened with you putting up a building? If it’s just to house some way to stop the heat from coming in or I suppose you could get environmentalists d’Architecture, a museum and research center in some occupational people, okay, but that’s going out.” Well, that has become politically and people concerned with architecture to Thomas Leslie Montreal with an international reputation. In 1990 Trust (see Figure 2), which was eventually the Seagram Building, and also with the Lever she received an honorary DFA in Architecture from built, though differently than what was House across the street, was that zoning not going to make anything special, especially incorrect. People are beginning to reason that do that. But I think it’s much deeper than that. the Pratt Institute. In 1992, she was made Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France. She holds planned. What was it that you objected to? changes were made in New York. The city gave when it’s a large building that has an effect on you just can’t throw the book at it, and there is You have to have a society that’s interested in honorary degrees from some 26 universities in North Well, it was a double thing. The original plan 10 square feet of bulk to the building per 1 the city. It’s a question of how you think, not a kind of containment one has to have about the public realm. I wrote a lot about that in America and in Europe. Her work also includes serving Craig Gibbons, Arup would have blocked views of Mont Royal, and square foot of open plaza on the street level. So of anything else. And when you are what one’s doing. Mies in America in one chapter. as developer on the restoration of the Biltmore Hotel in by architect Gene Summers as well as some codes in Montreal guard against that, but that change was taken up by everybody. New concerned about the public realm and what designing the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In 1985 she was made of course cities let developers break those York changed, very much because of the happens to people, then you do something It’s interesting, because our fascination with a Member of the Order of Canada, promoted to Officer codes if they think somebody’s going to put up zoning. It was very advantageous to builders. quite different. the “Mad Men” era has a lot to do with in 1990, and promoted to Companion in 2001. In 1985, she was made a Knight of the National Order of a building that will generate taxes. Also, the fetishizing social behaviors that we now and was promoted to Grand Officer in 2005. developers privatized the public street and It seems the International Style championed The mid-century period is currently think of as irresponsible. Yet the certainty She has contributed essays to numerous books and 32 Thermal Breaks and Energy turned it into a shopping center, and those by van der Rohe was a boon for developers, enjoying a resurgence of interest. We have and solidity of the principles that informed is the subject of the 2007 documentary film Citizen Lambert: Joan of Architecture. were heinous things. And I didn’t care who was but when it was copied, it was copied badly. so much nostalgia now for mid-century the International Style seem to remain valid. doing it. I said, “No you couldn’t do it!” What are the essential characteristics that furniture and clothes from the period, and They’re very strong, absolutely. I guess what 59 CTBUH Organizational made that architecture great and made all it extends to architecture. Why do you post-modernism was doing was trying to relate Performance in High-rise What has changed since the copies very different? think that is, and do you think it’s healthy? to the traditional city, but not very successfully. that time? When I walk down the street and I look at the Well I don’t know that it is nostalgia. I think They didn’t know where to stand. Now with I think developers are Seagram Building (see Figure 3), and I look at all that it’s just lack of “inventivity.” Everything in interest in materiality and the environmental becoming a lot more the other buildings, I wonder why they can’t do art, literature, and architecture looks back from movement, people think differently. Structure & Member Listings sensitive to the public realm it. It’s so simple! The proportions are so elegant time to time. I think things have improved Concrete Balconies and to the social aspects of and so wonderful. The Seagram was not just a since Post-Modernism, and there has been Speaking of movements, at one point, you architecture. But they used to commercial building stuck up by some lots of very good research on materials; you actually picketed the offices of a developer, think that they were doing architect who was trying to make a buck for a can do such interesting things with concrete Cadillac Fairview, on whose board you sat. everybody a favor by developer. It really was a great architect, whose and glass now. And I think that there are a lot Yeah. It was my own family. I did it because building without any question was, “what is this civilization we live of good buildings built with the impulse that money is not the most important thing to me. Dieter Hardock & Patrick discussion with the people. in?” So there’s a philosophic basis of the whole created the International Style, that industrial The most important thing is living on Earth. So Figure 1. , Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Phyllis Lambert in front That’s been slowly changing. attitude towards the building. And when that’s architecture. But then also we’ve added when something is wrong, I have no choice of an image of the model for the Seagram building, New York, 1955. Source: Fonds Phyllis Lambert, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal. © United pulled out of the equation, and it’s just a bad concern for the environment, which is great but to say, “You can’t do this.” Press International. Figure 3. Seagram Building, New York. © Antony Wood

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38 Confronting the Question of Demolition or Renovation Dario Trabucco & Paolo Fava Preliminary research in China finds that density is “inversely correlated with physical activity. These findings suggest that not all dense urban development patterns promote physical activity. Designing tall buildings to promote physical activity is an objective of increasing global significance. Day et al.,” page 18 CTBUH Journal | 2013 Issue IV Inside | 3 Talking Tall: Phyllis Lambert “Joan of Architecture” and the Difficulty of Simplicity

Phyllis Lambert, the daughter of the Seagram beverage company owner , played an integral role in selecting Mies van der Rohe and Phillip Johnson to design the definitive International Style skyscraper, the 1956 Seagram Building in New York (see Figure 1). Her career of advocacy for better urban design continued, when she mounted numerous protests against ill-advised construction projects in her hometown of Montreal, Canada. She Phyllis Lambert later founded the Centre Canadien d’Architecture (Canadian Center for Architecture), which holds one of the world’s most significant collections of Interviewee architectural drawings. Lambert’s experience has been highlighted in new Phyllis Lambert, Founding Director Centre Canadien d’Architecture detail in her chronicle of the Seagram project: Building Seagram (see Review, 1920, rue Baile Montréal, Québec H3H 2S6, Canada page 56). On November 14, she will return to her alma mater, the Illinois t: +1 514 939 7026 e: [email protected] Institute of Technology, home of the CTBUH headquarters office. Editor Daniel www.cca.qc.ca Safarik caught up with Lambert before her journey.

Phyllis Lambert Phyllis Lambert is founding director and chair Given your advocacy for one of the most The Seagram was pretty important in that of the board of trustees of the Centre Canadien d’Architecture in Montreal. As Director of Planning for important skyscrapers of all time, I was discussion, and it was one of the first to have the Seagram Building, she was influential in bringing surprised to learn that you actually a plaza cleared around it. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe onto the project. In 1975, she founded the heritage preservation group Heritage participated in a struggle against an earlier It’s a private company building with a great Montreal. In 1979, she founded the Centre Canadien design for a tall building, the Place Montreal architect, which is rare. What happened with d’Architecture, a museum and research center in Montreal with an international reputation. In 1990 Trust (see Figure 2), which was eventually the Seagram Building, and also with the Lever she received an honorary DFA in Architecture from built, though differently than what was House across the street, was that zoning the Pratt Institute. In 1992, she was made Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France. She holds planned. What was it that you objected to? changes were made in New York. The city gave honorary degrees from some 26 universities in North Well, it was a double thing. The original plan 10 square feet of bulk to the building per 1 America and in Europe. Her work also includes serving as developer on the restoration of the Biltmore Hotel would have blocked views of Mont Royal, and square foot of open plaza on the street level. So in Los Angeles by architect Gene Summers as well as some codes in Montreal guard against that, but that change was taken up by everybody. New designing the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In 1985 she was made of course cities let developers break those York changed, very much because of the a Member of the Order of Canada, promoted to Officer codes if they think somebody’s going to put up zoning. It was very advantageous to builders. in 1990, and promoted to Companion in 2001. In 1985, she was made a Knight of the National Order of a building that will generate taxes. Also, the Quebec and was promoted to Grand Officer in 2005. developers privatized the public street and It seems the International Style championed She has contributed essays to numerous books and is the subject of the 2007 documentary film Citizen turned it into a shopping center, and those by van der Rohe was a boon for developers, Lambert: Joan of Architecture. were heinous things. And I didn’t care who was but when it was copied, it was copied badly. doing it. I said, “No you couldn’t do it!” What are the essential characteristics that made that architecture great and made all What has changed since the copies very different? that time? When I walk down the street and I look at the I think developers are Seagram Building (see Figure 3), and I look at all becoming a lot more the other buildings, I wonder why they can’t do sensitive to the public realm it. It’s so simple! The proportions are so elegant and to the social aspects of and so wonderful. The Seagram was not just a architecture. But they used to commercial building stuck up by some think that they were doing architect who was trying to make a buck for a everybody a favor by developer. It really was a great architect, whose building without any question was, “what is this civilization we live discussion with the people. in?” So there’s a philosophic basis of the whole Figure 1. Philip Johnson, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Phyllis Lambert in front That’s been slowly changing. attitude towards the building. And when that’s of an image of the model for the Seagram building, New York, 1955. Source: Fonds Phyllis Lambert, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal. © United pulled out of the equation, and it’s just a bad Press International.

46 | Talking Tall: Phyllis Lambert CTBUH Journal | 2013 Issue IV copy, then it loses all the qualities. They’re not artists. They’re copyists. You’ve seen it all through history. The proportions are

Mies famously said “God is in the details.” Is “so elegant and so it the details the “copyists” tend to throw aside, just because they lack the wonderful. The philosophy that you described? Seagram was not just a Yes of course! There’s no question about it! There is a wonderful edition of L’Architecture commercial building d’Aujourd’hui at the time of the Seagram Building, that was written about Mies, called, « stuck up by some L’art difficile d’être simple, » “The Difficult Art of Being Simple.” There is a difference between architect who was somebody who’s creating something according to a deeply understood idea of trying to make a buck what society is, versus somebody who’s doing Figure 2. Place Montreal Trust. Jean Gagnon for a developer. something commercially. because we can get back to not having ” To take the devil’s advocate position, the everything [mechanically conditioned]. Given how shareholder-driven ideal design project would achieve both a corporations are today, and your past work commercial and artistic objective. When Mies and I were talking about glass in in getting people to change their minds It’s not so much that cheap, run-off copies are buildings such as 860–880 Lake Shore Drive about design, do you think a shareholder bad; it’s the fact that there’s no thought given (see Figure 4), he said, “Well, it’s really not up to revolt in favor of better design would be as to why the building is being done. Why are the architect, it’s up to the engineers to find possible? you putting up a building? If it’s just to house some way to stop the heat from coming in or I suppose you could get environmentalists some occupational people, okay, but that’s going out.” Well, that has become politically and people concerned with architecture to not going to make anything special, especially incorrect. People are beginning to reason that do that. But I think it’s much deeper than that. when it’s a large building that has an effect on you just can’t throw the book at it, and there is You have to have a society that’s interested in the city. It’s a question of how you think, not a kind of containment one has to have about the public realm. I wrote a lot about that in of anything else. And when you are what one’s doing. Mies in America in one chapter. concerned about the public realm and what happens to people, then you do something It’s interesting, because our fascination with quite different. the “Mad Men” era has a lot to do with fetishizing social behaviors that we now The mid-century period is currently think of as irresponsible. Yet the certainty enjoying a resurgence of interest. We have and solidity of the principles that informed so much nostalgia now for mid-century the International Style seem to remain valid. furniture and clothes from the period, and They’re very strong, absolutely. I guess what it extends to architecture. Why do you post-modernism was doing was trying to relate think that is, and do you think it’s healthy? to the traditional city, but not very successfully. Well I don’t know that it is nostalgia. I think They didn’t know where to stand. Now with that it’s just lack of “inventivity.” Everything in interest in materiality and the environmental art, literature, and architecture looks back from movement, people think differently. time to time. I think things have improved since Post-Modernism, and there has been Speaking of movements, at one point, you lots of very good research on materials; you actually picketed the offices of a developer, can do such interesting things with concrete Cadillac Fairview, on whose board you sat. and glass now. And I think that there are a lot Yeah. It was my own family. I did it because of good buildings built with the impulse that money is not the most important thing to me. created the International Style, that industrial The most important thing is living on Earth. So architecture. But then also we’ve added when something is wrong, I have no choice concern for the environment, which is great but to say, “You can’t do this.” Figure 3. Seagram Building, New York. © Antony Wood

CTBUH Journal | 2013 Issue IV Talking Tall: Phyllis Lambert | 47 Ultimately the person who’s responsible for residential building. And so if you use a hopper instead of demolishing them by default. The what happens to the building is the person window, then the spandrels get to almost the psychology of “urban renewal” has changed who’s paying for it, the client de facto. But at same size. But that presented practical a lot since the Seagram was built. the same time, what that person can do is difficulties, so they came up with the idea of That was a period when people wanted to look governed by the laws of the city. Those rules making the hopper the same proportion to the like war again… as if they wanted the cities to are subject to public opinion. So it’s a view of office building window as on the residential look like they’d been bombed. It was crazy. society, rather than just shareholders. buildings. They haven’t finalized the thing, but this is what they’re looking at. Maybe it was an attempt to erase the past in What do you think of your public title as some way? “Joan of Architecture?” I was pleasantly surprised at the I think that psychology was revealed here in I think it’s supposed to be flattering. Joan of intervention at the IBM Building in Chicago, Montreal when a number of us got going on Arc led the way, she held up her flame and which now has a Langham Hotel in the Save Montreal and Heritage Patrol, to make said, “This is the way.” I didn’t do that alone; I lower half. It’s radically different to what it people understand how these 19th-century was able to work with a lot of people. There’s a was on the inside, but it doesn’t feel like the grey stone buildings were so unique and great story about Michelangelo and [the building has been diminished. And it’s marvelous. But because the French population dome of the Sistine Chapel]. He was asked, virtually unchanged on the outside. built most of these [as colonials or religious “How do you make a dome like that stand I’ll tell you the reason it doesn’t make any missionaries], some people said, “We’re poor up?” And Michelangelo said, “Oh it’s very difference. When Seagram was built, I thought, and these buildings represent our poverty. And simple…how do you make an egg stand up?” “Oh, I’ll go and visit all of the offices and see the so we don’t want them anymore, we want Someone sees a simple, direct way of doing people in this wonderful building and what something bright and new and foreign things, and then people see the point. That’s kind of marvelous offices they did.” And after looking.” why it’s important to have public debate. about three of them, I thought, “Oh God, I’m not going to visit any more of them.” They This happens in places like Scotland, too. There Have you had a chance to see any of the brought in all their old furniture to make it look are these wonderful streets with grey and red conversions of Modernist skyscrapers from like an old building or something. You can’t stone buildings and the church actually lined office to residential or hotel? control what people do inside. Mies always up in the façade the way the houses are. And I’m involved in Westmount Square here in tried to mitigate that by doing things like they’re making ten-story groups of buildings in Montreal. It’s two residential skyscrapers, and choosing a uniform lighting system for the the fields outside of town, which are horrible one office skyscraper by Mies. The developers Seagram. Otherwise people are going to do because there are no amenities or social space. want to convert the office skyscraper into a what they do. It’s not just a building it has a lot of stuff around residential one. They’ve asked me to consult it. That’s one of the things I think Seagram with them, which was great. The architects So you don’t really believe in the idea that Building and Mies’ buildings actually did well; came up with a very, very good study, the all these buildings should be kept pristine, they created a kind of oasis, a sort of clearing in kind of study that would have been done in as they were originally intended. the urban forest.  Mies’ office, of all the possibilities. One of the Yes of course, keep them as well as you can! But problems is that the spandrel on the office there’s always a point at which you have to see building is deeper than the spandrel on the how you can make it work. Here in Montreal we have one building, which is based on the International style. It will never compare to 860–880 Lake Shore Drive or the Seagram Building, but it’s a fine building, and in the That was a period lobby they have a wonderful mosaic made by a local artist. It has a canopy they want to take off “when people wanted to so people can see the mosaic better. But I always argue against it, because people don’t look like war again… understand, the minute you take that off, what as if they wanted the do you do with maintaining the columns that go up and everything else? There are always cities to look like these kinds of issues. they’d been bombed. It It seems like there’s an emerging consciousness about renovating and was crazy. adapting buildings for the city of today, Figure 4. 860–880 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. ” © Steven Henry 48 | Talking Tall: Phyllis Lambert CTBUH Journal | 2013 Issue IV