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(upbeat piano music)

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Mail voiceover: I'm with Matthew Postal

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who was an architectural historian.

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We're on Park Avenue at 53rd Street

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and we're standing in front of one[br]of the most important buildings

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in the history of architecture[br]in the United States.

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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's,[br]The Seagram Building.

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Male voiceover: It's[br]built between '56 and '58.

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Male voiceover: Can you give me a quick[br]overview of why this is so important?

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Male voiceover: It's[br]important on a lot of levels.

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Mies has been designing buildings[br]of this kind since the 1920s,

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but he never had a chance[br]to build an office building.

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It's the first opportunity[br]to see his ideas.

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Male voiceover: There was[br]a lot that intervened.

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Mies was developing his ideas[br]first on paper in the late teens,

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then in the '20s as you said.

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Then, you have the revolution[br]in Germany, you have the war,

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the end of the depression.

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Male voiceover: He moves[br]to the United States,

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he designs the campus[br]of the Armour Institute.

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Male voiceover: Then, he has this[br]commission, Seagram Building.

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Seagram was a Canadian[br]company, it's a liquor company.

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Perhaps, the worlds largest[br]liquor company at that time.

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I think they did really[br]well because of prohibition,

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if I remember correctly.

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Male voiceover: Because[br]they're based in Canada.

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Male voiceover: Because[br]they're based in Canada

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and all of that liquor could[br]be smuggled down to Chicago,

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across the Great Lakes.

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Then, one of them had their[br]headquarters in New York.

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How did this come to be?

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Male voiceover: The background[br]of the Seagram building is,

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that they decided to build a[br]headquarters in the mid '50s.

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They looked across the street.

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They were impressed by all the[br]notoriety that Lever House had garnered.

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Male voiceover: Which was[br]that first real modern icon

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to show off on Park Avenue.

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Male voiceover: First curtain[br]wall building in Manhattan.

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Male voiceover: Okay.

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Male voiceover: Charles Luckman,

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who had been one of the chief[br]executive officer at Lever,

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had been trained as an architect

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and had left Lever to open his own firm.

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Male voiceover: Did Bronfman, who[br]ran Seagrams, turn to Luckman then?

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How did that ...

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Male voiceover: He hires Luckman

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and Luckman gets way past[br]the preliminary drawings.

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There's a large model.

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The model is sitting in his office

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when his daughter comes[br]to visit, Phyllis Lambert.

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Male voiceover: What did[br]she have to do with it?

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Male voiceover: She was[br]studying at Harvard,

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in the graduate school of[br]architecture and design.

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She said, "Dad, that's the most[br]awful thing I've ever seen."

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Male voiceover: (laughs) I[br]hope Luckman's not listening.

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What does she do?

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Male voiceover: She says,[br]"Dad, we're going to go over[br]to the Museum of Modern Art"

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"and you're going to[br]speak to Arthur Drexler,"

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"the chief curator of architecture."

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Male voiceover: MoMA is only[br]a few blocks down the street,

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on 53rd as well, so this[br]was not a long stroll.

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What did Drexler tell Bronfman?

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Male voiceover: Drexler said[br]there were three choices.

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There was Le Corbusier.

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Male voiceover: The French architect.

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Male voiceover: Right. Too[br]difficult to work with, he said.

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Male voiceover: Okay.

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Male voiceover: There[br]was Frank Llyod Wright.

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Male voiceover: The obvious[br]choice, the American.

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Male voiceover: But, too old.

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Male voiceover: Ahh.

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Male voiceover: He was[br]almost 90 years old.

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Male voiceover: He suggested that[br]they go with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

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Male voiceover: That's what they did.

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What has Mies done here?

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Male voiceover: He's built[br]a relatively simple form,

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a bronze clad slab of a tower.

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Male voiceover: Hold on a second.

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It's bronze?

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Male voiceover: It is bronze.

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Male voiceover: Sculptures[br]are made out of bronze.

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Male voiceover: That's why I always say

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that this is not only one of the modern[br]icons of architecture in New York,

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but it's also one of the most[br]classical buildings in the city.

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Male voiceover: That's interesting.

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You're thinking classicism in terms of[br]the ancient Greeks creating sculptures.

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This is a building that actually[br]has a patina like a sculpture would.

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It's not just a uniform dark brown black.

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It's actually got some[br]subtlety to the color

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in really an enormously sophisticated way.

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Male voiceover: It's a little[br]darker than it originally was,

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but imagine that each[br]year, at least once a year,

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they rub it with oil, so[br]that it does not oxidize.

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Male voiceover: Oh, that's great.

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So that it doesn't turn green[br]or red or what have you.

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Male voiceover: Yes.

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Male voiceover: Any of the chemical[br]reactions that the bronze might have.

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Male voiceover: Mies really[br]loved Greek architecture

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over all other things,[br]so he designed a building

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that is very symmetrical, it's[br]a very disciplined aesthetic.

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If you look at the various[br]pillars that run across the front,

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they look vaguely like fluted columns.

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Male voiceover: That's really interesting,

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because they do have[br]these vertical striation,

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so it a kind of fluting.

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In fact, the whole building[br]is up on this platform.

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It's almost like a Greek style,

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as if we were looking at the Parthenon.

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Male voiceover: Absolutely.

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Male voiceover: There's a[br]sense of proportion here

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that feels very classical and it's[br]incredible to be able to say that

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despite the buildings height,[br]because this is a big building.

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The Greeks were working[br]on a much smaller scale.

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The Romans were working on[br]a slightly larger scale,

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but nothing like this.

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Male voiceover: That's the challenge.

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How do you distill the[br]lessons of the ancients

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in a building that's[br]made of metal and glass.

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Male voiceover: Is that[br]even an absurd project,

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to try to take an industrial[br]culture and an industrial material

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and wed it somehow to buildings[br]that are 2,500 years old?

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Male voiceover: Mies would say, "No."

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Male voiceover: Why is that legitimate?

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Male voiceover: Because I[br]think that the modern movement

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in architecture was always[br]looking for some discipline.

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It was always looking[br]to balance old and new.

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This was one of the[br]solutions that he found.

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Male voiceover: Let's take[br]a look at the building.

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It's very clean.

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When you look up at it[br]from below, it just soars.

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The term that comes to[br]mind is vertical velocity.

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Male voiceover: LIke an ascent.

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Male voiceover: We just[br]rocket upward, visually.

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How is he pulling that off?

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Male voiceover: Look carefully[br]at the vertical mullions

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that are between the window bays.

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They basically rise without interruption[br]from the base of the tower to the top.

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Male voiceover: I'm looking at those now

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and they're not simple mullions,[br]they look like I-beams.

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They have girders.

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Male voiceover: Right.

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Male voiceover: What's going on?

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Male voiceover: They serve no[br]purpose other than decoration.

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Male voiceover: Decoratively, they[br]make the surface so that it's not flat,

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they give it some texture.

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Male voiceover: A little depth.

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Male voiceover: They[br]give it a little depth.

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It gives it a bit of a play[br]of light as well, and shadow.

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Male voiceover: I think that when[br]the building was constructed,

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they talked about industrial material[br]and honesty and those kinds of issues,

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but as time has passed,

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they recognized that it wasn't beyond Mies

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to experiment with a[br]little bit of decoration.

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Male voiceover: It's decorative, but it's[br]a kind of decorative symbolism, isn't it,

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because the I-beam is the thing that's[br]actually holding the building up?

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These are de-purposed,[br]if that makes sense.

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Male voiceover: Not these I-beams.

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Male voiceover: Right, not these I-beams.

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Male voiceover: That's right.

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Male voiceover: They're reflecting[br]what's inside the building,

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the actual interior structure.

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Male voiceover: Yeah, on a smaller scale.

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Male voiceover: I assume that the inside,

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they're actually steel,[br]they're not bronze.

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Male voiceover: Right, and you[br]would never want to see them.

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They would be kind of unattractive.

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Male voiceover: Mies has got these I-beams

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and they really do raise us upward.

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They do function then,[br]in a decorative sense.

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Of course, we were talking[br]about the classical a moment ago

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and the Parthenon for instance,[br]was heavily decorated,

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so there's no prohibition there,

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but it does seem to be a[br]little bit anathema to the way

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that we generally think[br]of Mies van der Rohe

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or we think of the[br]modern movement as really

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wanting to strip away the[br]unnecessary and the decorative.

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Yet, he's allowing for it.

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Male voiceover: I think it's[br]a stereotype about modernism,

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to think that it's without any decoration.

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Male voiceover: Because there[br]is actually gorgeous use of

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not only the bronze exterior,[br]but the mosaics, marble, granite

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and you've got these beautiful reflecting[br]pools in front of the building.

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Male voiceover: Based on this[br]kind of square-foot budget,

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this is one of the most[br]expensive buildings of it's time.

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Male voiceover: Because it's[br]not using it's entire ...

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Male voiceover: It's not[br]using the entire lot,

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but no, because of the materials.

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Bronze cost a great[br]deal more than aluminum.

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Male voiceover: It's a fortune.

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It's mostly copper.

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Male voiceover: Look at the travertine[br]that the elevator banks are wrapped in.

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Male voiceover: You know what[br]I find really interesting?

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When you look at those elevator banks,

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- and what, there are four of them -

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they actually move past the glass membrane

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that encloses the lobby.

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The glass is like a soap bubble[br]and they've pushed through it.

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Male voiceover: I think they[br]give the building real solidity.

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Male voiceover: That's[br]what visually holds it up.

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Male voiceover: Yeah, and[br]also it makes reference

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back to the ancient Romans.

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Male voiceover: How so?

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Male voiceover: Because[br]that's Roman travertine.

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Male voiceover: Oh, it's travertine.

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Of course. Right.

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Male voiceover: Though again, Mies[br]is constantly referencing antiquity.

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Male voiceover: You had mentioned,[br]just a moment ago, this forecourt.

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The building is really not[br]using much of it's footprint.

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The building is really deeply[br]set back on Park Avenue.

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Male voiceover: Yeah, about[br]as far back as it could.

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Although, it has a couple of[br]smaller editions in the back.

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When Mies was asked why did he[br]set the building back so far,

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he said that he wanted to pay respect

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to the Racquet and Tennis Club[br]directly across the street,

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that he did not want to overwhelm

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that great Italian Palazzo[br]by McKim, Mead and White.

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Male voiceover: It's actually one[br]of the great buildings in New York.

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This is quite an intersection.

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You have Lever House, Tennis and[br]Racquet and you've got Seagram.

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That's a hell of a triumvirate.

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Male voiceover: I think he[br]wanted to create a corridor[br]for his building to be viewed.

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I think by coming up those[br]steps at the end of the Palazzo

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and looking up at the building,

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it provides an architectural experience[br]that people don't often have in New York.

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Male voiceover: There's[br]something else here,

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maybe it's a classical element as well,

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it feels like this is a public space,

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a place where people gather.

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In fact, as we're here, there are[br]people who walk and stop and talk,

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there were people sitting[br]by the reflecting pools.

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It becomes a kind of social space.

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Is that something that[br]Mies was interested in?

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Male voiceover: You know, I think[br]if you look at it critically,

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he kept the seating at[br]the edge to a minimum.

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There never appears to have been any[br]attempt to encourage people to stay here.

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Male voiceover: That's[br]an interesting issue.

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One of the faults that[br]is found with modernism

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is it's antiseptic[br]quality, is it's coldness,

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it's lack of humanity in human scale.

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Do you think that Mies[br]has created something

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that allows us to occupy it comfortably,

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or is this something that[br]is alienating in some way?

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Male voiceover: I think it[br]depends where you come from.

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(upbeat piano music)