Image Credit : David de Armas
Project Overview
As a New York City icon, 200 Park Avenue is unprecedented in nature, status, and form. Since its inception as the Pan Am Building in 1963, and the sale that dubbed it the MetLife building in the 1980s, 200 Park Avenue has been privy to an assortment of generational renovations that have proven transient. Originally designed by Walter Gropius, Pietro Belluschi, and Emery Roth & Sons, it was once the largest commercial office building in the world and remains one of the largest in Manhattan today. Standing at 58 stories over 3.1 million square feet, 200 Park Avenue is a mid-century architectural icon and defining piece of the Manhattan skyline. Our design – part restoration, part reinvigoration – is a nod to the building’s past and a celebration of its future with a modern approach that upholds the integrity of the original architecture while inspiring new ideas. Over the course of the past 20 years, MdeAS has worked with owners Irvine Company and Tishman Speyer to oversee the gradual and careful restoration of the MetLife building to resemble the original 1963 design more closely. Our design includes the rejuvenation of the entirety of the building’s multi-level lobby and the creation of a new visitor reception lounge, as well as the restoration of Joseph Albers’ “Manhattan” mural and Richard Lippold’s “Flight” sculpture, which are original to the building and serve as anchors to the building’s two main lobbies.
Project Commissioner
Irvine Company & Tishman Speyer
Project Creator
Team
GENERAL CONTRACTOR / CONSTRUCTION MANAGER
Clune Construction
Edward McCann
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
ADG Engineering
Joseph Lieber
CIVIL ENGINEER
Sam Schwartz
Luke Martinez
MEP ENGINEER
Stantec Engineering
Katie Formoso
Project Brief
We see the re-imagining of 200 Park Avenue as a grand civic gesture in architecture and art that was conceived and executed at the pedestrian scale. How we approach the building - what we see, feel, and experience - all play into the revitalization and creation of spaces transforming to meet the dynamic needs of the modern workplace, neighborhood, and city. We used traditional materials in fresh ways to appeal to visitors and invigorate the senses. By taking elements such as lighting, flooring, and other finishes, and figuring out how they best worked together, we were able to bring a crisp, conscious design to a classic Mid-Century building. The Vanderbilt entryway was widened to its original size and features enhanced lighting and updated materials to bring in an abundance of natural light, while a rippling 380-foot-long illuminated glass fascia for the raised viaduct re-establishes 200 Park Avenue’s presence and civic monumentality along the avenue. The balance of the exterior, including the 45th Street façade, also received a major enhancement with new large-scale granite paving, travertine stone column cladding, enhanced lighting, and restored storefronts and arcades to enliven the north-facing street wall and adjoining restaurant seating areas. At the upper level of the lobby, natural materials such as rift-cut white oak floors and ceilings give the lounge a soft living room quality, distinguishing it from the rest of 200 Park’s lobby, which is characterized by a rich, contrasting material palette.
Project Innovation/Need
The renovations at 200 Park Avenue revolutionize the tenant experience and clarify the bustling concourse level for the quarter million commuters that pass through this space daily. The multi-level lobby is comprised of four quadrants on the north, south, east, and west sides, connected by a main corridor stretching from Grand Central Station to 45th Street. Our design reorganized the ground floor concourse and mezzanine levels to create intuitive, hospitality-driven spaces for clientele and guests. The relocation of the lobby to a mezzanine reception lounge eliminates congestion and carved out areas for adjacent amenities. To achieve this, we capitalized on a previously underutilized area – an unused, covered driveway – to extend the existing glass enclosure, adding new lighting, landscaping, and a street façade opening onto the elevated viaduct to provide the visitor reception lounge with a dedicated drop-off. The new visitor reception lounge on the mezzanine level is accessible by a modernized elevator and ten newly replaced glass balustrade escalators clad in a dark statuary bronze finish. The desirable seating, soft material palette, and generous natural light make it an ideal place for respite, with sliding glass connections to adjacent retail and building amenities including childcare, on-demand health/wellness services, as well as new and exciting food and beverage options.
Design Challenge
One of the most important components of the renovation was the recreation and return of Josef Albers’ “Manhattan,” a 55-foot-wide x 28-foot-high mural consisting of 486 interlocking black, white, and red panels, to the Grand Central Concourse passageway. Restoring “Manhattan” to its rightful place was an essential priority to the building’s ownership and is the heart and soul of the design. The original mural sat atop the lobby for more than three decades before being placed into storage during the prior owner’s lobby renovation in 2000. Rediscovered in 2005, when the building was sold to the current owners, it was determined that the mural contained asbestos, with portions damaged beyond repair. Using Albers’ detailed drawings and color-matching with original panels, we worked closely with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation to commission a precise recreation of the mural. After two decades in storage, “Manhattan” finally returned to 200 Park Avenue in September 2019 where it proudly lives today. To further enhance the presentation of the mural and the experience for visitors, the 40-foot-high lobby was expanded 25 feet to the south to include a new volume where the mural is now situated. This was accomplished by carving out a portion of 200 Park Avenue’s interior with a significant structural reconfiguration and reclaiming of space from the adjacent parking garage. The result is a civic space worthy of a Grand Central entrance, with an iconic piece of art standing as its centerpiece visible from multiple levels and vantage points.
Sustainability
Over the course of our 20-year involvement with 200 Park Avenue, careful consideration has always been made to retain as much of the historic material as possible. Much of the Roman travertine stone walls were reused, cleaned, and restored. The new lobby lighting was designed to accentuate the existing stone, allowing us to save over 20,000 square feet of material, and all of the existing bronze accents were darkened to the original dark statuary bronze rather than installing new. By choosing to restore and renovate the existing building rather than redesign with new construction, a significant amount of embodied carbon was saved within the original infrastructure, and the carbon footprint of new materials and construction was reduced. This also applies to the decision to retain the existing Richard Lippold sculpture “Flight” at the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance. Originally commissioned for the Pan Am Building, it has stood on display for decades. Our firm managed the cleaning and refurbishment of the Lippold sculpture, as well as the lobby that houses it. The team interplayed the lobby design to accentuate the three-story high artwork, refinishing the existing fluted bronze metalwork to a dark statuary bronze color that highlights the woven silver and gold threads of the sculpture. New LED lighting was carefully studied to highlight and bring sparkle to the bundles of thin wire expanding out from the central oval base, revitalizing this important historic piece of the project.
Interior Design - Corporate & Commercial
This award celebrates innovative and creative building interiors, with consideration given to space creation and planning, furnishings, finishes, aesthetic presentation and functionality. Consideration also given to space allocation, traffic flow, building services, lighting, fixtures, flooring, colours, furnishings and surface finishes.
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