This will be my last post from midtown Manhattan from my walk the other week. I love the Seagram Building, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at 375 Park Avenue and E.52nd Street. The postmodernists complained about Mies and the Seagram. The Seagram is too austere, too detached from the street. All of this may or may not be true. But I think it’s a great building, thoughtful, serious, quiet, self-confident, no bullshit. Less is more still works. I like the building best at street level, where all the different parts cohere –stone, metal, glass, and water. But as you look up, I am especially fond of the yellow square window patterns, which are both simple and complex. With a very simple zoom lens they lend themselves to various configurations.
