The 200 West Street Building is a Contemporary skyscraper designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, with Henry N. Cobb as lead architect, in association with Adamson Associates Architects, and built between 2005 and 2010, for a reported $2.10 billion dollars, in New York, NY.
200 West Street Building is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The building has changed names several times over the years, and is also known as:
Its precise street address is 200 West Street, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.
The 200 West Street Building has received multiple architecture awards for its architectural design since 2010. The following is a list of such prizes and awards:
Covered by an elegant glass canopy with retail spaces, the pedestrian passage known as Goldman Alley, connecting the 200 West Street Building to the Conrad Hotel, has become an important meeting point and connection between Battery Park City and the World Financial Center..
At the time of its completion in 2010 the 200 West Street Building incorporated solutions that were quite advanced at the time, these included The electrical, ventilation, and network systems are integrated beneath a raised floor system..
Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, with Henry N. Cobb as the lead architect, was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design, in association with Adamson Associates Architects.
The firm was originally founded in 1955 as I.M. Pei & Associates by Ieoh Ming Pei, along with partners Henry N. Cobb and Eason H. Leonard. The firm was later renamed Pei Cobb Freed & Partners in 1989, reflecting the contributions of its key partners.
Pei Cobb Freed & Partners is celebrated for its iconic projects that often feature bold geometric forms, and extensive use of glass.
With a portfolio that spans over six decades, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners continues to be a leader in contemporary architecture, merging aesthetic innovation with practical and structural excellence.
That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the 200 West Street Building a reality:
The 200 West Street Building can be categorized as a Contemporary building.
Contemporary style architecture builds on top of the principles of Modernism and Postmodernism, but incorporates other variables which might not have been that important in the past, but certainly are today, such as technology, sustainability, inclusivity, and others.
From a historical point of view, it is hard to categorize things from a not-so-distant time, and therefore we choose to categorize most buildings built after the year 2000 as "Contemporary". It is possible that as time goes by and we, as a society, gain perspective on the things happening today, we'll be able to look back and recategorize all these buildings into more concrete subsections, some of which might not even exist today.
The 200 West Street Building reaches an architectural height of 741ft (226m). It has a total of 45 floors, served by 53 elevators.
Ever since opening its doors to the public in 2010, the 200 West Street Building has mainly been used as Commercial space.
The building also features a 350-seat auditorium, a conference floor, and a fitness center. And on the double-height 11th floor, is the Sky Lobby, a social space with views over the city that also serves as a transitional zone between the operations core and the corporate offices.
The 200 West Street Building uses a trussed-frame structure made of steel columns and poured concrete over metal decking slabs.
A trussed-frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight, and diagonal elements to provide stability against horizontal forces such as wind or seismic activity by triangulating the structure. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.
The facade uses a non-load bearing curtain wall system. This means the curtain wall modules are anchored to the building's structural frame, typically by being attached to the edge of the floor slabs. The curtain wall system connects to the slabs using brackets, anchors, and mullions, which transfer the loads imposed by wind and temperature changes, to the building's primary structural elements.
This setup allows the curtain wall to accommodate differential movement between the facade and the structural frame, such as thermal expansion, floor deflection, or sway from wind forces. This system's integration with the slab edges also allows for continuous insulation and weatherproofing layers.
From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features light-green-tinted insulated glass with steel spandrels and framing.
The West facade, the one facing the Hudson River, is curved, and the upper floors feature three setbacks.
