425 Park Avenue Building

skyscraper
contemporary
NY
New York

About the 425 Park Avenue Building in New York
1. Prizes & Awards
Architect and team
Architectural style
Spaces and uses
Structure and materials

The 425 Park Avenue Building is a Contemporary skyscraper designed in 2012 by Foster + Partners, in association with Adamson Associates Architects, and built between 2016 and 2022, for a reported $1.00 billion dollars, in New York, NY. Foster + Partners was commisioned to design the building after winning the competition that was held in 2012.

Its precise street address is 425 Park Avenue, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.

The 425 Park Avenue Building has received multiple architecture awards for its architectural design since 2022. The following is a list of such prizes and awards:

AR MIPIM Future Project Awards – Commendation ‘Offices’ in 2017
NYC x DESIGN - Best Commercial Lobby / Amenity Space in 2023
CTBUH Award of Excellence, Best Tall Building 200 to under 300 meters in 2023
CTBUH Award of Excellence, Best Tall Building, Americas in 2023

The current building is a redevelopment of the original structure built in 1957 and designed by Kahn & Jacobs in a modernist style..

Building's timeline

Design completed

2012

Construction begins

2016

Construction completed

2022

years ago

2025

Architect and team

Foster + Partners was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design, in association with Adamson Associates Architects.

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 425 Park Avenue Building a reality:

WSP Cantor Seinuk in charge of Structural Engineering
Tishman Construction as the Main Contractor
Permasteelisa Group in charge of Facade Consultancy
L&L Holding Company as the Main Developer
WSP in charge of MEP Engineering

Architectural Style

The 425 Park Avenue 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.

Spaces & Uses

The 425 Park Avenue Building reaches an architectural height of 860ft (262m). It has a total of 47 floors.

In regards to parking space, the building has a total of 52 spots available, which roughly equals 1 spots per floor (above ground).

Ever since opening its doors to the public in 2022, the 425 Park Avenue Building has mainly been used as Commercial space.

The tower is vertically divided into three stacked volumes: the base with seven floors, a recessed central section, and a second setback where the slender upper tower begins.

In each volume, the office floors are connected by triple-height spaces that create an open environment with gardens and city views. In this building, the core is located at the rear.

One of the design challenges was that, under New York City’s 1961 zoning regulations, there were restrictions on demolition and reconstruction, requiring the same floor area to be preserved once the new building was completed. To maintain the original “footprint,” the team chose to retain at least 25% of the existing structure, allowing them to keep the approximately 62,300 m² of rentable area.

Materials & Structure

The 425 Park Avenue Building uses a frame structure made of steel columns and poured concrete over metal decking slabs.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade of the building however, is load bearing. This doesn't imply that it is a traditional load-bearing wall. Rather, it means that the structure's exterior pillars have been pushed to the very edges, becoming integrated with the facade, and therefore, technically, a part of it.

The concrete core, housing the staircases, elevators, and mechanical systems, is located at the rear, on the east side, where an existing mid-rise office building obstructed the views, thus freeing the prime orientations toward Park Avenue.

At the top of the tower, three shear walls rise above the roofline, working in conjunction with the core to resist lateral loads and provide overall structural stability.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features blue-tinted reflective glass and stainless steel clad columns.

The building's geometry is defined by double-height floors and a diagonal bracing system, culminating in a crown of three illuminated vertical fins that pierce the skyline.

The base level rises three levels high, with lighter glass, protected by a steel canopy that cantilevers along the entrance.