8 Spruce Street Building

The 8 Spruce Street Building is a Contemporary skyscraper designed between 2003 and 2005 by Frank Gehry, and built between 2006 and 2010, for a reported $875 million dollars, in New York, NY.

8 Spruce 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:

• Beekman Tower between 2008 and 2010.
• New York by Gehry between 2010 and 2018.

Its precise street address is 8 Spruce Street, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.

The 8 Spruce Street Building has received multiple architecture awards for its architectural design since 2010. The following is a list of such prizes and awards:

• CTBUH Awards Best Tall Building, by Region in 2011
• Emporis Skyscraper Award in 2011
• World Architecture Festival 2011 - Structure of the Year award in 2011

One of the premises Gehry stated in his studio when designing and modeling the facade of the building was that he wanted the baroque curves of Bernini’s marble works, not the softer, more harmonious curves of Michelangelo or Donatello, but rather the sharp and forceful curves of Bernini’s sculptures..

Frank Gehry was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

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 8 Spruce Street Building a reality:

• WSP Cantor Seinuk in charge of Structural Engineering
• Kreisler Borg Florman as the Main Contractor
• Permasteelisa Group in charge of Facade Consultancy
• Forest City Ratner Companies as the Main Developer
• Jaros Baum & Bolles in charge of MEP Engineering
• Field Operations in charge of Landscape Architecture

The 8 Spruce Street Building can be categorized as a Contemporary building.

By today's standards the 8 Spruce Street Building could probably be classified as a "deconstructivism" building. Only time will tell if this substyle will grow and stick onto the history books, or if perhaps it will become a substyle of a larger style. Only time will tell. Until then, we believe it's best to refer to the 8 Spruce Street Building as a contemporary building.

The 8 Spruce Street Building uses a frame structure made of reinforced concrete columns and beams.

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 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.

The building's main structure is made of reinforced concrete and consists of a central core surrounded by shear walls of the same material. Rigid walls placed on the “mechanical floors”, 6, 38, and 76, also made of cast-in-place structural concrete, enhance the system's overall efficiency.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features

a terracotta-colored exposed brick facade on the first six floors, above which the tower rises with a series of setbacks on floors 7, 24, 40, and 52, creating terraces for the apartments.

The south facade is flat.