CitySpire Building

The CitySpire Building is a Postmodernist skyscraper designed by Murphy/Jahn Architects, and built between 1985 and 1990 in New York, NY.

Its precise street address is 150 W 56th Street, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.

The mixed-use building places commercial spaces from floors 1 to 25 and the residential section from floors 26 to 72, offering the best views. The interior floor-numbering system skips floors 13 and 25, resulting in a total of 73 physical stories, but the top floor is labeled as 75.

A pedestrian gallery on the ground floor connects 51st Street to 57th Street through numerous passageways.

The building underwent a major restoration in 2011. The architect commissioned to undertake this restoration was Henson Architecture.

Murphy/Jahn Architects 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 CitySpire Building a reality:

• Robert Rosenwasser Associates in charge of Structural Engineering
• Tishman Construction as the Main Contractor
• Ian Bruce Eichner as the Main Developer
• Cosentini Associates in charge of MEP Engineering

The CitySpire Building can be categorized as a Postmodernist building.

The CitySpire Building was completed in 1990. By 1990 the Postmodernism movement was experiencing a transition. Critics argued that Postmodernism, initially a rebellious and innovative style, had become formulaic and commercialized, and so the trend started moving away from blending historical styles, irony, and playful ornamentation, and begun to give way to emerging architectural trends concerned with more present matters such as technology, ecology or sustainability.

The CitySpire Building uses a frame structure made of concrete columns and concretre 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 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.

Part of the lateral load resistance is provided by shear walls attached to the elevator core. In other areas, the exterior columns, such as the massive 1.22 x 2.13-meter columns on the north side, are connected to the elevator core with diagonal braces

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a curtain wall made of Sardinian "moonbeam" stone slabs and tempered glass window bands. The building is topped by a copper-clad dome.

The revolving entrance door is framed in bronze and is part of a large geometric glass window with bronze frames, surrounded by pink granite panels. .