One Liberty Plaza Building

The One Liberty Plaza Building is an International Style skyscraper designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with Roy Allen as lead architect, and built between 1969 and 1972, for a reported $120 million dollars, in New York, NY.

One Liberty Plaza Building is not the only name you might know this building by though. Between 1972 and 1980 it was also known as U.S. Steel Building.

Its precise street address is 165 Broadway, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.

The building has been restored 2 times over the years to ensure its conservation and adaptation to the pass of time. The main restoration works happened in 1989 and 2001.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with Roy Allen as the lead architect, 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 One Liberty Plaza Building a reality:

• Weidlinger Associates in charge of Structural Engineering
• Turner Construction Company as the Main Contractor
• Otis Elevator Company as the company in charge of the elevators system
• U.S. Steel Corporation as the Main Developer
• SYSKA Hennessy Group in charge of MEP Engineering

The One Liberty Plaza Building can be categorized as an International Style building.

The One Liberty Plaza Building uses a frame structure made of steel columns and concrete, steel 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.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features dark glass with black-painted steel mullions and spandrels, creating a sleek, modern appearance. The interplay of the reflective surfaces and the bold, industrial accents contributes to a contemporary design that balances transparency with structural integrity..