The Century Apartments Building

The Century Apartments Building
  1. About the The Century Apartments Building in New York
    1. Building Catalogations
  2. Architect and team
  3. Architectureal style
  4. Spaces and uses
  5. Structure and materials

The The Century Apartments Building is an Art-deco skyscraper designed by Irwin S. Chanin and built between 1930 and 1931, for a reported $6.50 million dollars, in New York, NY.

Its precise street address is 25 Central Park West, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.

The The Century Apartments Building is a structure of significant importance both for the city of New York and the United States as a nation. The building embodies the distinctive characteristic features of the time in which it was built and the Art Deco style. Because of that, the The Century Apartments Building was officially declared as a national landmark on July 9th 1985, and was included in the National Register of Historic Places on November 9th 1982.

The building underwent a major restoration in 1992.

Building's timeline

Construction begins
1930
94
Construction completed
1931
93
Added to the NRHP
1982
42
Declared NL
1985
39
a
Restoration
1992
32
years ago
2024
  1. 1992 - Converted from a hotel into residences.

Architect and team

Irwin S. Chanin was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design. But there was also one other architect involved, as far as we know. We are talking about Jacques Delamarre.

Irwin S. Chanin and the other architects already mentioned were in charge of the architectural design, however, architecture is a complex discipline, which usually involves 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 at the very least we know that there was one other part involved, that was Chanin Construction Company as the Main Contractor.

Architectural Style

The The Century Apartments Building can be categorized as an Art-deco building.

The Art Deco movement flourished during the 1920s and 1930s, with many historians marking the outbreak of World War II as its final decline. Even though a couple of decades might not seem as much, the Art Deco movement had a great impact on architecture, and it's widely represented in many American cities due to the development boom that happened during that time.

Art Deco marked the abandonment of traditional historicism and the embracement of modern living and the age of the machine. In architecture, that meant leaving behind the ornaments of Beux-Arts and Neo-Gothic buildings and instead favoring simplicity and visual impact through geometric shapes, clean lines, and symmetrical designs. Ornaments were still an important part of the design, but they became bold and lavish, and were often inspired by ancient cultures or industrial imagery, instead of nature.

The The Century Apartments Building was completed in 1931, right when the Art Deco movement was at its peak, so it kind of went with the trend at that time.

Spaces & Uses

The The Century Apartments Building reaches an architectural height of 299ft (91m). It has a total of 33 floors, served by 12 elevators.

When it opened its doors to the public in 1931, the The Century Apartments Building was primarily used as Hotel space. That however, is no longer the case, and today it mainly provides Residential space.

About the residences

The The Century Apartments Building has a total of 422 residential units throughout its 33 floors.

299ft (91m)

Materials & Structure

The The Century Apartments Building uses a frame structure made of steel columns and concrete 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 is non-load bearing either, as it is common in frame structure type buildings.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features an ochre-colored stone cladding up to the second floor, with a base of pink granite, which also frames the main entrance. The remaining part of the facade combines toasted bricks with brown bricks. The windows are horizontally separated by rust-colored decorative bricks, with concrete sills located beneath each window.

Other materials found at the The Century Apartments Building include, white metal, used for the gilles of some doors, wood, used for the floors, and brass, which can be seen in the frames and grilles of the main door.

Sources

  • s-media.nyc.gov