Chrysler Building

Chrysler Building

The most elegant, expressive skyscraper of all time, the Chrysler Building dominates the skyline of midtown Manhattan with equal parts Jazz Age exuberance and Art Deco refinement. Built as the corporate headquarters for the car company in 1930, the Chrysler Building celebrates automotive culture with a facade that suggests spinning steel hubcaps and gargoyles, designed in the style of that era's magnificent hood ornaments. The stunning spire, modeled on a Chrysler grille, was hidden within the building during construction, so that builders working on a competing structure downtown would be fooled into thinking their building, when finished, would stand as the tallest in the city. On the final day of construction, their rivals work complete, the Chrysler workers raised the 200-ft spire through a small hole in the roof, crowning the magnificent Art Deco structure as the tallest structure in the world. The open lobby was once used as a car showroom and is decorated with African wood and impeccable marble. The gorgeously veneered elevators are built from Japanese ash, Oriental walnut, and Cuban plum-pudding wood. The ceiling mural depicts the incredible wonderment felt at the beginning of the twentieth century for the great futuristic promise of technology and industry--the kind of hope justified by the magnificence of the building itself, which many have called one of the premier achievements of twentieth century architecture the world over.