Talk:Seagram Building

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Seagram Building. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110719135730/http://cala.arizona.edu/courses/arc103/trad103/tutorials/architecture_history/problem_sets/20th_century/high_tech/04t.html to http://cala.arizona.edu/courses/arc103/trad103/tutorials/architecture_history/problem_sets/20th_century/high_tech/04t.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at Sourcecheck).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 07:14, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

The Four Seasons
Shouldn't the relatively famous restaurant that resided in the building from 1959-2016 be mentioned in the article? After all it's interior design was also done by van der Rohe and Johnson, so it too works with the exterior and interior concept already mentioned in the article. The Article on The Four Seasons Restaurant already links back to the Seagram Building, so it's weird that it isn't included here. --5.146.47.110 (talk) 15:57, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Architects
Regarding 's comment in the edit summary of this edit:

, ArchDaily is reliable & balanced: Johnson was arch'l hack & Nazi going to Hitler's rallies in Nuremburg 1933-41 till FBI "persuaded" to stop, he stole Mies's design of Farnsworth House to make due to wealth earlier "his" Glass House that he never denied, as obvious, his "contribution" to Seagram design were min. in office furniture & interiors of restaurants; Kahn designed less & Jacobs next to 0. All 3 do not belong to the same sentence w/ Mies, as ArchDaily presents.

I agree that Mies was the main architect. The main reason that I had restored Johnson and Kahn & Jacobs's names was because their specific contributions are mentioned further down in the article. I have no comment on Johnson's motivations here, but he did have a more than nominal role, as he designed the interiors of the building. It seems that, at least for a while, he did have a leadership role as Mies was not licensed to practice architecture in New York (as cited in Mertins, Detlef (2014). Mies. p. 341). Kahn & Jacobs seem to have had the least contribution to the Seagram Building's design, though.

Regarding my edit summary here, it was poorly written; sorry about that. I meant to say that there are already reliable sources in the article, not that ArchDaily wasn't reliable. In hindsight, I should've moved down the ArchDaily reference per WP:CITELEAD, since the lead section is meant to be a summary of information that is already cited in the body. – Epicgenius (talk) 12:49, 1 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Johnson, Kahn & Jacobs were not assisting Rohe in the design were it counted due to insufficient skills to contribute to that part of the design, which made Seagram famous. Namely conceptual design, the design of the facades, lobby, and other prominent parts.  The restaurants were poorly designed and subsequently redesigned.  Kahn & Jacobs were only design development contributors of not prominent parts (narrowly specialized design consultants), as it is typical in arch'l offices.  The principal designer rarely does them.  Jacobs could not design well at all.  Kahn's design "achievement" of Municipal Asphalt Plant is based on earlier design of Hangar d' Orly by Eugène Freyssinet.


 * I worked in an arch'l office in NYC area for a similar licensed architect who was an assistant to Marcel Breuer for 20 yrs and must have sharpened pencils, as neither he nor his design director, also licensed, could not design anything spatial. Another architect was not capable to design a penthouse in an apt bldg proposal for Bangkok, incl. the structure.  I have a copy of a book w/ his "achievements" with my design where also incl'd his alleged contributions to Four Seasons Hotel New York design showing the lobby by... I. M. Pei while his were only suits, as he specialized in them and for anything else had design consultants.  Such were also Kahn & Jacobs.


 * Johnson was more skilled in design, but not to be a pionier, as Mies. Seagram's interiors by Johnson were mediocre and most likely not by him personally, but by somebody hired, as myself, and possibly gay.  All Johnson's "oeuvre" looks, like mishmash of works of different people.  If not for the Mies's part, Seagram Bldg would have been unknown.  That is the key reason not to include the names of those 3 in the lead.  They were not up to Mies's level in any respect or proximity.


 * On the other hand, Mies was an aesthetician who did not care much for functionality, e.g. in Neue Nationalgalerie, and also a conformist who lived in a traditional, post Edwardian era, apt in Chicago w/ all the comfort of ample drapery & clutter and none of austerity of modernism he promoted. I was studying arch. in Wroclaw and lived across the street from WUWA (Breslau), which is next to Centennial Hall (Wrocław) (to the right on the map).  Mies was dissected over & over.


 * Non-European view on Mies's "co-workers" is exaggerated. They were just fillers where Mies was too lazy or uninterested to put effort into design outside of aesthetics.  Their co-work does not maka them co-designers or even collaborators.  They were just hired hands for convenience due to a lack of arch'l license, desire to deal with interior functions or design, getting commissions.  So they got a bone bigger or smaller.  But the design where it counts is by Mies only, as ArchDaily writes.


 * Johnson's & Kahn's WP's articles should not mention that they were Mies's design assistants in Seagram, as it is not true, but only in the body as "assistants" and not "design assistants", as that might be true, as in the case of my former boss assisting Breuer. Cheers!--108.41.129.35 (talk) 23:31, 1 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks. This is a genuinely helpful insight. I'll check the article's sources again, see whether I overstated the importance of Kahn & Jacobs and Johnson in the article. You're right that it's Mies alone who was responsible for the core aspects of the design. Though, as far as I can tell, Johnson had a more-than-nominal role in the design (even if his interiors were mediocre, which indeed they were, in my opinion). – Epicgenius (talk) 00:30, 2 June 2022 (UTC)


 * very useful is the Mies documentary. It shows how ugly were the restaurants. No sense of proportions, as in proj's, e.g. by Meier, where you feel, like in Javits Center.  Johnson decided to beautify the Four Season restaurant and commissioned Mark Rothko to paint 9 panels.  Rothko, an ardent communist, thought the panels are for everybody to see and not only the wealthy patrons.  After realizing they are not, he returned the fee and eventually donated them to Tate Modern (Rothko: ...).  And those were Johnson's best.  His role was not nominal, but his output was sub-standard and thus irrelevant to the fame of the bldg the article is about and not about who designed, e.g. the basement or roofing.  Who cares! No respected arch'l historian mentions Johnson in re Seagram design.  They  criticize him by not mentioning.  That is the indicator of his no role in the design where it counted.  Silence speaks volumes.  Good luck.--108.41.129.35 (talk) 05:59, 2 June 2022 (UTC)