The Pan Am Building and the Shattering of the Modernist Dream

Rating:
Summary: A Behemoth Bad Example
Review: In 1987, _New York_ magazine ran a poll to determine the buildings that New Yorkers hate the most. The results were plain on a cover of the magazine, which showed a gigantic wrecking ball taking its first swipe at the Pan Am Building. The building is not only on New Yorkers' most hated list; though it has had a few defenders, it has since its inception drawn criticism from a worldwide public, from architects, and from professional architecture critics. How could such an unloved mass ever have been plonked on Park Avenue? There are plenty of reasons for the failure, and plenty of repercussions from it, and all is told in _The Pan Am Building and the Shattering of the Modernist Dream_ (MIT Press) by Meredith L. Clausen. Professor Clausen teaches architectural history, and she has produced a big, well-illustrated, and weighty volume that covers the history of the building and the history of much of twentieth century urban architecture. There are plenty of books devoted to particular building that are considered architectural successes; Clausen shows that one devoted to a failure can be just as interesting, though perhaps not as inspiring.

The Pan Am Building was conceived in 1958. It was to be part of the complex of the Beaux Arts masterpiece, the Grand Central Station, which had been completed in 1913. The economic force behind the construction was Erwin Wolfson, a highly respected and successful real estate developer who had a quiet manner, broad interests, and remarkable erudition. Wolfson was unable to accept the proposal of Richard Roth, whose firm was prolifically designing efficient and economic buildings for businesses, and wanted a well known architect with a name, one that would provide the building with prestige and enable it more readily to be rented to moneyed clients. He didn't get one architect with a name, but two. Walter Gropius had an established worldwide reputation as an architect and an academic spokesman for the Modern Movement, the glass and steel functionalism produced by the famous Bauhaus school. He was joined by Pietro Belluschi, who had previously worked with him, an architect who had experience as a design consultant and architect for corporations, and who had previously designed tall office buildings, as Gropius had not. The resulting design was released to the public in February 1959. It was the largest office tower in the world, 59 stories tall, of faceted glass and concrete exterior, in a shape of a broad octagonal prism. It spanned the full width of Park Avenue, looming over the Grand Central Terminal. Where the terminal had above it the less soaring but more delicate New York General Building and then simply sky, the new building would block any vista and would dwarf adjacent buildings due to its immensity. Observers found the building a betrayal of the civic principles that Gropius and Belluschi had espoused. Just as the public could not stop the construction, it could not stop Pan Am's installation of a heliport on the roof, for express trips to and from the surrounding airports. It was too noisy and too dangerous, people said, and they were eventually proved right; the heliport was closed after a fatal crash in 1977, and one of the five fatalities was a pedestrian on the street below.

The accident sullied the reputation of Pan American Airways, which was under financial difficulties and went bankrupt in 1979. The building now bears a MetLife sign, but has had no change in the professional and amateur dislike directed toward it. Paris's Eiffel Tower was disliked when it was built, and is now beloved; nothing like that is going to happen to the Pan Am Building. The debacle has had its upside. The next development of the area was to have been a huge rectangular block constructed over the station, but the preposterous addition was so vilified that the Landmarks Preservation Commission's refusal to allow it was upheld by the Supreme Court. The Pan Am Building had disillusioned architectural professionals and the public, and served best in the capacity of a bad example, something the city should never allow again. Clausen's wonderful, detailed look at the failure is also a cautionary tale on hubris and the risks of letting money do just what it wants to make more of itself.