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This 900-foot aluminum and glass skyscraper is the fourth tallest
building in New York and the tenth tallest in the world. The entire
structure rests on a central core and four outriding column-like towers.
A computer driven load mass damper enables the reduced number of
vertical supports and ensures the stability of this complex
structure. Double-decker elevator cars reduce the area devoted to the
vertical circulation core, leaving more space available for offices.
With so few interior columns, ample room is available for numerous
amenities, such
as a six-story retail wing and a sunken plaza that leads directly to the
subway. Plans for creating residential space on the upper floors were
abandoned due to zoning restrictions. Regardless, as a mixed-use complex,
this building has more in common with Art Deco skyscrapers than with the
purely corporate structures of the International Style.
The obliquely slanting roof--originally designed to hold solar
panels--embodies another break with the practices of corporate high
modernism. Standing out among the flat-roofed prisms of midtown,
Citicorp's pitched roof has become a symbol of the corporation, a marker
of corporate identity in an emerging area. The building's
bold presence helped to revitalize the commercial area located to the
east of Park Avenue.
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