The Seagram Building in New York: materials and their meaning from the perspectives of architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, lighting designer Richard Kelly, and planning director Phyllis Lambert

• Applicant: Dr. Magdalena Maria Tebel
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 518861256

Concrete and steel form the towering, clearly structured and well-proportioned structural framework. Grayish-pink tinted floor-to-ceiling glass windows and bronze colored alloy double-T beams enliven the façade. Light-colored travertine welcomes visitors in the entrance hall, while green marble accents the facade. The square in front of the high-rise, paved with pink granite, invites visitors to relax and linger during the day - on green marble benches by water basins with splashing fountains. And at night, the Seagram Building at 375 Park Avenue in New York is transformed into a glowing skyscraper of light. Glass, stone, tin, concrete, steel, but also water and light: each one of these materials of the Seagram Building in New York tells its own story and can be a carrier but also an expression of meaning from different perspectives. The Seagram Building is one of the most significant post-war skyscrapers in the United States. Coordinated by Phyllis Lambert, the planning director at the time and daughter of the client, the skyscraper was designed and built between 1953 and 1958 by the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who had emigrated from Germany to the USA, in cooperation with the American architect Philip Johnson. Referring to the discussion on material semantics, which has received increasing attention in research in recent years, the aim of the planned research project is to get to the bottom of the following questions using the Seagram Building in New York as an example: Do ideas about the meaning of materials differ in Europe and the United States, conditioned by cultural encodings? The planned study will tell a history of the object: from the initial idea, the origin of the raw materials, the chosen places of production, the manufacturing processes and the specific ways in which the materials were used in the building, to their later reception. - A history of materials that will be illuminated from the perspectives of three of the most important stakeholders in the building project: from the perspective of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who was in charge of designing the Seagram Building in New York, of Richard Kelly, who conceptualized the lighting design of the skyscraper together with Philip Johnson, and of Phyllis Lambert, in her key role as planning director, who was just 27 years young when the project began. Are there differences in the attribution of meaning to specific materials between the individual actors and genders? The studies are possible thanks to an excellent source material, which has not yet been analyzed in depth with regard to the aspect of the material.

• DFG Programme: WBP Fellowship
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professor Dr. Dietrich Neumann