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Swiss Bank Tower and Saks Fifth Avenue Expansion New York, NY
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This 36-story, mixed-use office building is sited mid-block immediately behind the landmarked Saks Fifth avenue flagship department store, directly across from Rockefeller Center. The top 26-stories are the North American headquarters for the Basel-based Swiss Bank Corporation, with the first nine stories providing additional retail and support space for Saks Fifth Avenue.
The expansion of Saks also included two sub basements, at and below grade level. Blasting was done under the escalators and required sophisticated monitoring devices in the historic St. Patrick's Cathedral across the street.
The building's contextual design continues the store's classic motifs on the street facades while acknowledging Rockefeller Center with its own modern front. The chamfered corners recall those of the Saks Fifth Avenue store, and the design, utilizing smooth Indiana limestone cladding, is compatible with the materials of the historic landmark.
The rusticated limestone base of the new building carries the theme of composite-order pilasters and the proportions of the punched shed windows of the-Renaissance facade of the existing store. Many of the stone details are machine planed to the precise profiles to match the original facade, but many of the intricate curvilinear and floral pieces, such as the capitals and friezes, were hand carved by stone artisans using essentially the same methods and implements that were used during the Renaissance.
The tower sets back equally on 49th and 50th Streets, rising straight up with a cladding of flat limestone panels with a pattern of punched recessed windows. It is designed with great care to respond to the gray-white limestone facades and details characteristic of such neighboring landmarks as Saks, Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral and many of the traditional facades along Fifth Avenue. The tower's chamfered corners have the two-fold purpose of echoing the original Saks store corners and responding to the need to provide maximum daylight to the street below. Specially designed night-time illumination further emphasizes this sensitive treatment.
Inside, the 475,000 sq ft building includes sophisticated systems: fiber optics, complex security systems; the potential for future trading floors; column-free, completely flexible interiors; provision for satellite communications and other high technology installations. A small tower entrance on 50th Street leads to a larger sky lobby and conference center on the 11th floor. This two-level sky lobby provides a dramatic entrance to the banking offices, overlooking the spires of St. Patrick's Cathedral.
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For more information contact:
Lee Harris Pomeroy Associates / Architect
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