Look Up: Getting High at the Met Life Home Office Complex (NYC)

Image via Complex Original

Just east of Madison Square Park sits a suite of buildings once collectively known as the Metropolitan Life Home Office Complex. The first building, now known as One Madison Ave., was originally an 11-storey building designed by the firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons and built in 1893 in a Renaissance Revival style. It was subsequently enlarged several times in the following decade to become almost 84,000 square feet of offices, covering the entire block.

However, to compete with the trend of creating ever-taller buildings to signify a company’s importance, it was decided that a tower should be erected to overcome the then reigning champion Singer Building (now demolished). LeBrun’s son was again hired for the job, creating a tower over 700 feet in height that resembled the Campanile of San Marco in Venice, though twice as large. But, as was often the case, the title was soon lost when only four years later the Woolworth Building at 792 feet became the world’s tallest.

By the late 1920s Metropolitan Life Insurance had again outgrown its offices, and Harvey Wiley Corbett was commissioned to build a new, even grander, tower across the street at 11 Madison Avenue that would again be the world’s tallest. Corbett left the team of the vast development at Rockefeller Center to create this new telescoping 100-storey tower. The design was a series of mountain-like step backs that cut back at 30-degree angles, breaking down the typical rigid orthogonal geometry of most towers. Though construction had begun and proceeded through the beginning of the Great Depression, the crash of 1929 ultimately caused the scope to be reduced; the tower was never completed. What remains is the hulking 32-storey mass that was to serve as the base.

The new north building was built in a more contemporary art-deco style and clad in austere limestone with minimal carvings at the caps of each set back. The vault at each corner entrance is coffered with an array of diamonds that swirl to the central circle, from which hangs a large pendent light. Likewise, the metal ornamentation is in the deco style.

A simple bridge connects the two buildings across 24th Street. In the 1960s to unite the aesthetics of these buildings the older tower and base were stripped of their marble and reclad in the simpler matching limestone, removing much of the Renaissance ornament and streamlining the tower and base. In 1999, the tower was again renovated, modernizing the controls of the clock and re-gilding the 23.75-carat Italian gold leaf copula. Though much of the complex is occupied by the financial firm Credit Suisse, the tower was sold in 2005 with the hopes of converting it into luxury residences. 

Another angle on the tower.

A closer look at the entirety of the tower.

The tower's mid-section.

The highly ornamental top of the tower.

From the street, you can see the bridge connecting the buildings.

A closer look at the bridge.

The art-deco interior.

Tasteful limestone.

Much of the Renaisssance ornamentation has been removed, leaving something simpler.