Hearst Tower in
New York City,
New York is located at 300 West
57th Street, 959
8th Avenue, near
Columbus Circle. It is the world
headquarters of the
Hearst Corporation, bringing together for the first time their numerous publications and communications companies under one roof, including among others
Cosmopolitan,
Esquire and the
San Francisco Chronicle.
The former six-story headquarters building was commissioned by the founder,
William Randolph Hearst and awarded to the architect
Joseph Urban. The building was completed in 1928 at a cost of $2 million and contained . The original
cast stone facade has been preserved in the new design as a designated
Landmark site. Originally built as the base for a proposed skyscraper, the construction of the tower was postponed due to the
Great Depression. The new tower addition was completed nearly eighty years later, and 2000 Hearst employees moved in on
4 May 2006.
The tower – designed by the
architect Norman Foster, structural engineered by
WSP Cantor Seinuk, and constructed by
Turner construction – is 46 stories tall, standing 182 m (597
ft) with 80,000 m² (856,000 ft²) of
office space. The uncommon triangular framing pattern (also known as a
diagrid) required 9,500
metric tons (10,480
tons) of structural
steel – reportedly about 20% less than a conventional
steel frame. Hearst Tower was the first skyscraper to break ground in New York City after
September 11, 2001. The building received the 2006
Emporis Skyscraper Award.
citing it as the best skyscraper in the world completed that year.
Hearst Tower is the first "green" high rise office building completed in New York City, with a number of
environmental considerations built into the plan. The floor of the atrium is paved with
heat conductive limestone.
Polyethylene tubing is embedded under the floor and filled with circulating water for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. Rain collected on the roof is stored in a tank in the
basement for use in the cooling system, to irrigate plants and for the water sculpture in the main lobby. 90% of the building's structural steel contains recycled material. Overall, the building has been designed to use 26% less energy than the minimum requirements for the city of New York, and earned a gold designation from the
United States Green Building Council’s
LEED certification program, becoming New York City's first LEED Gold skyscraper.
The atrium features escalators which run through a 3-story water sculpture titled
Icefall, a wide waterfall built with thousands of glass panels, which cools and humidifies the lobby air. The water element is complemented by a 70-foot (21.3 m) tall fresco painting entitled
Riverlines by artist
Richard Long.
Gallery