Editing Seagram Building (section)

===Reception===
[[File:Park Av May 2022 37.jpg|thumb|alt=Refer to caption|upright=0.9|The building as seen from the ground on 53rd Street]]
When the Seagram Building was completed, Lewis Mumford described the structure as a "[[Rolls-Royce Limited|Rolls-Royce]]" of buildings<ref name="NYCL p. 8" /><ref name="Mumford p. 19">{{harvnb|Mumford|1959|p=19}}.</ref> and wrote that "it has the aesthetic impact that only a unified work of art carried through without paltry compromises can have".<ref name="Mumford p. 20" /><ref name="NYCL p. 8">{{harvnb|Breiner|1989b|p=8}}.</ref> In 1957, Thomas W. Ennis of ''The New York Times'' wrote the building was "one of the most notable of Manhattan's post-war buildings" and characterized its design as the high point of Mies's career.<ref name="NPS p. 16" /><ref name=nyt19571110>{{Cite news |last=Ennis |first=Thomas W. |date=November 10, 1957 |title=Building Is Designer's Testament; Seagram Building Marks Apex Of Mies van der Rohe's Career |pages=313, 320 |work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 |url-access=subscription |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/11/10/90853549.pdf |access-date=March 16, 2021}}</ref> Similarly, ''Progressive Architecture'' described the Seagram Building as "probably the most heralded new building in the U.S." in 1958.<ref>{{cite magazine |date=July 1958 |title=Seagram House Formally Opened |url=https://usmodernist.org/PA/PA-1958-07.pdf |journal=Progressive Architecture |volume=39 |issue=7 |pages=41 |access-date=March 16, 2021 |archive-date=August 8, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808080157/https://usmodernist.org/PA/PA-1958-07.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> According to ''Architectural Forum'' in 1958, "Seagram challenges accepted skyscraper practice all the way down the line."<ref name="NYCL p. 8" /><ref name="AF (1958) p. 67">{{harvnb|Architectural Forum|1958|p=67}}.</ref> At a meeting of the [[Istituto Italiano di Cultura|Italian Cultural Institute]] the following year, architect [[Gino Pollini]] said the Seagram Building was "a masterpiece of functional and esthetic architecture".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Benjamin |first=Philip |date=March 14, 1959 |title=City Wins Bravos on Architecture: Milanese Architects Single Out the Seagram Building for Functional Design |page=47 |work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 |url-access=subscription |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/03/14/89161414.pdf |access-date=March 16, 2021}}</ref>

Critical acclaim for the Seagram Building continued. Eight years after the building opened, Ada Louise Huxtable wrote that it was "dignified, sumptuous, severe, sophisticated, cool, consummately elegant architecture".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Huxtable |first=Ada Louise |author-link=Ada Louise Huxtable |date=February 6, 1966 |title=Architecture; Mies: Lessons From the Master Popinjays Purity and Power A Genuine Vernacular |page=24 |work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 |url-access=subscription |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/02/06/121497414.pdf |access-date=March 16, 2021}}</ref> ''[[The New York Times Magazine]]'' described the lobby in 1975 as one of "The Ten Best Lobbies in New York".<ref name="NYCL (Interior) p. 7; NPS p. 15">{{harvnb|Breiner|1989a|p=7}}; {{harvnb|Higgins & Quasebarth|2006|p=15}}.</ref> In 1981, architectural writer [[G. E. Kidder Smith]] found the building and its features to be "in toto incomparable".<ref name="NYCL p. 8; NPS p. 19">{{harvnb|Breiner|1989b|p=8}}; {{harvnb|Higgins & Quasebarth|2006|p=19}}.</ref> According to Jerold Kayden, who wrote about the building in 2000, the Seagram Building "remains the city's quintessential International Style masterpiece of '[[Towers in the park|tower in the park]]' architecture".<ref name="NPS p. 19">{{harvnb|Higgins & Quasebarth|2006|p=19}}.</ref><ref name="Kayden p. 144">{{harvnb|Kayden|The New York City Department of City Planning|The Municipal Art Society of New York|2000|p=144}}.</ref> [[Ricardo Scofidio (architect)|Ricardo Scofidio]] of Diller Scofidio + Renfro said the construction of the Seagram Building "was the first time you really realized that architecture brought something to the city that didn't exist".<ref name="nyt20130407" /> In 2001, architecture critic [[Herbert Muschamp]] referred to it as "the Building of Two Millenniums," writing that it encompassed "everything essential in Western architecture".<ref name="Beam 247–248">{{harvnb|Beam|2020|pp=247–248|ps=.}}</ref>

While the public and architectural critics generally appreciated the Seagram Building, there were also comments about the design's drawbacks. Stern stated that there were negative remarks about the plaza's "austerity" and the exterior's lack of purity.<ref name="Stern (1995) p. 345" /> Stern cited architect [[Louis Kahn]], who believed the rear "spine" took away from the purity of the slab, though Kahn also said the hidden wind bracing made the building appear like "a beautiful bronze lady in hidden corsets".<ref name="Stern (1995) p. 345" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Scully |first=Vincent |title=Louis I. Kahn. |date=1962 |publisher=G. Braziller |pages=27 |oclc=518151}}</ref> While Mumford largely praised the design, he found the plaza's pools and fountains to be a "gross defect" in what was otherwise a "masterpiece".<ref name="Stern (1995) p. 346" /> Italian architecture writers [[Manfredo Tafuri]] and [[Francesco Dal Co]], in their 1976 book ''Modern Architecture'', wrote that the Seagram Building stood "aloof from the city" and saw the juxtaposition as a symbol of absence.<ref name="Tafuri Co 1976 p.">{{cite book |last1=Tafuri |first1=Manfredo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SbtPAAAAMAAJ |title=Modern Architecture |last2=Dal Co |first2=Francesco |publisher=Electa/[[Rizzoli (publisher)|Rizzoli]] |year=1976 |isbn=978-0847807611 |series=History of world architecture |page=340 |volume=1 |oclc=14002169 |access-date=March 17, 2021 |url-status=live |archive-date=October 21, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211021131932/https://books.google.com/books?id=SbtPAAAAMAAJ}}</ref><ref name="Stern (1995) p. 347">{{harvnb|Stern|Mellins|Fishman|1995|p=347}}.</ref> Architect [[Frank Lloyd Wright]] dismissed the building as "a whisky bottle on a playing card."<ref name="Beam 247–248" />