2 Columbus Circle
2 Columbus Circle is a nine-story building on the south side of Columbus Circle in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building fills a small city block bounded by 58th Street, Columbus Circle, Broadway, and Eighth Avenue. It was originally designed by Edward Durell Stone in the modernist style for A&P heir Huntington Hartford. In the 2000s, Brad Cloepfil redesigned 2 Columbus Circle for the Museum of Arts and Design, which has occupied the building since 2008.
The exterior walls are made of reinforced concrete, which double as load-bearing walls that support the concrete floor slabs inside. The original facade largely consisted of white Vermont marble slabs, with small windows only at the corner of the building, as well as loggias at the base and top of the building. The current facade consists of terracotta panels separated by deep grooves, as well as large glass panels at the top. The lower stories of the building contain museum space, while the upper stories contain offices. There were originally several mezzanine levels, though these were removed in the 2000s. The original structure and the redesigned building have been the subject of extensive architectural commentary.
Hartford announced plans for the Gallery of Modern Art on the south side of Columbus Circle in June 1956, although construction did not start until 1960 due to various delays. The museum opened on March 21, 1964, and suffered financially for several years. Fairleigh Dickinson University took over the museum in 1969, renaming it the New York Cultural Center, which operated until 1975. Gulf and Western Industries bought 2 Columbus Circle in 1976 and donated it to the New York City government, but the building remained vacant for four years due to various issues. The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau occupied 2 Columbus Circle from 1980 to 1998, when the city government offered up the building for redevelopment. Following a controversy over the building's proposed renovation in the early 2000s, MAD renovated the building from 2005 to 2008.
Site
2 Columbus Circle is on the southern side of Columbus Circle in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building's land lot is irregular and covers. The lot occupies an entire city block bounded by Broadway to the east, 58th Street to the south, Eighth Avenue to the west, and Columbus Circle to the north. The site measures on Columbus Circle, on Broadway, on 58th Street, and on Eighth Avenue. The northern portion of the block is curved due to the curvature of Columbus Circle. The building occupies its entire lot.The building is near Central Park to the northeast; 240 Central Park South, the Gainsborough Studios, and 220 Central Park South to the east; 5 Columbus Circle and Central Park Tower to the southeast; Central Park Place to the southwest; Deutsche Bank Center to the west; and Trump International Hotel and Tower to the north. Entrances to the New York City Subway's 59th Street–Columbus Circle station, served by the, are to the west, east, and south of the building.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Central Park South was developed as Manhattan's "Gold Coast", with many prestigious hotels and apartment buildings being erected on its route. The seven-story Grand Circle Hotel, designed by William H. Cauvet, stood at this address from 1874. Later called the Boulevard Hotel, it functioned as an office building by the late 1950s, with a Chevrolet advertisement on its roof.
Architecture
Facade
The building was designed by Edward Durell Stone for businessman Huntington Hartford, an heir to the A&P supermarket chain. It was originally a nine-story modernist structure. Its exterior wall is made of reinforced concrete, which was used because it was more flexible to construct than a traditional steel structure. The building uses Mo-Sai slabs, which are made of exposed aggregate concrete. The exterior walls double as load-bearing walls, which support the concrete floor slabs inside.Original design
The facade was largely made of slabs of white Vermont marble, with gray and gold veins; these slabs were originally attached to the concrete wall. Most of the marble panels had no window openings, but there were small circular windows at the corners and top story. The windowless sections of the facade measured thick, while the sections with windows were thick. To create the window openings, circular marble pieces were carved out of the slabs; these were reused in the lobby and on the sidewalk. There were over 1,000 windows in the original design, each arranged in groups of four. Stone designed the windows to be as small as possible, and the Times and Herald Tribune likened the windows to portholes. Each window had a bronze frame with a hinge that could swing inward. According to Stone, the windows were intended to suggest the rusticated blocks of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church in Paris. In Stone's original plans for the building, the facade would have been covered with vines or plantings.The sidewalk around the building was originally made of reddish-brown terrazzo or concrete. Inset into the sidewalk were marble circles measuring across and framed by brass strips; there were also planting pits along the curb. The base of the building contained a loggia of reinforced concrete columns, evocative of that at the Doge's Palace. There were 27 columns in the loggia, which measured high. Above the ground-level loggia were alternating medallions made of red Italian marble and green Vermont marble. The lobby was recessed behind the loggia and had bronze-framed windows facing Columbus Circle; the other three elevations were faced with green marble at ground level. The seventh and eighth floors contained loggias on all elevations of the facade.
New design
The current facade, designed by Brad Cloepfil for the Museum of Arts and Design, reuses the original massing; the upper loggia, the portholes, and the marble panels on the facade were removed. The building's concave curve on Columbus Circle was preserved. The ground-story loggia was also preserved because it was one of the key portions of the superstructure; it was enclosed behind a glass wall. Cloepfil had spoken negatively of Stone's original design, having regarded it as "frightening" ever since the 1970s when he was an architecture student.The new facade consists of terracotta panels separated by deep grooves. The white terracotta panels are stippled, giving a sparkling appearance in sunlight. At different times of day, the panels give the impression that they are slightly changing in color. Behind the terracotta panels are horizontal openings, which measure wide and are carved into the outer bearing walls. To reduce deflection, the grooves are spanned by large metal pins. There are one-story-high vertical panels of fritted glass, which connect the grooves on each floor. The glass strips and grooves create continuous strips on each elevation of the facade and are designed in a manner resembling a switchback. There are also glass strips at the northwest and northeast corners of the lower stories, which illuminate the galleries inside.
The top stories use the most glass and are illuminated by transparent, translucent, and fritted glass panels. Cloepfil said he wanted the new design "'to emphasize its role as a marker on Columbus Circle in juxtaposition to all the noise around it". Against Cloepfil's wishes, MAD's board and its director Holly Hotchner ordered that a band of windows be added near the top of the facade. This horizontal element connected two vertical strips of windows on the Columbus Circle elevation, creating an "H" shape; another vertical strip on the Eighth Avenue elevation was designed in an "I" shape. The windows appeared to spell out the word "HI" from the northwest.
Interior
Originally, the building contained of floor area across nine stories. The elevators originally served alternate floors, which Hartford proposed "for variety's sake". There were also two emergency-exit stairs at the rear corners of the building. The elevators and emergency-exit stairs occupied a significant portion of the building. As a result, the landings of the staircases were widened to create intermediate mezzanine levels, with smaller display rooms surrounding the double-height main galleries. The mezzanines also had smoking lounges, as well as rooms with pipe-organ music. The Gallery of Modern Art had an Aeolian-Skinner organ, which measured high and was placed on the mezzanine above the second floor. That space was subsequently converted to the Gallery 3D theater, and the organ had been removed by the 2000s.MAD occupies across ten above-ground floors and two basement levels. The mezzanines were removed when the building was renovated. Each of the main floors was enlarged to, more than double the size of the original main floors. To make way for the expanded floor slabs, the mechanical spaces were placed behind the elevators, while the restrooms were relocated to the basement and sixth floor. The old emergency staircases were removed and a new staircase was built around the elevator core. The interior spaces are illuminated by glass channels measuring 30 inches wide. There are also glass columns, which contain a square cross-section and measure across. To accommodate these columns, the engineers had to construct square openings within each of the floor slabs. Because the superstructure is made of concrete, the engineers could only place openings through about 30 percent of the floor area. The glass channels and columns allow natural light to illuminate the interior. In addition, a six-story-high staircase was built along the Broadway elevation, connecting the museum spaces.
Other spaces
In the basement was an auditorium with 154 seats. The auditorium measured deep and contained golden draperies, as well as a red-carpeted floor that extended to the back wall. The golden draperies doubled as sound insulation. The auditorium, subsequently named the Mark Goodson Theater, was the only part of the original design to be preserved in the 2000s renovation. The renovation also preserved the bronze doors leading to the auditorium. When MAD moved into the building in 2008, it started renting out the auditorium for events.The original lobby's floor contained marble circles that had been cut out of the facade's portholes. In the 2000s, the lobby was enlarged and a museum store for MAD was placed at ground level. The museum store covers.
The Gallery of Modern Art's offices were on the sixth floor, while the storage and restoration spaces were on the seventh floor. There were of storage space, as well as two terraces. When the Museum of Art and Design moved into the building, the sixth and seventh stories were converted to art studios, event spaces, and classrooms. One story was dedicated solely to educational programs, and there were also three artists' studios.
On the Gallery of Modern Art's eighth floor was a cocktail lounge, which had 60 seats. The eighth floor was decorated with rare Macassar ebony, which had to be sourced from a merchant in London, as well as Danish-wool sofas and Oceanic art. The ninth floor contained the Gauguin Room, a 52-seat restaurant with custom tables and tableware; it featured a terrace facing north. The Gauguin Room served Polynesian food. The ninth-floor restaurant space was renovated in the mid-2000s, with windows on three sides. The restaurant, which reopened as Robert in 2009, serves American cuisine. The space contains 138 seats and can be accessed without entering the museum. It is decorated in an orange, purple, and vermilion color scheme, which in turn is illuminated by orange LED lighting.