Raymond Hood and the New York Skyscraper

From time to time I publish long out-of-print articles on back-dated pages of this blog. The latest is my 1993 critical-historic look at New York's McGraw-Hill Building by Raymond Hood (1931).

Here are a couple of quotes:

"The skyscraper rising out of the lower buildings of the city, like a stationary turbine in the prevailing winds (on gusty days, the building's steel skeleton groans and suspended light fixtures sway on upper floors) and the ocean liner moving majestically through the great space of the crowded harbor are images of a monstrous, fascinating power which captured the popular imagination."

"From this perspective, the reductive functionalism of the postwar American office building could appear to be an act of contrition for the excesses of the 1920s and the nightmare of the succeeding Depression."

And here's a link.