Eleanor Le Maire: The Latest Architecture and News

ArchDaily previously ran an article about the Manufacturers Trust Company Bank Branch at 510 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and interior designer Eleanor H. Le Maire, a building designated as protected under the Landmarks Preservation Commission with first the exterior in 1997 and later the interior in early 2011. But as recently as October 2011, the building was already listed under the 2012 World Monuments Fund in the 2012 World Monuments Watch as the current owners, Vornado Realty Trust, began compromising the landmarked conditions of the interior of the building as it was being adapted for reuse. With preservationists in an uproar, support for the protection of the building was enough to bring Vornado Realty Trust to New York State Supreme Court where a settlement was reached.

Read on for more details on the settlement and continuing efforts to protect endangered monuments.

The World Monuments Fund calls for international awareness to the 2012 list of endangered monuments. The watch encompasses 67 threatened cultural-heritage sites worldwide. These influential landmarks include the iconic Manufacturers Trust Company Building in New York City designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center in Goshen, New York.

Continue reading after the break.

Last week, as the NY Times reported, the interior of 510 Fifth Avenue received landmark protection by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The building, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill back in the 1950s, served as a branch of the former Manufacturers Trust Bank (later the Chase Bank Building) and is situated on a dense Manhattan block near the New York Public Library, Cook+Fox’s recent One Bryant Park, and the park itself.

More about the landmarked interior after the break.