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AD Classics: Woolworth Building / Cass Gilbert

The Woolworth Building, an innovative and elegant early skyscraper completed in 1913, endures today as an iconic form on the New York City skyline. A historicist exterior sheaths a modern steel tower, embodying both the era’s modern spirit of progress and its hesitation to fully break from the past. Cass Gilbert, selected as the architect, believed the designer should “weave into the pattern of our own civilization the beauty that is our inheritance.”[1] An ornate monument to the growing economic dominance of New York City, the building was dubbed the “Cathedral of Commerce.”

AD Classics: Woolworth Building / Cass Gilbert - Commercial Architecture, Facade, Arch, ArcadeAD Classics: Woolworth Building / Cass Gilbert - Commercial Architecture, Facade, Arcade, Column, ArchAD Classics: Woolworth Building / Cass Gilbert - Commercial ArchitectureAD Classics: Woolworth Building / Cass Gilbert - Commercial ArchitectureAD Classics: Woolworth Building / Cass Gilbert - More Images+ 30