This
could have been just any building in the New York
skyline. But thanks to a little architectural foresight,
it has become one of the signature pieces in the stable
of Gotham's skyscrapers. For the most part the Citigroup
Center is much like a hundred other buildings - alternating
bands of white spandrel and reflective glass. But
the top and bottom really make the show. At the top
is the right triangle that makes this chess piece
stand out. It's not flashy like the queen or the king.
Not overdone like the rook. It is the graceful bishop,
standing tall, strong, and agile. However, that immense
wedge holds a deeper secret - the fate of the building
literally rests on it. The root of the problem begins
at the base of the tower - Saint Peter's Lutheran
Church. It was this church's financial woes that made
the Citicorp building possible. It sat on an extremely
valuable piece of land, but needed money. Citibank
had lots of money, and needed land in the neighborhood.
It was destiny. Over five years, Citibank's representatives
quietly acquired as much of the remaining land on
the block as they could under different names, to
keep the price from skyrocketing. Citibank built the
shell of a new church for Saint Peter's, then gave
the church US$9,000,000.00 to finish the job. But
the church sits on the corner of the block, so how
do you built a skyscraper with no supporting corners?
Move them to the center of the block. Four 127-foot-tall
supports at the mid-point of each face instead of
the edge, plus a supporting core. It worked; or so
they thought. An engineer who worked on the project
realized that the unique placement of the legs left
the building vulnerable to strong winds -- the kind
that can be channeled and intensified by neighboring
skyscrapers. A plan was put into action to reinforce
the building. And as a hurricane approached, the city
of New York's Office of Emergency Management quietly
put together a contingency to evacuate the neighborhood
in case the tower came down. In the end, steel plates
were bolted over hundreds of the building's joints,
and fortunately for Citibank, there was that giant
wedge at the top. Originally it was going to be used
for apartments, but the city would not issue a permit
for that use. Then it was going to hold solar panels.
That idea was scrapped, too. Now it was used to hold
a tuned mass dampener, which is a device that sways
against the movement of a building to keep it stable.
It is interesting to note that some architectural
historians consider this building the forerunner of
the modern skyscrapers that went up in Europe in the
1980's and 1990's. It is thought to be the first true
deconstructionist tower, a style barely noticed in
the United States, but embraced by the nations of
what would become the European Union.
