Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial
buildings covering 22 acres (89,000 m
2
) between 48th
and 51st streets in New York City. Built by the Rockefeller
family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan,
spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue.
Rockefeller Center represents a turning point in the
history of architectural sculpture: It is among the last
major building projects in the United States to incorporate
a program of integrated public art. Sculptor Lee Lawrie
contributed the largest number of individual pieces—
twelve—including the statue of Atlas facing Fifth Avenue
and the conspicuous friezes above the main entrance to
the RCA Building.
The Center is a combination of two building
complexes: the older and original fourteen Art Deco offi ce
buildings from the 1930s, and a set of four International-style
towers built along the west side of Avenue of the Americas
during the 1960s and 1970s.
Art Deco was a popular international art design
movement from 1925 until the 1940s, aff ecting the
decorative arts such as architecture, interior design and
industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as fashion,
painting, the graphic arts and fi lm. At the time, this style
was seen as elegant, glamorous, functional and modern.
The movement was a mixture of many diff erent styles
and movements of the early 20th century, including
Neoclassical, Constructivism, Cubism, Modernism, Art
Nouveau, and Futurism. Its popularity peaked in Europe
during the Roaring Twenties and continued strongly
in the United States through the 1930s. Although many
Rockefeller Center
Bullocks Wilshire in Los Angeles,
California. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
City Hall in Buff alo, New York, an Art
Deco building.
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