In New York City, the “prewar” apartment building had long defined the standard for luxury urban housing. That seemed to change in recent years as towers of floor to ceiling glass, many by famous architects, seemed at long last to dominate the new construction scene during the recent boom.

In the meantime, Robert A. M. Stern was designing a series of multifamily high-rises in the city, taking as his model the very prewar buildings that were supposedly at last being eclipsed. Stern, who is also dean of the Yale School of Architecture, is practically alone among the architectural elite in his continued championing of traditional architectural styles. His grandest multifamily project to date is 15 Central Park West, which takes its place beside some of the most spectacular prewar residential buildings of the city, which line the west side of Central Park.

Residents began to move in at the end of 2007. The building is totally clad in limestone, but in spite of having traditional masonry on the exterior, with windows instead of glass walls, the quality of light and views are uncompromisable. Celebrities who have bought units here include Citigroup creator Sandy Weill and rock star Sting.

15 Central Park West is one of the most successful residential projects in the city’s history; all units were reportedly sold prior to completion of construction for a total value of approximately two billion dollars. Even in today’s depressed market buying in 15 Central Park West is already proving to be a sound investment. Some buyers already doubled their money at resale by mid 2008. More recently, in early 2010 a penthouse sold for $37,000,000. On one hand this price was a lot less than the asking price of $80,000,000 of a year ago.Yet the owner had “only” paid $21,500,000 for the apartment, thus making a 72% profit in the midst of the “Great Recession!”

Post Modernism is long dead, isn’t it? In this age of starchitecture, who remembers its champions? Apparently the leading lights of the architectural world still remember, and are willing to recognize quality whatever its provenance. That is one of the lessons of the recent survey conducted by Vanity Fair magazine, to which 52 of the world’s leading architects responded, including a dozen Pritzker prize winners, deans of the leading schools, the leading scholars, etc.

There was little agreement, and only a handful of buildings garnered more than one or two votes. Thus it came as a surprise to many that in the midst of all the famous avant garde buildings of the last few years the Staatsgalerie addition by James Stirling and Michael Wilford should place in the top five.

The Staatsgalerie New Building and Chamber Theater was completed in 1984, and Stirling tragically died early in 1992. Of course, the Pritzker prize winning architect denied being a Post Modernist, as did many of the architects most closely associated with the movement. But labels aside, there have been few buildings constructed in modern times that have showed more successfully than Stirling’s Staatsgalerie how to merge new architecture with a powerful formal vocabulary seamlessly into the historic fabric of European cities (and by extension, traditional downtowns everywhere), to heal the wounds caused by the scars of war as well as those of contemporary development and to unite new and old in a happy continuum that honors surprise and idiosyncrasy. There has scarcely been a more delightful version of the modern city proposed since the early years of the Twentieth Century - or such a delightful museum.

It is a mark of the genius of the Finnish American architect Eero Sarrinen that he was attacked by critics throughout his career and that it is just now, fifty years after his death, that critical opinion has begun to swing around. Not that he ever could be ignored – he was too successful for that. Clients loved him and he received the choicest commissions available during the boom years of the 1950’s. Several of his buildings are etched in the popular imagination – the St. Louis arch, Dulles airport in D.C. and the TWA pavilion at Kennedy airport – buildings which characterize the age. But a building that is difficult to visit, tucked away in the small town of Moline, IL, could well be his greatest achievement.

At the height of the success of corporate America it was thought that a company’s buildings were a primary part of its brand, and should indelibly project its image. The CEO of the John Deere tractor company, William Hewitt, hired Saarinen in 1956 and told him that, “The several buildings [of the headquarters] should be thoroughly modern in concept but should not give the effect of being especially sophisticated or glossy. Instead, they should be more ‘down to earth’ and rugged.”

The Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark Art Deco skyscraper in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It stood as the world's tallest building for more than forty years, from its completion in 1931 until construction of the World Trade Center's North Tower in 1972. 

The Empire State Building was designed by William F. Lamb from the architectural firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon. The firm produced the building drawings in just two weeks, using as a basis, earlier designs for the Reynolds Building in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and the Carew Tower in Cincinnati, Ohio (designed by the architectural firm W.W. Ahlschlager & Associates).

The building's opening coincided with the Great Depression, and as a result much of its office space went without being rented. Its vacancy was exacerbated by its poor location on 34th Street, which placed it relatively far from public transportation, as Grand Central Terminal, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and Penn Station are all several blocks away. However, it is now a centerpiece of the NYC skyline, a major tourist destination, and a centerpiece of the business community.

Even before being finished, the Empire State Buildings was criticized for not being “modern” enough. Its “fine steel frame… [had been] entombed in stone,” said one critic. Yet eighty years later, the Empire State Building remains the preeminent symbol of the Twentieth Century worldwide.