History and architecture
The colorful and striking 2 Park Avenue Building, built in 1926-28 on lower Park Avenue, was designed by one of New York’s foremost architects of the first half of the twentieth century, Ely Jacques Kahn. Constructed when this section of the avenue was just beginning to be developed with modern office towers, 2 Park Avenue represents one of Kahn’s finest essays into Art Deco or Modernistic style architecture. The name Art Deco came from the famous show in Paris that introduced the style, the 1925 Exhibition des Arts Decoratifs.
In the 2 Park Avenue Building, Kahn was able to successfully integrate a new decorative type produced by the application of colorful terra-cotta panels in geometric designs to a tall, commercially successful office/ loft structure. 2 Park Avenue was one of the important late 1920s buildings that helped create the visually lively and iconic city of the early 20th century.
Kahn’s career spanned most of the first half of the twentieth century, during which time he became known for his commercial structures. He is responsible for the design of numerous tall office and loft buildings in midtown Manhattan (especially in the Garment District), as well as factories and several houses. He claimed that business owners were open-minded about the design of their buildings and he enjoyed the opportunities for innovation that he believed commercial work afforded.
In his designs, Kahn attempted to reflect the newly available and constantly changing types of materials and technology, and was highly influenced by the new industrial design trends coming out of Europe in the 1920s. His traditional training at the Ecole des Beaux Arts served as the framework for his approach, which combined the traditional with the modern to create the dominate architectural vocabulary of the 1920s and 30s. The 2 Park Avenue Building is one of Kahn’s most dramatic and successful works and survives today as one of the most beautiful and distinctive office towers of the Art Deco period.
Sources and further reading
This history comes from the Landmarks app’s historical catalog. Names and building uses may reflect the period described.