The Story Behind the Hearst Building

Jesse Serwer, RENY associate editor, co-wrote this article.

Then . . .

The International Magazine Building, as it was first called, began as an idea of William Randolph Hearst to capitalize on what was expected to be a burgeoning extension of the city’s theater district along Eighth Avenue. As early as 1906, William Randolph Hearst “was convinced that Columbus Circle would become a focus of commercial and theatrical activity, a successor to Union, Madison, Herald and Times squares in the theaters district’s march up Broadway,” according to Architecture and Urbanism Between World Wars by Robert A.M. Stern.

At the time, Carnegie Hall and the Arts Students League were already located in the area, and the Metropolitan Opera had recently announced plans to build a new house on 57th Street. That ultimately would fall through.

“The Magazine Building is the centerpiece of what Hearst had hoped to be a group of buildings in the area of Columbus Circle,” explains Joseph Bresnan, principal of Bresnan Architects PC and former executive director of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. “Hearst felt the theater district would move up in that direction.”

Hearst bought several properties along the Eighth Avenue corridor in anticipation of further development that never materialized, partly because of the success of Rockefeller Center, built in the 1930s. In 1928, to exemplify what was to be housed inside the Magazine Building, and to lead the way to the city’s latest arts and musical Mecca, Hearst selected famed stage designer Joseph Urban, who had previously designed sets for opera houses and vaudeville shows.

“Urban was a Viennese successionist architect in the modernist movement at the turn of the last century,” says architect Rolf Ohlhausen of Ohlhausen & DuBois, who has studied Urban’s work. “Just before the First World War, he came to the US. His first jobs here were creating scenic designs for the Boston Opera and subsequently for the Metropolitan Opera. He also did all of the Ziegfeld Follies stage designs. William Randolph Hearst had him design movie sets. But he was really interested in architecture and wanted to maintain his independence, so he did not go into a contract with Hearst.”

The building, which cost Hearst $2 million to build, was unique in not following any specific architectural style. According to the Real Estate Record and Guide, the building was “meant to convey the fact that it houses industries whose purpose is to exert influence on the thought and education of the reading public.” Allegorical sculptures on the building by German artist Henry Kreis denote “Comedy and Tragedy,” “Music and Arts,” “Sports and Industry” and “Printing and the Sciences.”

“He was certainly aware of modern architecture, ala the ’20s, but it didn’t entirely influence him in the Hearst Building,” said Bresnan. “It’s not easy to define it and give it an eclectic name, like neo-classic or neo-gothic. It defies that. It’s a theatrical modernism. This building deviates too far from the classical to be considered a revival style. I think it’s very a much a unique building almost in theater architecture, a more fanciful design like those found in old movie or vaudeville houses.”Unfortunately, the Hearst Building is one of only a few Urban designs that remain standing in New York City today. Urban also designed the interior of the New School Auditorium on 12th Street and the famed 58-bedroom estate, Mar-A-Lago, in Palm Beach, FL, now owned by Donald Trump. “The Hearst Building on 57th Street is not in the modernist style,” explains Ohlhausen. “It’s a kind of art-deco style. Urban was never fully accepted by mainstream modern architects in the 20th century because he did so many different things and wasn’t an orthodox modernist. Much of his work celebrated here was in scenic design, which translated into architecture.” Urban teamed up with George B. Post & Sons on the structural design of the Hearst Building. The six-story, U-shaped building was built with a foundation of steel that would later support an additional seven stories, but the Depression followed and the expansion was forgotten until after World War II. But even then Hearst didn’t follow through with Post’s plan for an additional nine stories. Nearly 40 years later, the façade of the building came before the Landmarks Preservation Commission for designation.

Bresnan, who was on the Landmarks Preservation Commission at that time, recalls, “the commission wanted to designate the building for quite some years before that, but there was owner opposition. The Hearst Corp. did not want it designated, and they fought it legally. They were very much opposed to it.”

It seemed that the Hearst Corp. was reluctant to have the building designated because it may have prevented further alteration to the asset. A creative solution was agreed upon and the façade of the building was landmarked on Feb. 16, 1988.

“If the commission had acknowledged that, if an appropriate design was put forth in the future, the commission would consider it, then the Hearst Corp. would not have opposed landmark designation,” explains Bresnan. “On that basis, our staff wrote a landmark designation and it was reviewed by the owners in advance and incorporated language that was ultimately satisfactory to them. The door was open for the possibility of building something, which has now been realized.”

The building stands today as a reminder of a bygone time, when business moguls like William Randolph Hearst and John D. Rockefeller Jr. commanded companies that could define the commerce as well as the skyline of a city. Now . . .

Seven decades after William Randolph Hearst brought all of his magazines under one roof at 959 Eighth Ave., the Hearst Corp.’s New York City operations were once again spread over different addresses. While each office was in close walking distance of Eighth Avenue and West 57th Street, this sprawl proved to be far from an efficient way for the world’s largest magazine publisher to do business.

“The company grew and it grew out of space,” Brian Schwagerl, director of real estate and facilities planning for Hearst, says of the publisher’s late 1990s setup. “We were growing into other people’s spaces, with floorplates that didn’t match and standards that weren’t the same. It becomes very difficult to plan for your space needs. You get no synergies of marketing efforts and you have very difficult facility issues in terms of things like mail delivery.”

After reviewing its space options, including the possible erection of a new office tower, Hearst ultimately decided on the boldest possible move—it would build the office tower atop the magazine building, as its founder had envisioned back in the 1920s. “There had been consideration by the company’s CEOs ever since the original six-story structure had gone up as to when they might expand it into a tower,” Schwagerl says. “They had always intended to do it, but it wasn’t until the late 1990s that we decided it was time to bring some modernity to the way we run our business and build an office space that was more functional for our employees, allowing them to be capable of more.”

There were much cheaper alternatives than building a new tower, let alone one over the original, landmarked structure. But, “in doing our due diligence we reviewed all our leases and ownership properties and tried to figure out how we could unleash the best value,” Schwagerl explains. “A number of leases were coming due at the time and the best strategy to achieve the ideal working environment was to develop in our original home and really unearth the potential of 57th and Eighth. It also helped that there was a very pro-business environment here in New York at that time.” After determining to go ahead in 2000, Hearst brought on Tishman Speyer to partner with the firm in this ambitious proposition.

“Our job was to assemble a team, from consultants to contractors, to shepherd design and details through the wild world of New York City high-rise construction and produce world-class quality on schedule and on budget,” says Bruce Phillips, managing director of design and construction for Tishman Speyer. “We were responsible for steering along the cutting-edge without toppling over into the abyss of innovation.”

One of the earliest steps in this process was communicating with the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which had designated the original six-story structure as a landmark in 1988. “Jennifer Raab, then-chair of the commission, advised that in order to gain permission to build a tower over an individually-designated landmark Hearst would need to ‘knock our socks off’ in the selection of the architect and in the tower’s design,” Phillips says.

Hearst; Tishman; and, ultimately the city, found what they were looking for in Foster and Partners, the firm of British architect Lord Norman Foster, whose recent projects include the New Parliament at the Reichstag in Germany and the New Globe Theater in London. Not only was Foster experienced in updating historical structures, but they also came with a track record as innovators in the green-building movement. But, while the architect has since been retained by Larry Silverstein to design 200 Greenwich St.—Tower Two at the World Trade Center site— this was its first project in New York and its first major work in the US.

“The initial question was what do you do with the mass of the existing building,” explains Michael Wurzel, project architect for Foster. “Also, the floor height was 11 feet; that’s not considered adequate for modern office space.” Foster decided to open up the six- floor structure into a four-story base, with 42 additional stories rising from its center. “We wanted to establish a visual connection between the exterior and the interior and make a semi-outdoor space.”

The architects arrived at a 46-story, 856,000-sf structure simultaneously preserving the classic, theatrical feel of Hearst and Urban’s original structure while establishing a new standard for cutting-edge technology and architecture in New York City. The building’s defining features would be a frame built on a pattern of diagonal, triangular, four-story columns, which Foster and his architects call “the diagrid,” its effect more closely resembling a giant Lava Lamp than a skyscraper. Already thinking outside the box architecturally, the builders saw a unique opportunity to go completely “green.” “We studied corporate headquarters from around the world and tried to pick the best and determine what made them that way,” Schwagerl says. “A green building had never been built in New York City but the technology existed. If we were going to invest all our time, money and effort for a corporate headquarters, the thought was ‘Why not build the best?’ and that included bringing leading environmental and design practices to the table.”

As part of a deal struck between Hearst and the city allowing them to add six additional stories to the building, the company was to improve the Columbus Circle subway station, situated immediately below. Foster designed the layout of the new subway station, and Hearst installed a new entrance, three elevators and new stairwells.

“It took nine months until the tower’s design was approved,” Schwagerl says. “By virtue of needing government approvals we had enough time to do proper planning. By studying how you use space, which we did early on, we came up with a maximum floor space that could have better usage. We could design spaces that would accommodate huge fashion closets and allow for armoires. All of those things lead to a more efficient work place.”

But just as the final designs were about to be unveiled, the attacks of Sept. 11 occurred. “We were to make a major presentation to the board that day,” Wurzel recalls. “Norman had flown in on Sept. 10. Here we were proposing a new tower for New York City on the same day as the two biggest were coming down.”

Like the rest of the country, the impact of the attacks led to confusion and much deep thinking for the Hearst Tower team. “It made us step back and say ‘Should we be building a tower?’; Is what we have safe enough?’; and, last, ‘What does it all mean?’” Schwagerl says. “One immediate reaction we had was we won’t be able to get steel. But it ended up being completely the opposite. Other construction projects slowed down to a halt and projects got pulled off the drawing board. Material became more readily available.” Deciding to move before 2001 came to a close, Hearst became the first entity to propose a new office tower for Manhattan post-Sept. 11.

“By pure luck we got steel before the China crisis,” Schwagerl says. “We were able to get the A-team of builders and have very good prices at the same time—a buzz was created in the construction-and-development world, and we attracted the best people. It became the ‘it project’ in New York City and made an already safe building safer. It proved to be a bold decision for New York but a safe decision for us.”

The Cantor Seinuk Group Inc. was tapped as structural engineers for the project, with Flack and Kurtz Inc. coming on as mechanical engineers and Turner Construction Corp. as construction manager.

As the new tower emerged on the western fringes of the city’s skyline, joining the newly opened Time Warner Center just two blocks away, it became apparent to all that a different sort of building was rising. The building’s unique design also allowed for the use of 20% less steel—nearly 2,000 tons less—than in a similarly sized building. As such, it has no vertical columns, creating otherwise impossible corner views.

When it opens later this year, it is expected that the Hearst Tower will be the first office tower in New York City to receive a gold rating from the US Green Building Council’s LEED certification program. (Solaire, a residential tower in Battery Park City, is the only building to have received the designation thus far.)

A pair of 14,000-gallon reclamation tanks will collect rainwater to power the building’s air conditioning system and to water interior and exterior greenery, while reducing runoff by 25%. That water will also find its way into “Ice Falls,” a three-story cascading waterfall that will greet staff and visitors as they take an escalator from the ground level to the building’s raised lobby on the third floor.

“The waterfall adds to the humidity in the winter and chills to a comfortable temperature in summer,” says Foster architect Peter Han. “The trickling sound creates white noise.”

The building will have the cleanest air of any office building in New York City, says Schwagerl, who figures the green features will save the company $50,000 a year in energy bills and $12,000 in water savings. It has also made Hearst eligible for $5 million in tax credits from the state’s energy program.

“We started out slowly learning the process and incrementally started buying correctly and challenging our subcontractors to think in a green frame of mind,” Schwagerl explains. “It became easier to achieve our goal of an environmentally friendly building because everyone was looking in that direction. When we started, people told us it couldn’t be done—it’s too hard or expensive to do in New York City. We just challenged that thought process. We looked at buildings in Europe and California and said, ‘If they could do it, we should be able to do it here in New York.’”

The Hearst team make a point to emphasize that the green aspects of the tower extend to every nook and cranny of the building: while the tower was designed to include as few internal walls as possible in order to maximize natural light, the walls it does have are coated with low-vapor paints. Concrete surfaces were furnished with low-toxicity sealants, the floors were manufactured with recycled content and all office furniture will be formaldehyde-free. Even the cafeteria is an extension of this philosophy, serving organic greens and health-conscious foods.

The raised lobby is home to the cafeteria as well as a theater that will host screenings for Hearst staff and invited guests and host meetings of Manhattan’s Community Board 4. From there, visitors will take elevators, made by the France-based Schindler Co., which promise to be the fastest in the city.

Another innovative aspect of the building was Foster’s approach to light. “Enhanced lighting is important for people who are laying out magazines,” Han points out. The glass has a special low-E coating that allows the internal flooding of natural light while keeping out the invisible solar radiation that causes heat. “We wanted to have the clearest glass possible without compromising performance—we searched throughout the world and found it in Luxembourg.” In the lobby, the sun moves across the room throughout the day, transforming its appearance. Upstairs in the offices, motion sensors allow for lights and computers to be turned off when a room is empty.

Another unique facet of the building was the level of input the architects sought from the building’s primarily female occupants, including the creative and editorial staff of magazines like Good Housekeeping, O and Seventeen.

“That there is such a female population at Hearst drove a lot of the discussion on interior design and influenced the materials palate,” Wurzel explains. “The fabric was designed with a fashion designer in Italy. You rarely have 80% female employees like here, so it presents a unique opportunity.”

Pat Haegele, senior vice president of Good Housekeeping Inc. and publisher of Good Housekeeping Magazine, explains her team’s role in designing their respective floors. “It was a of collaboration for the better part of a year,” Haegele says. “We had face-to-face meetings with a consultant, and he asked us to do a brief on what our needs were. And he used it as the platform to build the structure and design then came back and showed some of the design movement. The Good Housekeeping Institute is on the 28th floor—we purposely put it on the break floor where the first elevator bank ends and the second begins because we wanted it to be open for tours. The magazine offices were also designed with the outside coming in, so we are keeping it open and spacious.”

With the Time Warner Center just two blocks away, it seems that William Randolph Hearst’s vision of Columbus Circle as the cultural center of New York City may have finally materialized. The tower also has a variety of meanings for the building community, says Richard T. Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress. “It went ahead in a very critical time for the industry,” he says, “and it is an iconic structure that commands attention from many different vantage points. Finally, it demonstrates how a modern structure can be integrated with a landmark building. It really is unique. How it was done is a credit to everyone involved, from the Hearst Corp. to the contractors. It really shows the best our industry has to offer.”