View of lobby skylight. Image © Bob Estremera

大厅天窗的景色。图像C.Bob Estremera

在零售巨头弗兰克·W·伍尔沃思(Frank W.Woolworth)的委托下，这个位于百老汇233号的项目将成为一个新的公司总部，一个租金收入的创造者，以及一个优雅的广告牌，以巩固公司的声誉。伍尔沃斯控制着近600家“五角”商店。伍尔沃思在没有开发商贷款或援助的情况下独立为这座建筑提供资金，这对于如此规模的建筑来说是一种典型的情况。

Commissioned by retail magnate Frank W. Woolworth, who controlled almost six hundred “five and dime” stores, the project sited at 233 Broadway was to become a new corporate headquarters, a generator of rental income, and an elegant billboard to bolster his company’s reputation. Woolworth financed the building independently without loans or assistance from developers, an atypical condition for a building of that size.

建筑师卡斯吉尔伯特已经建立了一个国家声誉的设计皇室民用建筑，主要是在Beaux艺术风格。吉尔伯特出生在明尼苏达州，在麻省理工学院学习了几年之后，回到圣保罗开始自己的实习，在欧洲旅行，为麦金、米德和怀特工作。1900年他把他的公司迁到了纽约市。吉尔伯特认为，公共建筑应该为公众服务，无论花多少钱让它们变得漂亮，都应该分配。

Architect Cass Gilbert had established a national reputation for designing regal civil buildings, predominantly in the Beaux Arts style. Born in Minnesota, Gilbert returned to St. Paul to start his own practice after a number of years studying at MIT, traveling through Europe and working for McKim, Meade and White. He relocated his firm to New York City in 1900. Gilbert believed that public buildings should serve the public, and whatever expense required to make them beautiful should be allocated.

虽然最初设想它是社区中最高的建筑，有45层，625英尺高，但最终设计发展到60层，高792英尺，使它成为世界上建成时最高的建筑。伍尔沃斯大楼位于曼哈顿下城与市政厅公园接壤的百老汇，占据公园广场和巴克利街之间的整个街区。

While initially envisioned as the tallest structure in its neighborhood at 45 stories at 625 feet tall, the final design grew to 60 stories at 792 feet tall, making it the tallest building in the world at the time of its completion. Located on Broadway in lower Manhattan bordering City Hall Park, the Woolworth building occupies the entire block between Park Place and Barclay Street.

 Woolworth Building under construction, circa 1912. Image Courtesy of Flickr Commons Project

伍尔沃斯大楼在建，大约1912年。Flickr共用项目的形象礼貌

吉尔伯特与结构工程师Gunvald Aus合作开发了创新的地基和钢框架。69座直径分别为6.5英寸和18.75英寸的气动沉箱被推倒到100至120英尺以下的基岩，以支撑高耸的质量。紧密间隔的钢梁，被称为格栅，安装在每个沉箱上，以传递建筑物的荷载。由于沉箱的施工在伍尔沃思获得更多的财产并扩大了设计之前就开始了，因此需要在原38个混凝土墩之间增加沉箱和巨大的转换梁。

Gilbert worked with structural engineer Gunvald Aus on the innovative foundation and steel frame.  Sixty-nine pneumatic caissons ranging from 6.5 and 18.75 inches in diameter were driven down to bedrock 100 to 120 feet below grade to support the towering mass. Closely spaced steel beams, called a grillage, were installed atop each caisson to transfer building loads. Because construction on the caissons began before Woolworth acquired additional property and enlarged the design, additional caissons and enormous transfer girders spanning between the original 38 concrete piers were required.  

 Grillage plan. Image © Drawings published in American Architect, 103

烧烤计划。美国建筑师(103)出版的图(图)

风荷载推动了钢框架的设计。钢拱(门式刚架)严格连接许多柱的中间层。塔底由同心雪佛龙支撑加固，上角由“K”形膝盖支撑加固。

Wind loads drove the steel frame design. Steel arches (portal braces) rigidly connect many columns on middle floors. The base of the tower is reinforced by concentric chevron bracing and the upper corners by “K” shaped knee braces.

 Wind bracing diagram. Image © Drawings published in American Architect, 103

风支撑图美国建筑师(103)出版的图(图)

大厅和地下室层填满了整个场地，随着大楼高度的倒退，光线可以到达街道。大厅上方的二十四层楼有一个带有中央电梯核心的“U”字形平面图。这种变化使得大厅层的楼梯大厅上方有一个天窗，并让充足的阳光照射到办公室空间。屋顶顶上的栏杆越长。在这个体积中，只有一座纤细的高塔耸立在上面。在这座建筑上又增加了近三十层，这个纤细的体积后退了一步，最后被一个金字塔状的屋顶盖住了。

The lobby and basement levels fill the entire site footprint, with setbacks along the building’s height permitting light to reach street.  The twenty-four stories stacked above the lobby occupy a “U” shaped floor plan with a central elevator core.  This shift in the massing allows for a skylight atop the lobby level grand stair hall and lets ample daylight reach office spaces.  Hipped roofs top the longer bars of this volume and only a slender tower rises above.  Adding almost thirty additional stories to the building, this svelte volume steps back and is finally capped by a pyramidal roof.

 Lobby level. Image © Penn State Libraries Pictures Collection

大厅层。宾州图书馆图片集

 Typical upper level plan. Image © Penn State Libraries Pictures Collection

典型的高层计划。宾州图书馆图片集

最后一座建筑是当时的工程和建筑壮举：792英尺高，60层，2.06亿磅，15英亩的建筑面积，3000扇外窗，2.4万吨钢，1700万块砖块和7500吨兵马俑。[2]许多创新都隐藏在华丽的新哥特式围护结构中：办公室与电梯的空间比任何早期的摩天大楼都要高，一个新的电梯安全系统，每个竖井底部都有气垫，部件以前所未有的速度竖立。

The final building was an engineering and construction feat of its time: 792 feet tall, 60 floors, 206 million pounds, 15 acres of floor area, 3000 exterior windows, 24,000 tons of steel, 17 million bricks and 7,500 tons of terra cotta. [2] A number of innovations are hidden within the ornate Neo-gothic envelope: a higher ratio of office to elevator space than any earlier skyscraper, a new elevator safety system with air cushions at the bottom of each shaft, and components erected at an unprecedented rapid pace.

吉尔伯特的室内和外部设计，将一座城市建筑的宏伟和权威带入了一座企业大厦。装饰华丽的外覆乳白色陶器，带有蓝色和黄色的玻璃口音，让人想起了法国和英国的GuildHall建筑。细长的垂直墩突出了建筑物的垂直性。一个绿色的铜质屋顶，上面布满了石榴石和花边。

With the design for both the interior and exterior, Gilbert brought the grandeur and authority of a civic building to a corporate tower.  Ornate exterior cladding of cream terra cotta with blue and yellow glazed accents evokes guildhall architecture of France and England. Slim vertical piers accentuate the verticality of the building. A green patina-ed copper roof replete with gargoyles and tracery tops the building.  

 Blue and yellow accents. Image © Aaron Sylvan

蓝色和黄色的口音。图像C.Aaron Sylvan

对称的十字形大厅欢迎具有壮观装饰的游客。它装饰有早期基督教灵感的桶拱顶马赛克，彩色玻璃天窗，大理石墙壁，青铜陈设，和石膏怪诞，包括伍尔沃思计数硬币和吉尔伯特举行的建筑模型。

The symmetrical cruciform lobby welcomes visitors with spectacular decor. It is adorned with Early Christian inspired barrel vault mosaics, a stained glass skylight, marble walls, bronze furnishings, and plaster grotesques, including ones of Woolworth counting coins and Gilbert holding a model of the building.

 View into lobby. Image © Bob Estremera

进入大厅。图像C.Bob Estremera

伍尔沃思大厦在很大程度上受到了人们的钦佩和敬畏，因为一本关于这座建筑的小册子声称，“野蛮的材料被剥夺了密度，被抛到空中挑战它的可爱。”[3]同时代的人认为它不仅仅是一种创造利润或表达公司权力的手段；它的形式成为1916年规范建筑围护结构的分区法的先例，并成为20世纪30年代建造的一组摩天大楼的原型。批评的反响是积极的：“纽约世界”称其为“二十世纪美国建筑杰作”，“纽约时报”将其比作世界上最伟大的建筑奇观。[4]

The Woolworth Building was largely met with admiration and awe, because as a pamphlet on the building asserted “brute material has been robbed of its density and flung into the sky to challenge its loveliness.” [3] Contemporaries saw it as more than a means to produce profit or an expression of corporate power; its form became a precedent for the 1916 zoning law regulating building envelopes and prototype for a group of skyscrapers built in the 1930s. The critical reception was positive: The New York World called it the “American architectural masterpiece of the twentieth century” and the New York Times compared it to the world’s greatest architectural wonders. [4]

 Exterior view during One World Trade Center construction. Image © Bob Estremera

一个世贸中心建设过程中的外部景观。图像C.Bob Estremera

20世纪70年代Ehrenkrantz的翻修

  Renovations in the 1970s by Ehrenkrantz & Associates replaced much of the ornate exterior cladding with cast stone panels and simplified some of the ornate detailing. The building has outlived the Woolworth Company, which went out of business in 1997. In 2012 a development group purchased the top 30 floors with the intention to turn them into luxury condos, as well as make minor upgrades to the building.  Proposed renovations include window replacements and new window openings, adding a canopy at the residential entrance, and restoring a long abandoned swimming pool in the basement.

欲了解有关伍尔沃思大厦的更多信息，请查阅SkyscperMuseum的在线展览和讲座视频，或阅读1983年地标保护委员会文件中的详细描述。对当时的建筑和文化的深入讨论可以在印刷品“天鹰与城市：伍尔沃思大厦和现代纽约的制造”一书中找到。

For more information on the Woolworth building, check out the online exhibition and lecture videos from The Skyscraper Museum or read a detailed description in a 1983 Landmark Preservation Commission document. An in depth discussion of the building and culture of the time can be found in the print book: The Skyscraper and the City: The Woolworth Building and the Making of Modern New York.

1“1931年1月16日在纽约卡斯·吉尔伯特向卡斯·吉尔伯特颁发艺术和科学学会建筑金奖时的反应”，“卡斯·吉尔伯特：回忆和演讲”

1 “Response on the occasion of the presentation of The Gold Medal for Architecture of the Society of Arts and Sciences to Cass Gilbert, New York, January 16, 1931” in Cass Gilbert: Reminiscences and Addresses

2 Sewell Chan，“旧天敌的新历史”，“纽约时报”，2008年7月25日，2014年1月21日。

2 Sewell Chan, “A New History for an Old Skyscraper,” New York Times, July 25, 2008, accessed January 21, 2014.

3 S.Parkes Cadman，Edwin A.Cochran，转发到商业大教堂(纽约：百老汇公园广场公司，1916年)

3 S. Parkes Cadman, Forward to The Cathedral of Commerce by Edwin A. Cochran, (New York: Broadway Park Place CO, 1916)

4迈克尔·塔维尔·克拉克，“这些伟大事物的时代：美国的规模文化”，1865-1930年。(AnnArbor：密歇根大学出版社，2007年)，166

4 Michael Tavel Clarke, These Days of Large Things: The Culture of Size in America, 1865-1930. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), 166

Cass Gilbert位置233百老汇类别商业建筑师负责Cass Gilbert结构工程师Gunvald Aus Client F.W.Woolworth Area 0.0英尺2项目年1913照片艾伦·范，宾州图书馆图片集，Flickr用户Bob Jagorf，Flickr用户Timmy Calwell，Flickr用户Alan Miles NYC，Bob Estremera，图纸发表于美国建筑师杂志，103

Architects Cass Gilbert Location 233 Broadway Category Commercial Architecture Architect in Charge Cass Gilbert Structure Engineer Gunvald Aus Client F. W. Woolworth Area 0.0 ft2 Project Year 1913 Photographs Aaron Sylvan, Penn State Libraries Pictures Collection, Flickr user Bob Jagendorf, Flickr user Epicharmus, Flickr user Timmy Caldwell, Flickr user Alan Miles NYC, Bob Estremera, Drawings published in American Architect, 103