CONTEMPORARY ART

 

Contemporary art reflects the complexities that shape our diverse, rapidly changing world. Here are some of the best works in the art market today to inspire your next shopping trip.

Van Gogh’s Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers being auctioned at Christie’s (March 30, 1987). SOLD FOR: £22,500,000.

When a print of his that sold for £75,000 in an online sale in April 2021. 

Banksy didn’t create prints to make money. His art was sold for low prices to democratize his art and make it accessible. People would buy his art with cash or credit card with no awareness of it’s future value.

Banksy has been selling his art since the 1990s. Alongside his street art, Banksy has been creating works for sale for more than 20 years. The earliest pieces at auction date from 1998, while his earliest commercial prints are from 2002. 

This is the perfect example of who a contemporary artist is. The work of contemporary artists is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that challenge traditional boundaries and defy easy definition. Contemporary art is made (majority are by living artists, but not always the case) to reflect the complex issues that shape our diverse, global, and rapidly changing world.

Diverse and eclectic, contemporary art is distinguished by the very lack of a uniform organizing principle, ideology, or -ism. The most prominent feature of contemporary art is the fact that it has no distinct feature or a single characteristic. It is defined by the artist's ability to innovate and bring out a modern masterpiece.

Below is a carefully curated collection of art to inspire your next purchase, gift idea, or decor piece to compliment your space. Enjoy!

Dom Perignon Balloon Venus by Jeff Koons ($20,160 GBP)

‘LOVE’ by Robert Indiana ($1,260 EUR)

Zwei Gruppen von 1zu11 by Max Bill ($88,200 USD)

Multipo Pillola: Concetto Spaziale by Lucio Fontana (88,200 EUR)

Concetto Spaziale, Attese by Lucio Fontana (799,000 EUR)

‘Pan’ Contemporary piece by George Condo ($70,000 - $100,000)

Symphony by Alfred Basbous ($15,120 GBP)

Smoker Banner by Tom Wesselmann ($119,700 USD)

Oiseau-Tripode by Jean Arp ($252,000 USD)

‘Donna a Cavallo’ (Contemporary piece) by Fernando Botero (3748,000)

Chum (Orange) by KAWS ($35,000 USD)

Coffee Cup Fragment by Michael Craig-Martin ($1,512 GBP)

Moto-Scultura by Ugo Nespolo (6,000 - 8,000 EUR)

 

ART HEISTS

 

How to Steal a Million (1966)

More compelling than old Hollywood glamor of the silver screen – discover the spectacular stories behind the world’s greatest art heists.

Art heists on the silver screen have always captivated audiences worldwide so much so that just the thought of art theft has us conjuring images of old Hollywood glamor like Audrey Hepburn in ‘How to Steal a Million’ (1966) or the more recent film by Steven Soderbergh, ‘Ocean’s Twelve’ (2004).

Despite the security measures in high-profile museums, art heists have been happening for decades and some would argue that real art heists are even more spectacular than their fictional counterparts.

While most thieves are motivated by the millions these master works are worth, some of them steal pieces by artists they personally know or admire – instead of the artist’s reputation in the art world or theoretical value of their work.

Unfortunately, the instant recognizably of these stolen masterpieces makes them so difficult to sell that even the potent black market isn’t interested in them. With only a small percentage of stolen art ever recovered – (an estimated 10%), real art heists have tragic repercussions for the art world and history as the world’s greatest art typically end up lost forever.

Let’s look back at some of the world's greatest art heists (excluding the large-scale art thefts by the Nazis during World War II and the Russian looting of Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine):

THE MONA LISA THEFT (1911)

The most famous art heist of all time happened in 1911, when a former employee of the Louvre Museum in Paris stole the Mona Lisa painting by Leonardo da Vinci. The painting remained hidden in his apartment for two years before being caught.

OLD MASTERS LONDON MUSEUM THEFT (1966)

Rembrandt’s painting of Jacob de Gheyn III (1632) has been renamed by The Guinness Book of World Records because it has been stolen so many times. It was stolen first in 1973, then in 1981, and next in 1983. Its most recent theft was in 1966 from the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London by thieves who also removed works by Peter Paul Rubens, Gerard Dou, and Adam Elsheimer, along with two other Rembrandts.

The thieves, one of whom was eventually convicted, had hoped to sell the work on the black market, but police recovered it not long after, and the painting is still on view at the museum today.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob de Gheyn III, 1632.

Photo : Dulwich Picture Gallery

SAN LORENZO CARAVIAGGIO THEFT (1969)

In 1969 thieves stole Caravaggio’s Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence (dating back to 1600-1609) from the Oratory of San Lorenzo in Palermo, Italy. There was hope in finding the masterwork when in 2017 Italy’s anti-Mafia commission reopened the case but with their new lead – now deceased – the Swiss art dealer informed the commission that he advised the thieves to cut up the canvas, since no one would purchase a work so famous. As of 2021, the search for the painting continues.

Caravaggio, Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence, 1600 or 1609.

Photo : Via Wikimedia Commons

SIR ALFRED AND LADY BEIT THEFT (1974)

In 1974, members of the Irish Republican Army banded together to rob the Russborough House, the Irish home of Sir Albert Beit, a British politician. Having tied up Beit, they took $20 million in art by Johannes Vermeer, Francisco Goya, and Peter Paul Rubens, which they later held out for ransom and were hoping to exchange for the release of IRA members who had been imprisoned for car bombings.

Bridget Rose Dugdale, the daughter of a British millionaire, was later sentenced to nine years in prison after three paintings were found in her cottage. Pleading “proudly and incorruptibly guilty” in court, Dugdale said that the theft was a protest the British government’s desire “to deprive us of our freedom to fight for Ireland and the freedom of the Irish people.” Some of the works Dugdale pilfered were stolen once again, for reasons of a less activist nature, in 1986, 2000, and 2001.

Sir Alfred and Lady Beit.

Photo : AP Photo

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY THEFT (1985)

The most notorious heist in Mexican history, was in 1985 when a group of thieves stole the priceless Aztec and Mayan artifacts from the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Many of the stolen artifacts have never been recovered.

The National Museum of Archaeology in Mexico City.

Photo : AP

IMPRESSIONIST MASTERPIECIES IN PARIS THEFT (1985)

In one of the world’s most daring heists ever committed anywhere, the artwork that gave its name to the Impressionist Art Movement was stolen from Paris’s Musée Marmottan in1985. The thieves stole the work in broad daylight, having bought tickets like everyone else, they took Claude Monet’s iconic 1872 painting Impression, Sunrise, along with works by Berthe Morisot and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Nine guards and 40 visitors were held at gunpoint as some of the works were yanked from gallery walls. Although the nine stolen works were valued at $20 million, some said that Impression, Sunrise was priceless. In 1990, all nine works were recovered at a villa in Corsica, and seven people were arrested.

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1872.

Photo : Francois Mori/AP

 THE ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM THEFT (1990)

The theft of 13 works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston remains one of the largest art heists in history. The stolen pieces included paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Degas, and have never been recovered.

In the early morning, on the day after St. Patrick’s Day, thieves entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, subduing guards who were watching the Boston institution’s grounds at night.

In the hours that followed, the thieves walked away with riches of almost incalculable art-historical value: The Concert (ca. 1664), one of just 34 known Vermeer paintings; a 1633 Rembrandt painting featuring a boat navigating stormy waters; a Manet painting of a mysterious man in a café.

The FBI has said the works, which are still missing as of 2021, are valued at a collected $500 million. Because so much mystery surrounds the case, the heist continues to capture the minds of many, with some suggesting that the mob was involved, or that the guards were in on it, or that the works have indeed been destroyed.

Today, officials at the museum are unsure about the works’ whereabouts. In 2020, curator Ronni Baer told WBUR, “I wish I could somehow comfort myself in knowing they’re somewhere, but I don’t know if they still exist.”

Empty frames at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Photo : Josh Reynolds, File/AP

GALLERIA D’ARTE MODERNA KLIMT THEFT (1997)

Scholars consider Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of a Lady (1916–17) as an important work of art in art history as it is the only painting by which the Austrian artist painted over it midway through working on it.

The $60 million painting by Klimt had disappeared for over two decades. The painting went missing in 1997 during preparations for a show at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Piacenza, Italy. Then in December of 2019, the painting resurfaced when a gardener who was pruning ivy at the gallery discovered it hidden in a trash bag behind a panel in the building the year before.

Two men who are believed to be connected to other Italian art heists later confessed in a letter to an Italian journalist to having stolen the Klimt, which they said they concealed in the gallery’s exterior four years after having pilfered it. In the letter, the men, who remain at large, said they ultimately returned the work “as a gift to the city.”

NATIONAL MUSEUM THEFT (2000)

In 1993, three men committed Sweden’s biggest art heist at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. They stole paintings by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. They were later recovered; three men were charged for the theft.

Seven years later, an even grander heist took place at the National Museum in Stockholm, where thieves armed with a submachine gun relied on a complex array of distractions to break into the museum, steal three works by Rembrandt and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and get away safely.

Police feared that the artworks, valued in 2000 at $30 million, would be swiftly departing Eastern Europe, and a cinematic effort to halt any sale soon kicked off. In 2001, while doing an unrelated drug raid, the police uncovered one of the Renoirs. Then in 2005, while investigating a Bulgarian syndicate, international authorities caught criminals trying to sell the Rembrandt for $42 million. They got the painting back and four of the thieves were arrested while trying to make the purchase go through.

The Nationalmuseum.

Photo : Elmar Hartmann/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

AMSTERDAM VAN GOGH THEFT (2002)

In 2002, just as the Amsterdam Museum devoted to the Post-Impressionist artist was gearing up to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth, thieves stole two early paintings from the Vincent van Gogh Museum.

They had entered the museum by using a 15-foot ladder and breaking through a window. It was unclear what had happened to the works until 2016, when Italian authorities uncovered them in a farmhouse near Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples.

Police linked the thefts to the Camorra Mafia, and authorities arrested several traffickers in connection with the heist. As the works were unveiled once more to the public, Axel Rueger, the Van Gogh Museum’s director, was beaming. “Needless to say, it’s a great day for us today.”

A press conference held for the return of two stolen van Goghs at the Van Gogh Museum in 2003.

Photo : Peter Dejong/AP

 THE SCREAM MUNICH MUSEUM THEFT (2004)

If most heists take place in the wee hours of the morning, while institutions are closed, this heist unfolded in a decidedly different manner, in broad view of the public.

Amid tourists ogling at nearby masterpieces in the Munch Museum in Oslo, thieves took The Scream (1910) and Madonna (1894) by the Norwegian Expressionist in 2004. It wasn’t the first time a version of The Scream had been stolen, but it was, in some ways, more daring because of the throngs of people that were around when the thieves held guards at gunpoint and then departed in a black station wagon.

Rumors swirled about what happened afterward. Were the paintings burned? Was the mob involved? In the end, the paintings were recovered in 2006, six arrests were made, and the works went back to the Munch Museum.

The broken frames of two Edvard Munch works stolen in 2004 from the Munch Museum in Oslo.

Photo : Lise Aserud/Scanpix/AP

HENRY MOORE SCULPTURE THEFT (2005)

Henry Moore’s monumental sculptures often involved tons of bronze transformed into amorphous forms that take on human-like qualities. That made one sculpture, titled Reclining Figure, a prime target for thieves looking to make use of a booming market for scrap metal resulting from rising demand in China.

In 2005, thieves made off with the $18 million outdoor sculpture, which weighed a whopping two tons and was on view at the artist’s foundation in Hertfordshire, England. Then, in 2009, British police revealed that they believed the sculptures were cut up, melted down, and sold for £1,500. The people who allegedly destroyed the Moore work were never caught.

A two-ton Henry Moore sculpture was likely melted down after it was stolen.

Photo : Henry Moore Foundation/AP

SPIDER MAN PARIS MUSEUM THEFT (2010)

The art theft from Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville in 2010 was so slick it was compared to Arsene Lupin, fictional theif of French Pulp fame, and of Spider-Man, who inspired the name of the bulgar who stole five major works of modern art from this Paris Museum.

The bulgar, Vjeran Tomic returned repeatedly to the museum, spraying acid on a window that allowed him to enter seamlessly. One night, at 3 a.m., he stole Henri Matisse’s Pastorale (1905). Then, because the alarms didn’t go off, he also took works by Amedeo Modigliani, Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Braque.

Tomic is believed to have been working on commission for a dealer named Jean-Michel Corvez, who wanted to sell them. Once caught, Tomic was sentenced to eight years in prison by a judge who said that the theft involved taking “cultural goods belonging to humankind’s artistic heritage.”

Vjeran Tomic

Photo : Thibault Camus/AP

PARIS MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (2010)

In 2010, five paintings worth an estimated $100 million were stolen from the Paris Museum of Modern Art. The paintings, including works by Picasso and Matisse, were later recovered in a car parked outside the museum.

Image of Paris Museum of Modern Art from Futura Sciences

KUNSTHAL MUSEUM THEFT (2012)

In 2012, seven paintings, including works by Picasso, Monet, and Matisse, were stolen from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam. The thieves were eventually caught and sentenced to prison, but the paintings have never been recovered.

Image Source: New York Times

GREEN VAULT MUSEUM THEFT (2019)

The Dresden jewelry heist, one of the largest art thefts ever committed, took place largely over the course of a single minute. At 4 a.m., thieves cut the power at the Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault) museum and made off with riches that have been valued at a collected $1.2 billion by smashing an axe into a glass display case.

Among the works stolen are some of the most famous jewelry objects in the world—including a sword encrusted with 800 diamonds and the 49.84-carat Dresden White Diamond.

By the end of 2020, four were arrested for the heist, though German police were still on the hunt for the jewels, which were still not recovered by the start of 2021. In January of that year, one security firm floated a theory that criminals were trying to sell the jewels on the dark web.

The Green Vault museum.

Photo : Sebastian Kahnert/dpa via AP

 

BEST GRAFFITI SPOTS

 

A platform for the voiceless, graffiti is some of the most sought after art. Here are the world’s best graffiti spots.

The blank canvas(es) for graffiti — bridges, buildings, and subways — gave a platform for the voiceless, a way for artists to express themselves and rebel against norms. Artists like Keith Haring, Invader, and Banksy pushed the boundaries of what’s considered ‘art’ with their world renowned graffiti.

Graffiti is a form of visual communication that involves writing or drawing on public surfaces, such as walls, buildings, or sidewalks. This art is created with various tools like spray paint, markers, and stencils. It is often associated with subcultures and countercultures, such as hip-hop, punk, and skateboarding.

Although graffiti is incredibly beautiful and thought provoking, too often it is seen as a form of vandalism and a violation of private property. Many cities and municipalities have laws and regulations against graffiti, and some even view it as a blight on their communities.

Despite controversies, graffiti continues to be an important part of contemporary culture, influencing everything from fashion to advertising to fine art. This visually stimulating medium can reveal a lot about a place and its people, making visiting murals and other public installations so popular when exploring a community.

As you will discover, Graffiti varies from country to country and city to city, representing the values and voices of its communities. Here are some of the best graffiti art destinations to visit from around the world:

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

Bright pigments line the alleyways in this Down Under city. In a 2008 Lonely Planet survey, Melbourne’s street art was named Australia’s most popular cultural attraction. Despite this statistic, the government of the graffiti management plan carefully monitors it, reviews applications from new and established talented artists, dismantling illegal installation and commissioning pieces.

You can spot state-approved works are done by Anthony Lister and Rone throughout Hosier and Caledonian Lanes in the Central Business District. You can also find Massive Street Art in Union Street and Bourke street.

It’s not uncommon to see newlyweds posing for wedding photos in front of murals, or local groups such as Melbourne Street Tours pointing out a new masterpiece in Hosier Lane. Love it or hate it, street art — when done right — can leave its chromatic fingerprint on a community.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

URBAN LANE IN MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA (via snappyvai on instagram)

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

London is a playground for Banksy, the eminent (and anonymous) street artist known for his satirical depictions. For travelers that are feeling similarly rebellious and fatigued by the beaten path, Shoreditch, the gateway to London’s East End, is the place to be.

Wherever you look, stickers, sculptures and spray paint embellish the district’s buildings. Shoreditch Street Art Tours’ guide NoLionsInEngland has spent more than a decade photographing, writing and critiquing the area, and can provide an inside look at the movement. 

SHOREDITCH, LONDON

SHOREDITCH, LONDON

DIRCKSENSTRASSE, GERMANY

If you walk along the train tracks on Dircksenstrasse from Hackescher Markt until Alexanderplatz, you’ll discover a wide array of street art creations by both unknown and famous artists along a roughly half-mile stretch of wall.

The art displayed here covers a wide range of mediums, including paste-ups, poster art, sculptures, sticker art, graffiti, and stencil art. The street art landscape here also changes quickly so you can always expect to find something new.

DIRCKSENSTRASSE, GERMANY

BERLIN FRIEDRICHSHAIN, GERMANY

LOS ANGELES, USA

Historically, music and graffiti have gone hand in hand, from album covers to underground publicity stunts, and Los Angeles has been a nurturing mother to both respective art forms. Often dubbed the “Creative Capital of the World,” murals can be found in almost every nook and cranny from the Venice to Los Feliz neighborhoods.

For a self-guided outing, Mural Maps LA is a Google Maps overlay that marks locations to admire street art. If clients prefer an escorted experience, LA Art Tours conducts a treasure-hunt-style walking tour around downtown LA and the Arts District. The transitory nature of the paintings keeps things fresh and exciting — what’s there today could be gone tomorrow.

16TH AND CENTRAL (LA, USA)

VENICE ART WALLS (LA, USA)

ISTANBUL, TURKEY

Since 2012, the annual street art festival Mural Istanbul has turned the buildings of the historic Kadikoy neighborhood into a vivid outdoor museum. Through a partnership between the municipal government and CEKUL Foundation, which protects and promotes cultural values, extraordinary painters are brought in from abroad to not only beautify dreary blank facades, but also to cultivate local talent. Its resounding success has catapulted the city to the forefront of the public art scene.

ISTANBUL, TURKEY

ISTANBUL, TURKEY

ISTANBUL, TURKEY

 

NEW YORK: ARCHITECTURE

 
 

Somewhere between

Living & Dreaming,

there’s New York.

Even if you have never been to New York, you have been to New York— from superhero movies to Seinfeld, Friends, Sex in the City, or any number of Woody Allen movies, New York has been in your living room more times than you can recall. With over 800 languages spoken (making New York the most linguistically diverse city in the world), New York’s extraordinarily diverse population has earned its nickname as the ‘melting pot’. 

Having welcomed millions arriving by sea, the Statue of Liberty, located on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, is not only a symbol of freedom and an American icon, but also just one example of the beautiful, diverse, and inspiring architecture in New York City. New York is most memorable for its Art Deco style, a brash, exuberant movement combining geometric motifs, dramatic historical allusions, and the integration of industrial craft.

Buildings should be artistic as well as practical; they should be admired and enjoyed, not just lived in, and worked in. After all, renaissance artists such as Raphael and Michelangelo worked as architects, too. 

 

NEOCLASSICAL 

Statue of Liberty // IMAGE SOURCE

STATUE OF LIBERTY

The statue depicts Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty, with a torch in her right hand and a tabula ansata with a date of the declaration of Independence. Dedicated on the 28th of October of 1886, the copper statue was a gift from the French people to the USA intended to commemorate the lasting friendship between the peoples of the two nations.

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed it in a neoclassical style, but Gustave Eiffel built the framework. The statue of liberty was inscribed as a UNESCO heritage site in 1984. UNESCO states that it’s a masterpiece of the human spirit,  and it “endures as a highly potent symbol—inspiring contemplation, debate, and protest—of ideals such as liberty, peace, human rights, abolition of slavery, democracy, and opportunity.”

 

NEOCLASSICAL/ GREEK REVIVAL

Federal Hall (Alexander Jackson Davis)

Brooklyn Borough Hall (Calvin Pollard)

14 Wall Street (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon)

Inspired by Ancient Greek and Roman forms, Neoclassical buildings are known for  their heavy massing, regimented geometries, and dramatic, temple-like columns. Neoclassicism flourished in New York in the early 19th century, as the times gravitated towards a more restrained form of architecture (& away from excessive styles like those of Baroque and Rococo).  Mostly popular in civic and office  architecture, but it can also be found in the austere mansions and townhouses in Upper East Side and townhouses like the Gramercy. A lighter (and later) version, Italianate, can be found  in many of the city’s brownstones.

Federal Hall (Alexander Jackson Davis) IMAGE SOURCE

 

COLONIAL/ NEO-COLONIAL

MORRELL SMITH (726 Madison Avenue)

DELANO & ALDRICH (1130 Fifth Avenue)

ITHIEL TOWN (St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery)

Colonial Architecture—traditional, European-influenced structures built (or made to look like they were built) during the period between 1600 and 1800. In New York, these buildings can be found in lower Manhattan. Common features include stone, brick, or wood  cladding; pitched roofs; and symmetrical designs. In the 1870s and 1930s, colonial architecture came back in style along with Georgian,  Federalist, Cape  Cod, and French variations.

MORRELL SMITH (726 Madison Avenue) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

RENAISSANCE REVIVAL

Flatiron Building (Daniel Burnham) // IMAGE SOURCE

Flatiron Building (Daniel Burnham)

Plaza Hotel (Henry J. Hardenbergh)

Carnegie Hall (William Tuthill)

This style embodies the grandeur of palaces and chateaux of Renaissance Italy and France. Increased in popularity among wealthy citizens of New York who aspired to emulate the ostentatious  style of aristocratic Europeans. It became so favored that almost every Fifth Avenue home was entirely with Neo-Renaissance mansions. A heavier, more  restrained version is Romanesque Revival, whose most famous example in  New York is the south wing of the American Museum of Natural History. 

 

GOTHIC REVIVAL

Trinity Church (Richard Upjohn) // IMAGE SOURCE

Trinity Church (Richard Upjohn)

St. Patrick’s Cathedral (James Renwick)

Belvedere Castle (Calvert Vaux)

In the mid-19th century, Gothic Revival became a trend in New York largely under the  influence of the Romantic Movement (a reaction against machinery and  mass production) and a reverence for all things medieval. The style  features Gothic architecture’s tell-tale pointed arches, complex  tracery, and familiar gables, dormers, and turrets, all carried out in  stone or brick. 

 

ART NOUVEAU

Little Singer Building (Ernest Flagg)

Decker Building (John H. Edelmann)

New Era Building (Buchman and Deisler)

Rejecting both the rigid formalism of classical revival  styles and the mechanized repetition of the Industrial Revolution, Art Nouveau originated in France, but gained popularity in New York at the  turn of the 20th century. Inspired by natural forms like plants and flowers, it features sinuous curves and  intricate decoration, often cast from iron, stone, and glass.  The style came to New York through the wide dissemination of graphic art  (magazines, posters, etc.), and designs of famed  practitioners like Louis Sullivan and Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Decker Building (John H. Edelmann) // IMAGE SOURCE

Decker Building (John H. Edelmann) // IMAGE SOURCE

Decker Building (John H. Edelmann) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

CAST IRON

Haughwout Building (J.P. Gaynor)

448 Broome Street (Frederick Clark Withers) 453 Broome Street, 47 Mercer Street, 429 Broadway

At the end of the 19th century, any building constructed with prefabricated cast iron came to be known as Cast Iron Architecture. First appearing in Europe and then used in London’d Crystal Palace and Paris’ the Eiffel Tower. But in New York, its  use was focused almost exclusively in Soho—then an industrial  neighborhood—where buildings took on eclectic facades (often combining  classical forms and intricate ornament) that were lighter, cheaper, and  more elegant than the usual granite, marble, and brick. The Soho  Cast-Iron Historic District was created in 1973 and includes more than  500 buildings, making it the densest concentration of cast-iron  architecture in the world. 

Haughwout Building (J.P. Gaynor) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

BEAUX-ARTS

New York Public Library (Carrère and Hastings)

Grand Central Terminal (Warren & Wetmore)

Metropolitan Museum of Art (Richard Morris Hunt and McKim, Mead & White)

 At the turn of the 20th century, Beaux-Arts started appearing in New York. This style is of ancient-looking historical revival. Beaux-Arts structures combine the grandeur and tradition of classicism with  Renaissance-inspired—and technologically aided—lightness, uplift, and  ornamentation. Innovations like steel-reinforced concrete and large  sheets of glass allowed these buildings to be especially cavernous and  impressive. 

Metropolitan Museum of Art (Richard Morris Hunt and McKim, Mead & White) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

ART DECO

Empire State Building (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon)

Chrysler Building (William Van Alen)

Rockefeller Center (Raymond Hood, Harvey Wiley Corbett)

Buildings designed in this style often  incorporated sleek, showy materials like colorful stone, chrome plating,  plastic, stainless steel, and glass block. New York’s most iconic style is Art Deco, a  brash, exuberant movement combining geometric motifs, dramatic  historical allusions, and the integration of industrial craft. The  movement’s name derives from Paris’s 1925 Exposition Internationale des  Arts Décoratifs, but in New York, the style’s emergence echoed the  excesses of the Roaring ’20s.  

Chrysler Building (William Van Alen) // IMAGE SOURCE

Chrysler Building (William Van Alen) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

INTERNATIONAL STYLE

UN Building (Harrison & Abramovitz, Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer, others)

Lever House (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill)

Museum of Modern Art (Edward Durell Stone and Philip Goodwin)

Emerging from the industrial-inspired functionalism of  the Bauhaus in Germany, the International Style is characterized by  simplified geometries, lack of ornamentation, and exposed structure. The  term was coined by New York architects Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell  Hitchcock in the catalogue for their 1932 MoMA exhibition on modern  architecture, titled “The International Style: Architecture since 1922.”  While the style was originally intended for the masses, by the time it  took off in New York in the 1950s, it had been co-opted by some of the  biggest corporations in the world— Seagrams, Lever Soap, Pan Am—which  replaced simple, mass-produced materials with travertine and bronze, not  to mention world-class art collections. 

Lever House (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

BRUTALISM

Met Breuer (Marcel Breuer)

Bronx Community College (Marcel Breuer)

University Village (I.M. Pei)

Meant to exhibit strength, power, and rawness, the  structures themselves often function as ornament or sculpture. This  style is all about cement, prized for its weightiness, malleability, and  monumentality. Most Brutalist buildings exhibit simple, block-like  forms; large scale; and structural innovations like cantilevers and  floating masses.

Met Breuer (Marcel Breuer) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

NEW FORMALISM

Lincoln Center (Wallace Harrison, Eero Saarinen, and more)

2 Columbus Circle (Edward Durell Stone)

Lenox Health Greenwich Village (Albert Ledner)

New Formalist structures in New  York were often intended to evoke the idea of the city as the new center of Western culture, with Acropolis-like raised podiums, deep  overhangs, heavy grids, and Roman-style arches. The most noted practitioners were Edward Durell Stone, Philip Johnson (whose aesthetic  changed several times over the course of his career), and Minoru  Yamasaki, who designed the World Trade Center’s original Twin Towers.

Lincoln Center (Wallace Harrison, Eero Saarinen, and more) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

GOOGIE/ SPACE AGE

New York State Pavilion (Philip Johnson)

TWA Terminal (Eero Saarinen)

New York Hall of Science (Wallace Harrison)

Googie architecture had an overall futuristic essence with upswept roofs, dramatic angles, and high-tech  materials like steel, glass, and neon. The Jetsons-esque style took New  York by storm with the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing, Queens. 

TWA Terminal (Eero Saarinen) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

HIGH-TECH

Citigroup Center (Hugh Stubbins)

Hearst Tower (Foster & Partners)

Javits Center (Pei Cobb Freed)

As modernism reached its apex, architects began to  fetishize its technical innovations, from cantilevers to ventilation  systems to curtain walls. In New York, the ultimate expression of this  style is the 59-story Citigroup Center, with its chevron bracing system,  sheer glass and metal facade, and behemoth upper mass, which floats  over stilts in Midtown Manhattan.

Hearst Tower (Foster & Partners) // IMAGE SOURCE

Hearst Tower (Foster & Partners) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

POSTMODERNISM

Westin Times Square (Arquitectonica) // IMAGE SOURCE

AT&T Building (Philip Johnson and John Burgee)

Westin Times Square (Arquitectonica)

Scholastic Building (Aldo Rossi)

Battery Park City (Cesar Pelli, others)

Detested until its recent nostalgia-fueled comeback,  postmodern architecture developed as a middle finger to the austerity  and arrogance of modernism. The populist style included watered-down  historical allusions; mismatched, often cartoonish elements; and bright  colors. 

 

DECONSTRUCTIVISM

8 Spruce Street (Frank Gehry)

Cooper Union New Academic Building/41 Cooper Square (Morphosis)

IAC Building (Frank Gehry)

 When digital technology began to allow it,  architects like Frank Gehry created buildings that looked like they were  being mangled and ripped open. The term Deconstructivism came about a  little later, with the 1988 MoMa exhibition “Deconstructivist  Architecture.” Developer-driven New York took longer than many major  cities to adopt the antiestablishment style. 

Cooper Union New Academic Building/41 Cooper Square (Morphosis) // IMAGE SOURCE