On a full-block site, a rarity in high-density Manhattan, an enormous new corporate headquarters has risen. For its bulk, it is almost obsessively unshowy, though its oversize windows, framed in rounded extrusions of iridescent terra-cotta, reward notice along the street. Identified only as 7 Hudson Square, the 19-story Robert A. Iger Building gathers the disparate New York production and corporate operations of The Walt Disney Company into a single hub. Though there is an entrance for studio audiences and tours, as well as two other access points for staff and guests, the quiet sobriety of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)'s exterior does not include logos or Mickey Mouse statues waving at passersby.
It is the opposite of the self-conscious “entertainment architecture” commissioned by Michael Eisner, the CEO who became an architecture aficionado in the 1990s, hiring Michael Graves for over-the-top PoMo extravaganzas including the Burbank Team Disney headquarters, which has the Seven Dwarfs holding up a classical pediment. Other name-brand architects of the era devised brightly colored confections, including Robert A.M. Stern and Arata Isozaki.
Cartoon imagery can’t capture the breadth of the media and entertainment conglomerate Disney is now. Seven Hudson Square has little in common with the theme parks, animation studios, and other entertainment operations that are run out of the Burbank, California, headquarters. The new building unites tech-intensive news, editorial, streaming, and live productions with a variety of corporate office functions.
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Words by James S. Russell, FAIA Emeritus
Photos ? Dave Burk (1-6); Garret Rowland (7-9)
