PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT MAX SINGER 2006 – 2011
The Chrysler Building is considered a masterpiece of Art Deco architecture. The distinctive ornamentation of the building is based on features that were then being used on Chrysler automobiles. The corners of the 61st floor are graced with eagles, replicas of the 1929 Chrysler hood ornaments; on the 31st floor, the corner ornamentation are replicas of the 1929 Chrysler radiator caps
"She is the child of jazz & industry"
In a homage to Japanese woodblock artist Hokusai's 100 Views of Mount Fuji, artist/photographer Max Singer doffs his hat to the Queen of the New York skyline in his book-length (102 pages) photo-essay 75 Views of the Chrysler Building now online at issuu the leading digital publishing platform.
In a deliberate strategy of myth generation, the architect William Van Alen obtained permission for a 38-metre long spire to be secretly constructed inside the frame of the building. the seven-storey pinnacle was then hoisted into position through the roof and anchored on top in just one and a half hours. All of a sudden it was there—a sensational fait accompli.DOWNLOAD pdf of 75 views of the Chrysler Building
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In the summer of 2005, New York’s own Skyscraper Museum asked hundred architects, builders, critics, engineers, historians, and scholars, among others, to choose their 10 among 25 New York towers. The Chrysler Building came in first place as 90% of them placed the building in their top-10 favorite buildings.
NEW YORK NEW YORK!
a city of icons
While travelling around and about in New York City, it is almost impossible to avoid passing by New York City's many other iconic structures. Here are just a few of those that have caught my eye and moved me to stop and snap.
The statue of Atlas at Rockefeller Center
The Guggenheim Museum in light and shade
Phillip Johnson's AT&T Building
The Ansonia Apartments
The Met seen from 81st Street
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ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
city of icons
behind the pictures
about max singer
ONE OF HOKUSAI'S 100 VIEWS OF MOUNT FUGI
right in front of my face
Sometimes the idea for a photo essay just pops into my head. Sometimes it is elusive even though it turns out to have been right in front of my face. Such is the case with 75 Views of the Chrysler Building. I was reviewing and editing some recent snaps when I noticed quite a few of my New York streetscenes (I try to have my camera with me whenever i go to-ing and fro-ing) had the Chrysler Building lurking somewhere in the background. I was struck both by how ubiquitous this classic skyscraper has been to the New York skyline as well as by how much in the last 20 years or so newer buildings had begun to obscure her view. So I set about to find as many vantage points as possible to document. My inspiration was 100 Views of Mount Fugi by the great Japanese woodblock artist Hokusai. The 75 images in this book are only a start: they represent daytime views in Manhattan from 14th Street downtown to 96th Street uptown and between 2nd avenue on the Eastside and 6th Avenue on the Westside. In the future I hope to find similar points of view from the East and West River Drives, from Soho, Tribeca , the Financial District, Harlem, Washington Heights, as well as the outer boroughs and New Jersey. [Also envisioned is a similar volume of scenes shot at dusk, after dark, and at dawn.]—MAX
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about max singer
Before working in the medium of digital photography, Max Singer was an award-winning cartoonist, illustrator, artist and designer whose work has appeared in numerous national publications including ArtNews, the NY Times and NY Magazine, to name but a few. Max was associated with the world-famous Push Pin Studio. His unique, colorful and bold illustrative style of imagery has been exhibited widely both in his homebase of New York City, in particular at such music and club venues such as the Knitting Factory, as well as various outsider and contemporary venues in his spiritual home of New Orleans, and was featured in the documentary Blood Brothers: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Max is an active member of the New Orleans Photo Alliance.
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city of icons
[CAPTIONS]
The statue of Atlas
In Rockefeller Center (New York City), directly across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral, is this two ton statue of Atlas; a companion piece to Prometheus, and the largest sculptural work at Rockefeller Center. Atlas carries the heavens upon his shoulders as punishment for defying Zeus. Designed and cast in 1936 by Lee Lawrie and Rene Chambellan, the statue's exaggerated musculature and stylized body are characteristic of the Art Deco style.
The Guggenheim
Its appearance is in sharp contrast to the more typically boxy Manhattan buildings that surround it, a fact relished by Wright who claimed that his museum would make the nearby Metropolitan Museum of Art "look like a Protestant barn." Prior to its opening, twenty-one artists, including Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell, signed a letter protesting the display of their work in such a space
The AT&T Building
The pediment... culminates with symbolic references, depending on one's orientation, to car grilles, a grandfather clock, a Chippendale highboy, and as an in-joke, a monumental reference to the split pediment used earlier by Venturi for his mother's house...
The Ansonia
Originally built as a hotel by William Earle Dodge Stokes, the Phelps-Dodge copper heir who had a Utopian vision for the Ansonia—that it could be self-sufficient, or at least contribute to its own support—which led to perhaps the strangest New York apartment amenity ever. “The farm on the roof,” “included about 500 chickens, many ducks, about six goats and a small bear.”
The Met
As of 2010, the Met measures almost 1⁄4-mile (400 m) long and with more than 2,000,000 square feet (190,000 m2) of floor space, more than 20 times the size of the original 1880 building. The museum building is an accumulation of 26 structures, most of which are not visible from the exterior. The City of New York owns the museum building and contributes utilities, heat, and some of the cost of guardianship.
all photographs/images
copyright max singer
2006-2011.
website: www.maxsinger.com
contact: max@maxsinger.com
